“What do you think my wife would rather have,” Ivil asks. “A hundred thousand dollars or me?” It’s hard to tell if he’s kidding. In the space of 24 hours, Ivil saw four TV news reports about a Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) job fair being held in Tampa and he thought of his son, who is only two years away… return to article
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Reader Comments (9)Page 1 of 1 pageshmmmm yeah, Iraq is a real gold mine.
I guess people go into this service with their eyes open (still at taxpayer expense, isn’t that who ultimately pays Halliburton?) but you must be pretty desperate to trade your life for better pay.
This just seems on par with today’s cynical ambivalence towards war and foreign occupation.
Who needs recruitment ads when the nation is full of debtors?
Posted by pick of the litter on Nov 30, 2005 at 3:28 PM Gold mines and gold diggers. The parallels just don’t stop.
Think about it in the the slutty and whorish sense.
Think high priced contractors and cheap grunts.Being whored out by greedy old warmongers.
Posted by David in Canada on Dec 1, 2005 at 12:06 AM I thought KBR was right-wing radio station. Probably should be. This is war profiteering at it’s best, no two ways about it. When is the money going to run out? This whole country is a house a cards waiting to an ENRON-like fall.
Posted by jazzfan on Dec 1, 2005 at 4:31 AM This whole Rumsfeldian streamlined military thing is wack. Privatizing grunt jobs is ridiculous. Why pay more to have services provided to G .I. s by private companies with cost-plus contracts?
It looks to me like the no-bid civilian companies are showing the soldiers their asses and providing low quality service.
There is a very real and direct accountability for working and living conditions if you’re an independent, all volunteer military that is sufficiently staffed.
I surmise that if military benefits had increased instead of being steadily cut for the last decade, that it would be no problem keeping the military well staffed with competent and responsible people, who would not balk at spending a couple of hours in the kitchen, doing laundry, or cleaning the latrine.
Part of what makes military life bearable is to be able to do different tasks on a rotating schedule. If the housework isn’t getting done to standard, you can bet the whole squad will deal with the individual(s) who didn’t do their job well enough.
We citizens of the U.S. are getting milked to pay for Rumsfeld’s imaginary army that works for him, his friends, and the military industrial complex he serves.I’m sorry for any good hearted person who needs to support a family to have this choice to work for Halliburton, Bechtel, or KBR (Kellogg, Brown, and Root).
It’s all so Faustian.
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 3, 2005 at 9:07 PM It isn’t hard to see the point of the Gold diggers, er miners, er contractors, who are trying to cash in on all that lucra. There have always been opportunists who will go to the frontiers, and Rabbit would be among there number if the frontier was attractive enough and damn the danger.
..........Danger Rabbit…........Danger is his Middle Name…..........The Ghost who Hops….............
Actually I can get the point about them working over there without supporting the WAR, and like any thing is there is a market…................
Maybe it is a good thing that at least some people who are against it are on the ground to observe and possibly report on things which may yet help to restore some justice.
Rabbit finds the figures on Contract Gunmen, killed in Iraq as being 400, interesting. Rabbit has been wondering what the numbers were for mercenaries, and actually expected it to be higher. It isn’t qualified by any refs though, maybe I’ll seek it out.
Halliburton is being fed like a huge slug, absorbing the US economy, the dregs of it. Imagine if the USA had the finmacial position of the huge slug which has been one of the slugs to grow fat on the futres of the next several generations of Americans. Facing slavery to pay for the feeding of the slugs who will almost certainly still be tormenting the world behind the scenes to achieve even more out of humanity.
Even if that is by selling us off in batches to some alien race who finds humans to be a great delicacy with their favorite wine.
Halliburton probably already has a catering contract to fill, and that explains the tens of thousands of people who dissapear without trace every year about the world.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Dec 5, 2005 at 9:40 AM The following is an interesting article. rabbit cannot agree with many of the assumptions made by the author, but it is probably the closest thing to middle ground Rabbit will ever accept.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Dec 9, 2005 at 2:30 AM I am not surprised by this article at all, even though it is written as if it were some form of revelation that there are folks profiting from war. Um, if you haven’t figured it out yet, we have wars because they are profitable.
My first reaction in reading this story is “When is this jobs bonanza coming to my town and where do I sign up?” I’ve been unemployed for two years, and sitting here in the industrial manufacturing wasteland that is West Michigan reading about the success - or whatever you prefer to call it - of individuals who have found lucrative employment gives me a glimmer of hope that I might be able to do the same. Why doesn’t this article an email address where I can send my resume?
Posted by BlackBearSpeaks on Dec 25, 2005 at 3:22 PM Hey BlackBear. Sorry about your predicament.
Checking out the board while waiting for the phone to call grandma. Methinks you’re absolutely correct about why “we” have wars.
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 25, 2005 at 9:14 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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