Is there a corporation in America more corrupt, more thieving, more dishonest, and more rapacious than Halliburton, "Dick" Cheney's old company? Now that Enron has sunk, it really has no competitors. Halliburton has been exploiting and ripping off American soldiers in Iraq, gouging and cheating them in every way. Democrats introduced measures to gain some control over this situation, but, predictably, the Republicans in Congress dutifully obeyed the White House and killed the measure.
The corruption the Democrats uncovered was shocking:
"What we have discovered is pretty unbelievable," said [Democratic Senator Byron] Dorgan last week. "We have direct testimony from physicians, Army doctors, and others about providing nonpotable water for shaving, brushing teeth that is in worse condition as water than the raw water coming out of the Euphrates River."
"Let me describe some of the firsthand eyewitness issues in Iraq," Dorgan continued. "Brand new $85,000 trucks that were left on the side of the road because of a flat tire and then subsequently burned. 25 tons, 50,000 pounds, of nails ordered by Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), the wrong size, that are laying in the sands of Iraq. 42,000 meals a day charged to the taxpayers by Halliburton and only 14,000 are actually served."
After telling the amazing tale of the KBR Halliburton subsidiary ordering hand towels for soldiers embroidered with the "KBR" logo, to allow them to double the price of the towels, Dorgan told one Halliburton whistleblower's story of his company serving food date-stamped "expired" to American troops rather than throwing it away.
"[Halliburton was] serving food at a cafeteria in Iraq for the soldiers, and a man named Roy who was the supervisor in the food service kitchen said that the food was date-stamped 'expired,''' said Dorgan. "In other words, it had a date stamp, which meant the food wasn't good anymore, and he was told by superiors that it doesn't matter. Feed it to the troops. It doesn't matter that they had an expired date stamped - feed it to the troops."
But apparently the support-the-troops types on the Republicans side of the aisle only support them until their major contributors are caught feeding them possibly-tainted food before they go into battle - at that point, I guess the love is gone.
But, lame excuses in hand, the Republicans in Congress decided to ignore all that. Our "patriotic" Republicans care more about their campaign contributors than they do our troops.
NOW are you going to get going and start working for a Democratic victory on 7 November?
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