All I know is first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, "I'm a human being. Goddammit, my life has value." So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out, and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" I want you to get up right now. Get up. Go to your windows, open your windows, and stick your head out, and yell, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Things have got to change my friends. You've got to get mad. You've got to say, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open your window, stick your head out and yell, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) in Network
Granted, the Bush Administration has set a pretty high standard for outrage over the last few years. From blowing off pre-9/11 warnings to lying us into invading Iraq to letting New Orleans drown to everything in between, it often seems like nothing these clowns do can royally piss us off anymore.
Trust me - that will change once you read the Rolling Stone article "The Great Iraq Swindle." In exquisite squalor, it details how the Bush Administration not just allowed Iraq to become a playground for corrupt war profiteers, but actively facilitated the process.
Contracts were handed out not on the basis of competence or ability, but on connections. Politically active Republicans were given the job of (re)building Iraq's financial and governmental infrastructures despite having no experience whatsoever. Contractors focused on squeezing the absolute maximum profit out of the US taxpayer - that's you and me - rather than actually doing the job, resulting in unusable projects and wrecked facilities.
It has gotten to the point where there are more American contractors (who in another age would have been more correctly called "mercenaries") in Iraq than American soldiers.
The Bush Administration, far from cracking down on rampant fraud, has done everything in its power to protect these crooks by derailing even criminal investigations.
The part of the story that truly got my blood boiling was not the hundreds of tons of cash handed out in payments and bribes with little or no accountability, nor of the billions of dollars stolen by crooked contractors. No, it's the story of one Russell Skoug, hired by a company called Wolfpack supposedly to maintain air conditioners for a Halliburton (there's that name again) subcontractor. But when he arrived in Iraq, he was told to fix Humvees. Never mind the fact that Skoag was not an automotive tech, nor that the limit of his car-repair knowledge was how to change the oil.
After being allowed to do what he was hired for in the first place - with his tools being limited to a screwdriver and a Leatherman - he was being driven in a convoy when a bomb went off under his vehicle, severely injuring him.
Before bringing Skoug to Iraq, Wolfpack promised they would cover all his expenses, including medical ones. But when he was injured, they refused to lift a finger to help him.
They refused to coordinate his evacuation and care. They refused to cover his medical costs, despite American law requiring that every contractor fully insure all of its employees in a war zone. And they even refused a direct appeal from Skoug's wife that they help the man they discarded.
"After I have put forth to help you all out," Wolfpack owner Mark Atwood whined via E-mail, "you are going to get on me for your husband not having insurance."
Think about that for a moment.
A company puts an employee in the middle of a war zone and then callously jettisons him when everything goes sour. Sorry about that, pal, but you're on your own.
A year after he was wounded, Skoug is now crushed by more than half a million dollars in debts, mostly from medical costs.
That's the Iraq War in a nutshell. The fat cats make out like bandits, raking in billions that in another age would rightfully be called obscene profiteering. And it's the Russell Skougs of the world who get screwed.
If that doesn't piss you off, nothing will.
1 comment:
I worked for Wolfpack. Although the pay was good you had to deal with sociopaths for management. Daily belitteling and degrading tyrants by the hands of management was common place. I'm not surprised they did'nt help pay the guys medical bills. I spoke to a former employer who said he never got paid for his last month of work and he had to pay for his own flight back to the states. Wolfpack apparently dropped the ball on him too. I got fired before the shit hit the fan. I'm glad to see they're no longer in business. WOLFPACK SUCKED!!!!! Especially Dan Colepand, what a head case a true sociopath if I ever saw one.
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