The Battle Hymn of the Republic,
Updated
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Battle Hymn of
the Republic, Updated (otherwise known
as The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Brought Down to Date)) was written
in 1901 by Mark
Twain, as a parody
of American imperialism,
in the wake of the Philippine-American War. It is written in
the same tune and cadence as the original Battle Hymn of the Republic.
A recording was
made by the Chad Mitchell Trio as "The Battle Hymn of
the Republic Brought Down to Date". The lyrics were slightly modified and
the verse about prostitution, excised.
Mine eyes have seen the orgy of
the launching of the Sword;
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored;
His lust is marching on.
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the Eastern dews and damps;
I have read his doomful mission by the dim and flaring lamps—
His night is marching on.
I have read his bandit gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my pretensions, so with you my wrath shall deal;
Let the faithless son of Freedom crush the patriot with his heel;
Lo, Greed is marching on!"
We have legalized the strumpet and are guarding her retreat;*
Greed is seeking out commercial souls before his judgement seat;
O, be swift, ye clods, to answer him! be jubilant my feet!
Our god is marching on!
In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch,
With a longing in his bosom—and for others' goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich—
Our god is marching on.
“This is our defining question,
the question that confronts every generation:
The rule of law, or the rule of men?
How many times must we get the wrong answer?
“Somebody needs to be fired for this”
Fox in the Henhouse
AKA
DCAA auditing
The Iraq war
Iraq contractor gets 3 years in child porn case
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A federal judge rejected arguments Friday from a former civilian contractor in Iraq who said his sentence for possessing
child pornography should be lighter(!?!?!?)
But U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III said
contractors should be treated differently,
in part because they
receive much higher pay.
"He wasn't there because he had volunteered"
to serve his country,
Ellis said.
$$$$"He was there to get some money."$$$$$
Waltrip, who served 13 years in the Army before being honorably discharged in 1990,
was making
$7,000 a month
as a bus driver
for
KBR.
Woman testifies she was raped by US contractors in Iraq
Wed Dec 19, 10:46 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US woman who said she was raped by US contractors in Iraq testified in Congress on Wednesday, telling legislators that she was kept under armed guard in her trailer after reporting the incident.
Jones told committee members that on her fourth day in Baghdad some co-workers, who she described as Halliburton-KBR firefighters, invited her for a drink. "I took two sips from the drink and don't remember anything after that," she said.
The next morning Jones woke up groggy and confused, and with a sore chest and blood between her legs. She reported the incident to KBR and was examined by an army doctor, who confirmed she had been repeatedly raped vaginally and anally.
The rape was so brutal she is still undergoing reconstructive surgery, Jones said.
Jones said that she knows of at least 11 other women who were raped by US contractors in Iraq.
More women report sex assaults in Iraq
By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writers Wed Dec 19, 8:54 PM ET
WASHINGTON - A woman who claims she was raped by a fellow employee while working for a U.S. contractor in Iraq told House lawmakers Wednesday that her case is far from unique.
Poe said another, unidentified, woman was molested several times and raped by a KBR co-worker. After the rape, her attacker was allowed to work alongside her. Military officers escorted him off the base when she complained, and she was fired.
"Iraq is reminiscent of the Old Western days and no one seems to be in charge," Poe told the House panel. "The law must intervene, and these outlaws need to be rounded up and order restored."
"What is to stop these companies from victimizing women in the future?" Jones said. "The U.S. government has to provide people with their day in court when
they have been raped and assaulted by other American citizens.
Otherwise we are not only deprived of our justice in the criminal courts but in the civil courts as well.
The laws have left us nowhere to turn."
Congress wants prosecution for assaults
By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer Tue Apr 8, 10:05 PM ET
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department has not prosecuted any cases involving sexual assaults against civilians who work for contractors in Iraq or Afghanistan, despite a law giving it that authority, according to written testimony submitted to a Senate subcommittee. Jamie Leigh Jones, formerly of Conroe, Texas, drew national attention to the issue last year when she went public with allegations she was raped by co-workers while working for KBR/Halliburton in 2005. Jones testified at a December House committee hearing she was assaulted after she was drugged. When she tried to report it she was held for a day in a shipping container.
Shortly after the hearing, Nelson was contacted by a constituent who alleged she, too, had been sexually assaulted while working in June 2005 for the same contractor in Iraq.
Two other women, Mary Beth Kineston of Ohio and another victim from Illinois whose name was withheld pending the hearing, were scheduled to testify about their assaults.
The Associated Press does not usually identify people who say they were sexually assaulted, but Jones and Kineston have made their identities public.
KBR Inc. spokeswoman Heather Browne said the company "in no way condones or tolerates sexual harassment" and employees are expected to follow the company's business code of conduct.
"When violations occur appropriate action is taken," Browne said in a statement. "Any reported allegation of sexual harassment or sexual assault is taken seriously and thoroughly investigated."
KBR split from Halliburton last year.
Nelson has been pressing the Pentagon and Justice Department for detailed information on how widespread sexual assaults of civilian employees of contractors are and how well their cases are investigated.
The Defense Department's inspector general told Nelson in a letter released Tuesday it has investigated 742 sexual assault cases during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most involved members of the military and at least 26 involved American civilians.
Mercenaries Should Not Be Above the Law
An astounding 120,000 "private security contractors" are currently working in Iraq. And a couple of weeks ago, when Blackwater mercenaries decided to open fire on innocent Iraqi civilians, we learned that these contractors are above the law. The House overwhelming passed a bill that would make it clear that U.S. law applies to all armed contractors hired for overseas missions. Now it's up to the Senate to follow the House's lead. Tell your Senators to support accountability for private security contractors in Iraq |
Military contractors are hard to fire
By RICHARD LARDNER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 49 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - ITT Federal Services International, a defense contractor hired to maintain battle gear for U.S. troops in Iraq, repeatedly failed to do the job right.
Combat vehicles ITT declared as repaired and ready for action flunked inspections and had to be fixed again. Equipment to be sanitized for return to the United States was found caked with dirt. And ITT's computer database for tracking the work was rife with errors.
Formal "letters of concern" were sent to the contractor. Still, the Army didn't fire ITT. Instead, it gave the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based company more work to do. Since October 2004, ITT has been paid $638 million through the Global Maintenance and Supply Services contract.
The Army's ongoing arrangement with ITT, detailed in an audit from the Government Accountability Office, shows how captive the military has become to the private sector for overseas support. Even when contractors don't measure up, dismissing them may not be an option because of the heavy pace of operations.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., co-author of legislation creating a special commission to examine wartime contracting, said poor-performing contractors are more likely to get bonuses than to be penalized.
"It has just been a mess," McCaskill, a former state auditor, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's bad enough how much this war is costing. But it's heartbreaking the amount of money that has just gone up in smoke."
In ITT's case, there were too few soldiers to handle the maintenance duties and no other contractors ready to step in quickly, according to Redding Hobby, the Army Sustainment Command's executive director for field support operations.
"I'm not sure that our manning levels would have allowed us to do anything except wring our hands and worry and work people harder and work people overtime," Hobby said in a telephone interview.
In a brief statement, ITT said it objected to the GAO's conclusions and has "taken numerous corrective actions." The company also said it has met the Army's requirements.
Contract personnel working for the Defense Department now outnumber U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; there are 196,000 private-sector workers in both countries compared to 182,000 troops.
Contractors are responsible for a slew of duties, including repairing warfighting equipment, supplying food and water, building barracks, providing armed security and gathering intelligence.
The dependence has come with serious consequences.
During a congressional hearing on Jan. 24, Jack Bell, a senior Pentagon acquisition official, called the situation "unprecedented" and one "that, frankly, we were not adequately prepared to address."
A shortage of experienced federal employees to oversee this growing industrial army is blamed for much of the waste, fraud and abuse on contracts collectively worth billions of dollars.
"We do not have the contracting personnel that we need to guarantee that the taxpayer dollar is being protected," said William Moser, the State Department's deputy assistant secretary for logistics management.
"We are very, very concerned about the integrity in the contracting process," added Moser, who appeared at the same hearing as Bell. "We don't feel that we've had major scandals up to now, but we don't feel like that we can continue in the same situation."
The office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has 52 open cases related to bribery, false billing, contract fraud, kickbacks and theft; 36 of those cases have been referred to the Justice Department for prosecution, according to the inspector general's office.
The Army Criminal Investigation Command is busy, too. The command has 90 criminal investigations under way related to alleged contract fraud in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, according to spokesman Chris Grey. Two dozen U.S. citizens have been charged or indicted so far — 19 of those are Army military and civilian employees — and more than $15 million in bribes has changed hands, Grey said.
To deal with the problem, the Army is implementing many of the recommendations of a blue-ribbon panel formed last year to reform contracting procedures. The most significant are the creation of a contracting command to be led by a two-star general and the addition of 1,400 acquisition personnel.
David Maddox, a retired four-star general who served on the panel, said the Army understands the need to change. He's less sure the message has spread throughout the Defense Department. That's necessary to drive the broader changes needed to curb future problems in defense contracting.
"The Army is moving out," Maddox said. "I'm a little more concerned with the degree DoD is moving out."
The audit by the GAO, Congress' investigative arm, does not say there were any improprieties stemming from the ITT contract. Rather, neither the contractor nor the government were ready for the demands placed on each.
At one point, although the Army had documented several incidents of poor performance, ITT was paid an additional $33 million to overhaul 150 Humvees a month. Over a nearly yearlong period, the contractor never came close to meeting the mark but still got the money, according to the GAO.
Many of the problems occurred in 2005 and 2006, when the insurgency in Iraq was at its height and there was a heavy burden on the contractor to get equipment back into the fight as quickly as possible, according to Hobby, the Army Sustainment Command official.
The terms of the contract called for ITT to be compensated for all labor costs. That meant the company was often paid twice to fix equipment it didn't repair correctly the first time.
"Although it sounds bad economically, back at the time we were trying to (implement) a repair program that would maintain equipment for our soldiers, and that was a good alternative," Hobby said of the ITT contract. "It was expensive. We knew there were risks there. And, quite frankly, we didn't have the government (personnel) in place to ensure success. But we've learned an awful lot of lessons from this."
The ITT contract and other similar support arrangements will be changed so a company's profits are linked to performance, Hobby said.
"We are transitioning to a contract that gives an incentive to the contractor," Hobby said. "Our argument would be, 'We paid you to fix these vehicles, they didn't get fixed on time, so you lose your award fee.' A penalty, so to speak."
ITT's performance has improved substantially, Hobby said, and the Army will decide in the next few months whether to extend the arrangement for another year.
Still, he doesn't diminish the gravity of the GAO's audit.
"I think if Joe Sixpack or Sally Homemaker read that report, they would probably have the same feeling," Hobby said when asked why ITT's contract was not terminated.
"I share your pain."
Why they should stay
Sep 13th 2007
From The Economist print edition
If America could choose again,
it would not step into a civil war in Mesopotamia.
But there are worse reasons than preventing a bloodbath for a superpower to put its soldiers at risk.
Having invaded Iraq in its own interest
—to remove mass-killing weapons that turned out not to exist—
America owes something to Iraq's people, a slim majority of whom want it to stay.
It is hard to know how Iraq can be mended.
At some point it may become clear
the country has sunk so low it is simply beyond saving.
Harper's Magazine's Washington Editor Ken Silverstein has spent years watching Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firms advocate in Congress on behalf of corrupt, dictatorial foreign regimes. He wondered:
Exactly what sorts of promises do these firms make to foreign governments?
What kind of scrutiny, if any, do they apply to potential clients?
How do they orchestrate support for their clients?
And how much of their
work is visible to Congress and the public, and hence subject to oversight?
Just going to work, Palestinians and Israelis travel different roads
By Dion Nissenbaum, McClatchy Newspapers Sun Jan 6, 6:00 AM ET
The World Bank recently warned that the checkpoints have "fragmented the economy into disconnected cantons.
" If the Palestinian economy is ever going to get on its feet, the World Bank and others assert,
Israel must remove the checkpoints and allow Palestinians freedom to move around the West Bank .
Iran high on Bush Mideast trip
CAIRO, Egypt - Iran is the one issue where President Bush and Arab leaders have shared concerns.
Ahead of the president's Mideast trip, Arab nations are eager to contain growing Iranian power,
though they're wary of doing so militarily.
Tue Nov 27, 12:19 AM ET
In many ways, the United States is dependent on Saudi Arabia.
Quite apart from the oil Americans consume so voraciously,
the Saudis are essential to finding a solution in Iraq, to fighting the war onterrorism and, most immediately,
to support today's Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Md.
The list goes on from there.
But weighty economic and diplomatic concerns
shouldn't leave the United States mute
about the case of a
teenage Saudi girl who was gang raped.
"We recognize your contributions and value your lives. We will not allow this injustice and waste to continue. We will deliver."
Let a woman learn in silence
with all submissiveness.
I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men;
she is to keep silent.
I Timothy 2:11-12
By Nancy Keenan and Roberta Combs
Wednesday,
As the presidents of NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Christian Coalition of America, we are on opposite sides of almost every issue. But when it comes to the fundamental right of citizens to participate in the political process,
we're united -- and very, very worried.
Free speech shouldn't stop when you turn on your computer or pick up your cellphone. But recent actions by the nation's biggest communications corporations should be of grave concern to all who care about public participation in our democracy, particularly our leaders in Congress
Media
seeks to keep lobbyist trial open
Traditional
Jews Question Evangelical Support of 'Israel'
To:
FOREIGN EDITORS
Contact: Rabbi Hersh Lowenthal,
+1-888-560-9634
BROOKLYN,
N.Y., Aug. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Recent claims by Evangelical
Christians that the State of Israel is the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy
and the upcoming series on Christian Zionists airing on CNN beginning this week
has caused great alarm among many in the traditional Jewish community.