Democrats managed to win WWII without violating the Geneva Convention, but Bush can't catch Bin Laden and maintain any of our civil liberties ... they are just too darn inconvenient. I mean, you can't ask him to go before a court that turned down 5 of 18,000 petitions to eavesdrop. He can't risk that possibility of rejection, after all, he is a very sensitive guy.
Of course in WWII, there was wanton firebombing of civilian targets, out-and-out censorship of the media, overt propaganda, and American citizens were rounded up and placed in concentration camps, all of which you conveniently forget.
Proof that Democrats have the balls to win against all odds, while Republicans can't even take out a few uneducated, disorganized primitive religious zealots.
The Democrats didn't pass a single law that attempted to permanently subvert the Constitution, even if they had to make some temporary modifications for the sake of the war, a REAL WAR with dangerous enemies, real armies, and real threats to the continued existence of our country -- not a Corporate Profit hunt.
BH: "Democrats managed to win WWII without violating the Geneva Convention"
Well, except of course for the Canicatti slaughter, July 1943; Biscari massacre, July/Aughst 1943; Dachau Massacre, April 29, 2945.
If you don't count the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo, I guess we were pretty clean.
Oh, and...Supreme Allied Commander Dwight David Eisenhower was elected president as a republican in 1952 and reelected in 1956, both times against left-leaning Democrat Adlai Stevenson. So I'm not sure it is quite accurate to say that the "Democrats managed to win WWII" all on their own.
BH: "The Democrats didn't pass a single law that attempted to permanently subvert the Constitution, even if they had to make some temporary modifications for the sake of the war, a REAL WAR with dangerous enemies, real armies, and real threats to the continued existence of our country..."
...And concentration camps for U.S. citizens of Japanese descent...and no serious attack on the homeland...and virtually no civilians killed by enemy attacks...and no credible way for those "...dangerous enemies, real armies..." coming close to threatening the homeland at any time during the war...
And, by the way, both Germany and Japan lost the war as much because they had no domestic source of oil as because of allied military action.
German u-boats are now known to have been cruising right along the East Coast. Japan DID attack the homeland quite seriously, and destroyed much of our naval fleet.
What war were you thinking of? Couldn't have been WWII.
The Germans and Japanese did NOT lose for a lack of oil. That is preposterous.
Read a book for god's sake, you sound like a blithering wingnut grasping at straws.
WF is right - there were absolutely NO "serious attacks on the homeland" (a/k/a the continental U.S.), Japanese as well as some German and Italian Americans were interned in those camps...for fear of their primary loyalties being with the enemy.
Pearl Harbor (an attack on a Pacific Naval outpost was less severe than were the attacks of the WTC on 9/11/01 - while BOTH were "sneak attacks" and "acts of war," not only were there significantly fewer casualties at Pearl Harbor (appx 2400 compared to appx 2800 at the WTC), but it was a Military target, while the WTC was a civilian target.
Pearl Harbor was indeed precipitated by the U.S. cutting off Japan's supply of oil and the metals she needed to build her military.
Par for the course from Barely, a guy who insists on foolishly believing the current enemy is compromised of "cave-dwellers."
Mohammed Atta was the son of a physician and an engineer educated in England. In fact, many of those identified as members of al Qaeda, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and other radicalized Islamic groups have been educated in schools in England and America. And they're not "taking seats" away from the likes of Barely - they getting into schools he, like most Americans, wouldn't have much of a shot at even entering.
"I don't want to make too much of the Pearl Harbor/911 comparison, but it should also be noted that Hawaii was not a state at the time of the attack." (BNJ)
(BNJ)
Yes, that's absolutely true.
Hawaii didn't become the 50th State until August 21, 1959.
And it's never been part of the Continental United States.
We have to go all the way back to the British razing the White House back in August of 1814 to get an apt comparison of such an attack on the American homeland by a foreign power.
Which is a good historical reference point for today, since it was only a few years before that 1814 British attack that America had enetered into her first "foreign entanglement" - the war with the Barbary States, another group of state sanctioned pirates/terrorists harbored, sponsored and assisted by various rogue Arab/Islamic states.
What is going on here? Once again I wonder where my opinion fits in - that taking away civil rights now is wrong, and that taking them away during WWII was wrong, *too*. Is consistency too much to hope for in this world?
The attack on the WTC was (1) a far more egregious attack - a civilian target within the continental United States, compared to a military target in an area that was not even a part of the United States at the time it was attacked, (2) more devastating in terms of both casualties (2800 in the WTC on 9/11 compared to 2400 in Pearl Harbor and damage to the national psyche. The fact of the matter is that WF was completely right, neither the Germans nor the Japanese had the ability to attack the American homeland. There are believed to be upwards of 200 terror cells currently active in the continental United States.
The current enemy is far more globalized and organized than was German Nazism and far more determined and prepared to fight an unconventional war than were the Communists.
The people who don't take the Islamic threat to the West seriously are those who simply don't know enough about it.
The 9/11 attacks on the WTC were FAR MORE egregious and far more devastating than the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I'm glad you gave up trying to defend the inane view that they weren't.
I'm only astounded that your gut reaction was to deny that obvious fact.
As terrible as Pearl Harbor was, (1) it did not occur within the borders of the U.S. and (2) it was a military target NOT a civilian one...not to mention the significantly greater loss of life at the WTC attacks (2800 to 2400).
Think things out a little before you post them...and you won't have to back out of them so often.
JMK, comparing Bush's Corporate War for Profit to WWII, a war for freedom that killed TENS OF MILLIONS, including 300,000 American battle deaths, is so inane and offensive that I think I'll just let you keep repeating it.
From this statement of BH's "Japan DID attack the homeland quite seriously, and destroyed much of our naval fleet, one could get the impression that Pearl Harbor was part of the Continental United States, either near Ohio, or at least LA's harbor.
The advantage the U.S. had in WW II was that at least the majority of Americans saw that war as a fight for civilization, a fight for our lives.
Far too few Americans see that reality today.
We are just starting an engagement against a global resurgent Islamic movement that's made tremendous inroads in both Asia and Europe and even has roots here.
Still, we (the majority of us) don't yet see this as the fight for our lives, the fight for civilization that it really is.
You can blame the current administration for failing to make the case for this struggle and define the enemy effectively and that would be very correct, but there's also the fact that many of us simply don't want to look at Islamo-fasicsm as the threat that it really is.
As is often the case, we are once again, our own worst enemy.
Bush doesn't seem to take it seriously, or he wouldn't have turned it into a stealing contest with Halliburton and the mega-wealthy grabbing with both hands.
Once again, the argument can be made that, until recently the Bush administration has not properly defined the enemy, nor made the case for this as the global struggle for civilization that it is...and they have certainly NOT brought the case to the American people effectively.
But they have certainly taken this war, a war ignored since 1993 more seriously than anyone prior to them has.
This "Halliburton bashing" is curious in that it is based largely on the remblings of people who, for the most part, can't read financial statements.
Is Halliburton a war profiteer? Some antiwar activists scoff even at the question. They have little doubt that Halliburton made massive profits on the Iraq War and that its former chief executive, Vice President Dick Cheney, greased the skids.
At first glance, it would seem that a firm cannot be a war profiteer if it had next to no profits. Halliburton earned $85 million from $3.6 billion in Iraqi contracts, a profit margin of roughly 2.4 percent, in 2003. In the second quarter of 2004, Halliburton reported that it earned 1.4 percent profits on $1.7 billion worth of work in Iraq. These are pitifully small rates of return.
Would you stick with a mutual fund that invested for less than a 2 percent return? Neither would Halliburton.
As a result of poor performance, Halliburton wants to sell the division that runs Iraqi operations, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR).
Consider Halliburton's stock price. When current CEO David J. Lesar took over from Dick Cheney in August 2000, the company's shares were trading at $54. They sank to a record low of $8.70 in 2001. As of August 9, 2005, they trade at $58. If Halliburton had been raking in record profits in the war years (from 2003 to the present), its stock price would have climbed, not flatlined.
But these small, essential facts have not stopped critics from fulminating about secret deals, no-bid contracts, and yes, fat profits extracted from taxpayers.
In 1998, while Dick Cheney was Halliburton's CEO, Halliburton acquired Dresser Industries, its former rival in the oil-services business. A Dresser subsidiary, Harbison-Walker Refractories (which Dresser had sold in 1992), had made insulating bricks and coatings with asbestos decades before asbestos was banned. But the courts found Halliburton liable anyway. Halliburton finally settled its asbestos cases in December 2004, at a cost of $5.1 billion.
The bottom line?
Because of that payout, Halliburton has earned virtually no net profits for the last five years.
Is it possible that the Iraq operations made mountains of money, but simply not enough to compensate for the Everest of litigation costs?
Independent journalists who have extensively investigated Halliburton's operations reluctantly conclude that Iraq has not been a geyser of money for the troubled industrial giant.
In early 2001, before September 11, Halliburton won the Defense Department's "super contract," which covers food, maintenance, construction, and other services worldwide. In hopes of getting more government business, Halliburton "bid a price that was shockingly low. In addition to being reimbursed for what it spent, Halliburton would get a base fee of 1 percent and a maximum performance award of just 2 percent," noted Fortune's Peter Elkind.
After September 11, that already awarded "super contract" meant that Halliburton received an avalanche of unexpected business -- at very low profit margins. Elkind found one anonymous source on the contract who said, "LOGCAP [the 'super contract'] could be the first cost-plus contract in history that's lost money."
How is this possible? "Cost plus" does not cover every cost. Certain unforeseen costs (such as additional security) are not covered. When those unreimbursable costs exceed 3 percent -- the maximum profit plus bonuses Halliburton can legally extract -- the cost-plus contract becomes a money loser.
Halliburton gets about two-thirds of its business in Iraq (which is about $12 billion) from LOGCAP and the remaining one-third from a contract called Restoring Iraqi Oil (RIO). The RIO contract was controversial because it was a sole-source contract awarded secretly before the war's onset.
Why the secret no-bid contract? Because, as Halliburton CEO David Lesar pointed out, Halliburton was the only contractor the Defense Department "had determined was in a position to provide the services within the required time frame given classified prewar planning requirements." This was confirmed by Congress's General Accounting Office.
In other words, no one else could do the job, so competitive bidding would not have accomplished much and prewar planning had to be kept secret in order to maintain the tactical advantage of surprise.
Dan Briody, the author of "The Halliburton Agenda: The Politics of Oil and Money," the ur-text of the anti-Halliburton crowd, dismisses the "Cheney helped Halliburton win untold riches at taxpayer expense in Iraq" meme. "There was no question they were doing a quality job. Every military officer, past or present, I spoke with was more than satisfied with [Halliburton subsidiary] Kellogg, Brown & Root's performance," he said.
Mr. Briody's main claim against Halliburton is that it won a defense contract in 1992 that it should not have. This is a long way from war profiteering and, anyway, the crime, if that is what it was, occurred in 1992 -- eleven years before the Iraq War. It might be government graft, but it is not war profiteering.
Richard Miniter is the author of two New York Times bestselling books, "Losing bin Laden" and "Shadow War," and is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism.
Democrats -v- Republicans? I don't think so... Lets take a look at your 'democracy' and we will start with a little history lesson (since you're a relatively new nation)
Back in the bad old days there was a ruling class headed up by a king or queen who ruled supreme... When the people got restless they knew whos head to remove - and they did.
We still have that ruling elite. Now though, theres a new trick... you use the media to polarise the ruling class into two sides who agree to disagree on pretty much everything... politics a great hall of mirrors. Now, when the great unwashed public get restless they see an alternative. Nobody needs to lose their heads - and they don't... because unlike politicians, the public prefer peaceful solutions.
Neither the democrats nor the republicans ever ran the country... The national (and more recently, global) corporations do.
Everything is about the money - screw the little guy - and democracy? Well, thats just a fanciful concept we use to oscure the fact that our only real freedom is the freedom to choose which artificial subset of the ruling classes dictate our lives in each political term.
America is sick ladies. Not just politically but culturally. I suspect most Americans would react strongly to these statements but then, they would, centuries of flag-waving and media indoctrination has turned most american citizens into short-sighted, short-minded, consumers with an unshakeable belief in the flag, the country and in war.
Meanwhile, America has become the most politically disruptive force on the planet. The war on terror is a war on the poorest nations on earth... nations in most cases kept poor by direct american meddling.
The state of play, ladies, is that most countries hate your administration (feel free to dismiss this as jealousy over your wealth or 'freedom') and are hoping you fail. Your only true ally is the UK and only because they are now a protectorate of yours.
The rest of the world would happily see you guys go under. You are losing your freedoms partially because they are obstacles to the true nature of government and partially because america has suddenly realised that it is vulnerable... and it becomes more vulnerable each day - as more countries defy the bans and build enrichment plants.
Seriously folks, gather your children close. Guard them not from the Taliban but from your own political and economic machine which is the true threat to your nation. Teach them NOT to be mindless consumers and to look outside of the national media for their truth. Teach them that neither Democrats nor Liberals hold the answers, just lies and self-interest. Teach them not to wave their flags so proudly, nor take their liberty or security for granted.
To argue Republicans -v- Democrats is to miss the point spectacularly.
I am not an anti-american, but I am very concerned.
Sorry for the double post... but one thing just caught my eye.
The WTC was a civillian target ? I don't think so... it was a stategic economic target. A lot of civilians died, sadly true - thats the same in any war.
Get over it.
Possibly the best example of a wholesale terrorist attrocity ever seen was the US-led bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Predominantly farming areas). I'm not saying it didn't serve good purpose - I am a realist.
But the WTC? Remember, these people have no real army... no real air force... no real weaponry. Yet they DID ***DECLARE*** WAR... MANY TIMES. America just laughed it off.
The fact that the US pushes them around like a bully in the playground and then laughs incredulously when they say they will get even just begs a kick in the nuts... and thats what you got on 9/11 ... it hurts, true, but a kick in the nuts is fair play for an underdog.
And, yes, you deserved it.
Before you accuse me of supporting terrorism, please take the time to note that the US uses the terms 'freedom fighters' and 'terrorists' interchangeably... those they arm one year they denounce and destroy the next. Supporting terrorism is what you do... and lets not forget how you tied the UK's hands behind their backs over IRA terrorism so as not to offend Irish-American sentiments at home whilst we suffered decades of bombs in our city centres.
America is the terrorists fickle friend.
So, forgive me for feeling that 9/11 was a spectacularly creative and precise attack by the underdog on the US's soft underbelly.
Sorry. I feel for you guys, I really do... I wasn't cheering when WTC happened - I cried. But it was a long time coming... and, well, if US foreign policy doesn't change the next attacks will be worse.
You do know that 12 suitcase nukes went missing from the former soviet union... the technology (and fresh uranium) is out there... I think now is the time for speaking softly and repairing relationships.
Comments
Democrats managed to win WWII without violating the Geneva Convention, but Bush can't catch Bin Laden and maintain any of our civil liberties ... they are just too darn inconvenient. I mean, you can't ask him to go before a court that turned down 5 of 18,000 petitions to eavesdrop. He can't risk that possibility of rejection, after all, he is a very sensitive guy.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | October 2, 2006 04:05 PM
Of course in WWII, there was wanton firebombing of civilian targets, out-and-out censorship of the media, overt propaganda, and American citizens were rounded up and placed in concentration camps, all of which you conveniently forget.
Posted by: BNJ | October 2, 2006 10:18 PM
Proof that Democrats have the balls to win against all odds, while Republicans can't even take out a few uneducated, disorganized primitive religious zealots.
The Democrats didn't pass a single law that attempted to permanently subvert the Constitution, even if they had to make some temporary modifications for the sake of the war, a REAL WAR with dangerous enemies, real armies, and real threats to the continued existence of our country -- not a Corporate Profit hunt.
The Bush family was with the Nazis:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Politicians/Bush_Nazi_Dealings.html
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | October 3, 2006 11:11 AM
BH: "Democrats managed to win WWII without violating the Geneva Convention"
Well, except of course for the Canicatti slaughter, July 1943; Biscari massacre, July/Aughst 1943; Dachau Massacre, April 29, 2945.
If you don't count the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo, I guess we were pretty clean.
Oh, and...Supreme Allied Commander Dwight David Eisenhower was elected president as a republican in 1952 and reelected in 1956, both times against left-leaning Democrat Adlai Stevenson. So I'm not sure it is quite accurate to say that the "Democrats managed to win WWII" all on their own.
Posted by: withoutfeathers | October 3, 2006 10:34 PM
BH: "The Democrats didn't pass a single law that attempted to permanently subvert the Constitution, even if they had to make some temporary modifications for the sake of the war, a REAL WAR with dangerous enemies, real armies, and real threats to the continued existence of our country..."
...And concentration camps for U.S. citizens of Japanese descent...and no serious attack on the homeland...and virtually no civilians killed by enemy attacks...and no credible way for those "...dangerous enemies, real armies..." coming close to threatening the homeland at any time during the war...
And, by the way, both Germany and Japan lost the war as much because they had no domestic source of oil as because of allied military action.
Posted by: withoutfeathers | October 3, 2006 10:42 PM
German u-boats are now known to have been cruising right along the East Coast. Japan DID attack the homeland quite seriously, and destroyed much of our naval fleet.
What war were you thinking of? Couldn't have been WWII.
The Germans and Japanese did NOT lose for a lack of oil. That is preposterous.
Read a book for god's sake, you sound like a blithering wingnut grasping at straws.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | October 3, 2006 11:00 PM
WF is right - there were absolutely NO "serious attacks on the homeland" (a/k/a the continental U.S.), Japanese as well as some German and Italian Americans were interned in those camps...for fear of their primary loyalties being with the enemy.
Pearl Harbor (an attack on a Pacific Naval outpost was less severe than were the attacks of the WTC on 9/11/01 - while BOTH were "sneak attacks" and "acts of war," not only were there significantly fewer casualties at Pearl Harbor (appx 2400 compared to appx 2800 at the WTC), but it was a Military target, while the WTC was a civilian target.
Pearl Harbor was indeed precipitated by the U.S. cutting off Japan's supply of oil and the metals she needed to build her military.
Par for the course from Barely, a guy who insists on foolishly believing the current enemy is compromised of "cave-dwellers."
Mohammed Atta was the son of a physician and an engineer educated in England. In fact, many of those identified as members of al Qaeda, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and other radicalized Islamic groups have been educated in schools in England and America. And they're not "taking seats" away from the likes of Barely - they getting into schools he, like most Americans, wouldn't have much of a shot at even entering.
Posted by: JMK | October 4, 2006 06:50 AM
"I don't want to make too much of the Pearl Harbor/911 comparison, but it should also be noted that Hawaii was not a state at the time of the attack." (BNJ)
(BNJ)
Yes, that's absolutely true.
Hawaii didn't become the 50th State until August 21, 1959.
And it's never been part of the Continental United States.
We have to go all the way back to the British razing the White House back in August of 1814 to get an apt comparison of such an attack on the American homeland by a foreign power.
Which is a good historical reference point for today, since it was only a few years before that 1814 British attack that America had enetered into her first "foreign entanglement" - the war with the Barbary States, another group of state sanctioned pirates/terrorists harbored, sponsored and assisted by various rogue Arab/Islamic states.
Posted by: JMK | October 4, 2006 07:30 AM
JMK: "And it's never been part of the Continental United States."
Wait, what? Then where is it?
Posted by: fred | October 4, 2006 09:56 AM
LOL! JMK is actually saying that 9/11 was WORSE than WWII!
Oh, you're right! A bunch of hiding, disorganized, religious zealots are so much more frightening than the combined German and Japanese military!
Pearl Harbor was 1,000 times worse than 9/11, you fool. Our navy was seriously damaged.
Here, you dumb bastard, is the list of attacks on North America during WWII:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_on_North_America_during_World_War_II
You truly are a Nazi.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | October 4, 2006 01:23 PM
What is going on here? Once again I wonder where my opinion fits in - that taking away civil rights now is wrong, and that taking them away during WWII was wrong, *too*. Is consistency too much to hope for in this world?
Posted by: OTTami | October 4, 2006 04:10 PM
The attack on the WTC was (1) a far more egregious attack - a civilian target within the continental United States, compared to a military target in an area that was not even a part of the United States at the time it was attacked, (2) more devastating in terms of both casualties (2800 in the WTC on 9/11 compared to 2400 in Pearl Harbor and damage to the national psyche. The fact of the matter is that WF was completely right, neither the Germans nor the Japanese had the ability to attack the American homeland. There are believed to be upwards of 200 terror cells currently active in the continental United States.
The current enemy is far more globalized and organized than was German Nazism and far more determined and prepared to fight an unconventional war than were the Communists.
The people who don't take the Islamic threat to the West seriously are those who simply don't know enough about it.
Posted by: JMK | October 4, 2006 10:13 PM
Put on your tinfoil hat and hide in your bomb shelter, Chicken Little.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | October 4, 2006 11:11 PM
Thankyou for conceding to my point.
The 9/11 attacks on the WTC were FAR MORE egregious and far more devastating than the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I'm glad you gave up trying to defend the inane view that they weren't.
I'm only astounded that your gut reaction was to deny that obvious fact.
As terrible as Pearl Harbor was, (1) it did not occur within the borders of the U.S. and (2) it was a military target NOT a civilian one...not to mention the significantly greater loss of life at the WTC attacks (2800 to 2400).
Think things out a little before you post them...and you won't have to back out of them so often.
Posted by: JMK | October 6, 2006 01:31 PM
JMK, comparing Bush's Corporate War for Profit to WWII, a war for freedom that killed TENS OF MILLIONS, including 300,000 American battle deaths, is so inane and offensive that I think I'll just let you keep repeating it.
You just don't realize how crazy you sound.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | October 6, 2006 02:26 PM
Traditional Sharia Law adhering Islam's war against the West has not even yet begun in earnest.
It is very possible, perhaps even probable that Islam will ultimately win the day in that war.
Europe will almost certainly fall to become "Eurabia" by the middle of this century if birth rates and EU immigration standards remain as thay are.
The U.S. cannot possibly stand alone against that global force.
But that is NOT the point that YOU decided to debate here, when you said, "JMK is actually saying that 9/11 was WORSE than Pearl Harbor."
I proved to you that the 9/11 attack on the WTC was worse than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
(*) WTC was a civilian target, not a military one.
(*) Significvantly more casualties (2800 killed at the WTC and 2400 killed on Pearl Harbor.
(*) WTC was the first foreign attack on U.S. soil since the war of 1812, while the attack on Pearl Harbor DID NOT occur on U.S. soil.
Ergo, there's no logical way to argue that Pearl Harbor "was worse than the 9/11/01 attack on the WTC."
Posted by: JMK | October 7, 2006 09:30 PM
""And it's never been part of the Continental United States."
Wait, what? Then where is it?" (Fred)
(Fred)
You're kidding, I hope!
In case you're not, the "continental United States includes ONLY the "lower 48 States.
It does not include Alaska, Hawaii, nor such U.S. territories as Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
In 1941 Hawaii wasn't even a State, so an attack on a Pacific Naval outpost in Hawaii couldn't have been called "An attack on U.S. soil."
It did not become a State until August of 1959, almost 18 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Posted by: JMK | October 7, 2006 09:35 PM
yes, it was just a joke, although I thought maybe Hawaii was next to Ohio or something
Posted by: fred | October 8, 2006 12:42 PM
I thought so Fred, but wasn't entirely sure.
From this statement of BH's "Japan DID attack the homeland quite seriously, and destroyed much of our naval fleet, one could get the impression that Pearl Harbor was part of the Continental United States, either near Ohio, or at least LA's harbor.
The advantage the U.S. had in WW II was that at least the majority of Americans saw that war as a fight for civilization, a fight for our lives.
Far too few Americans see that reality today.
We are just starting an engagement against a global resurgent Islamic movement that's made tremendous inroads in both Asia and Europe and even has roots here.
Still, we (the majority of us) don't yet see this as the fight for our lives, the fight for civilization that it really is.
You can blame the current administration for failing to make the case for this struggle and define the enemy effectively and that would be very correct, but there's also the fact that many of us simply don't want to look at Islamo-fasicsm as the threat that it really is.
As is often the case, we are once again, our own worst enemy.
Posted by: JMK | October 8, 2006 02:04 PM
Bush doesn't seem to take it seriously, or he wouldn't have turned it into a stealing contest with Halliburton and the mega-wealthy grabbing with both hands.
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | October 9, 2006 12:53 AM
Once again, the argument can be made that, until recently the Bush administration has not properly defined the enemy, nor made the case for this as the global struggle for civilization that it is...and they have certainly NOT brought the case to the American people effectively.
But they have certainly taken this war, a war ignored since 1993 more seriously than anyone prior to them has.
This "Halliburton bashing" is curious in that it is based largely on the remblings of people who, for the most part, can't read financial statements.
Propaganda Over 'Profiteering'
By Richard Miniter
The Washington Times
January 6, 2006
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060105-093710-5804r.htm
Is Halliburton a war profiteer? Some antiwar activists scoff even at the question. They have little doubt that Halliburton made massive profits on the Iraq War and that its former chief executive, Vice President Dick Cheney, greased the skids.
At first glance, it would seem that a firm cannot be a war profiteer if it had next to no profits. Halliburton earned $85 million from $3.6 billion in Iraqi contracts, a profit margin of roughly 2.4 percent, in 2003. In the second quarter of 2004, Halliburton reported that it earned 1.4 percent profits on $1.7 billion worth of work in Iraq. These are pitifully small rates of return.
Would you stick with a mutual fund that invested for less than a 2 percent return? Neither would Halliburton.
As a result of poor performance, Halliburton wants to sell the division that runs Iraqi operations, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR).
Consider Halliburton's stock price. When current CEO David J. Lesar took over from Dick Cheney in August 2000, the company's shares were trading at $54. They sank to a record low of $8.70 in 2001. As of August 9, 2005, they trade at $58. If Halliburton had been raking in record profits in the war years (from 2003 to the present), its stock price would have climbed, not flatlined.
But these small, essential facts have not stopped critics from fulminating about secret deals, no-bid contracts, and yes, fat profits extracted from taxpayers.
In 1998, while Dick Cheney was Halliburton's CEO, Halliburton acquired Dresser Industries, its former rival in the oil-services business. A Dresser subsidiary, Harbison-Walker Refractories (which Dresser had sold in 1992), had made insulating bricks and coatings with asbestos decades before asbestos was banned. But the courts found Halliburton liable anyway. Halliburton finally settled its asbestos cases in December 2004, at a cost of $5.1 billion.
The bottom line?
Because of that payout, Halliburton has earned virtually no net profits for the last five years.
Is it possible that the Iraq operations made mountains of money, but simply not enough to compensate for the Everest of litigation costs?
Independent journalists who have extensively investigated Halliburton's operations reluctantly conclude that Iraq has not been a geyser of money for the troubled industrial giant.
In early 2001, before September 11, Halliburton won the Defense Department's "super contract," which covers food, maintenance, construction, and other services worldwide. In hopes of getting more government business, Halliburton "bid a price that was shockingly low. In addition to being reimbursed for what it spent, Halliburton would get a base fee of 1 percent and a maximum performance award of just 2 percent," noted Fortune's Peter Elkind.
After September 11, that already awarded "super contract" meant that Halliburton received an avalanche of unexpected business -- at very low profit margins. Elkind found one anonymous source on the contract who said, "LOGCAP [the 'super contract'] could be the first cost-plus contract in history that's lost money."
How is this possible? "Cost plus" does not cover every cost. Certain unforeseen costs (such as additional security) are not covered. When those unreimbursable costs exceed 3 percent -- the maximum profit plus bonuses Halliburton can legally extract -- the cost-plus contract becomes a money loser.
Halliburton gets about two-thirds of its business in Iraq (which is about $12 billion) from LOGCAP and the remaining one-third from a contract called Restoring Iraqi Oil (RIO). The RIO contract was controversial because it was a sole-source contract awarded secretly before the war's onset.
Why the secret no-bid contract? Because, as Halliburton CEO David Lesar pointed out, Halliburton was the only contractor the Defense Department "had determined was in a position to provide the services within the required time frame given classified prewar planning requirements." This was confirmed by Congress's General Accounting Office.
In other words, no one else could do the job, so competitive bidding would not have accomplished much and prewar planning had to be kept secret in order to maintain the tactical advantage of surprise.
Dan Briody, the author of "The Halliburton Agenda: The Politics of Oil and Money," the ur-text of the anti-Halliburton crowd, dismisses the "Cheney helped Halliburton win untold riches at taxpayer expense in Iraq" meme. "There was no question they were doing a quality job. Every military officer, past or present, I spoke with was more than satisfied with [Halliburton subsidiary] Kellogg, Brown & Root's performance," he said.
Mr. Briody's main claim against Halliburton is that it won a defense contract in 1992 that it should not have. This is a long way from war profiteering and, anyway, the crime, if that is what it was, occurred in 1992 -- eleven years before the Iraq War. It might be government graft, but it is not war profiteering.
Richard Miniter is the author of two New York Times bestselling books, "Losing bin Laden" and "Shadow War," and is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism.
Posted by: JMK | October 10, 2006 08:33 AM
Wow, thanks for another non-stop stream of easily disproven lies!
"Halliburton announces 284 percent increase in war profits"
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/earnings072205.html
"Halliburton CEO's stock rises by $78 million since Iraq invasion"
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/lesar_stock.html
"Halliburton Contract Critic Loses Her Job"
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/29/news/army.php
"Army fires Halliburton from Iraq contract"
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/hal.html
Any more softball lies to knock out of the park?
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | October 10, 2006 11:52 AM
Again, none of Halliburton's critics seem to be able to read through a rudimentary financial statement.
Robert Miniter sure can.
Posted by: JMK | October 10, 2006 07:43 PM
Democrats -v- Republicans? I don't think so... Lets take a look at your 'democracy' and we will start with a little history lesson (since you're a relatively new nation)
Back in the bad old days there was a ruling class headed up by a king or queen who ruled supreme... When the people got restless they knew whos head to remove - and they did.
We still have that ruling elite. Now though, theres a new trick... you use the media to polarise the ruling class into two sides who agree to disagree on pretty much everything... politics a great hall of mirrors. Now, when the great unwashed public get restless they see an alternative. Nobody needs to lose their heads - and they don't... because unlike politicians, the public prefer peaceful solutions.
Neither the democrats nor the republicans ever ran the country... The national (and more recently, global) corporations do.
Everything is about the money - screw the little guy - and democracy? Well, thats just a fanciful concept we use to oscure the fact that our only real freedom is the freedom to choose which artificial subset of the ruling classes dictate our lives in each political term.
America is sick ladies. Not just politically but culturally. I suspect most Americans would react strongly to these statements but then, they would, centuries of flag-waving and media indoctrination has turned most american citizens into short-sighted, short-minded, consumers with an unshakeable belief in the flag, the country and in war.
Meanwhile, America has become the most politically disruptive force on the planet. The war on terror is a war on the poorest nations on earth... nations in most cases kept poor by direct american meddling.
The state of play, ladies, is that most countries hate your administration (feel free to dismiss this as jealousy over your wealth or 'freedom') and are hoping you fail. Your only true ally is the UK and only because they are now a protectorate of yours.
The rest of the world would happily see you guys go under. You are losing your freedoms partially because they are obstacles to the true nature of government and partially because america has suddenly realised that it is vulnerable... and it becomes more vulnerable each day - as more countries defy the bans and build enrichment plants.
Seriously folks, gather your children close. Guard them not from the Taliban but from your own political and economic machine which is the true threat to your nation. Teach them NOT to be mindless consumers and to look outside of the national media for their truth. Teach them that neither Democrats nor Liberals hold the answers, just lies and self-interest. Teach them not to wave their flags so proudly, nor take their liberty or security for granted.
To argue Republicans -v- Democrats is to miss the point spectacularly.
I am not an anti-american, but I am very concerned.
(Oh, yeah.... and let the flames commence)
Posted by: Merkle | November 3, 2006 06:46 AM
Sorry for the double post... but one thing just caught my eye.
The WTC was a civillian target ? I don't think so... it was a stategic economic target. A lot of civilians died, sadly true - thats the same in any war.
Get over it.
Possibly the best example of a wholesale terrorist attrocity ever seen was the US-led bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Predominantly farming areas). I'm not saying it didn't serve good purpose - I am a realist.
But the WTC? Remember, these people have no real army... no real air force... no real weaponry. Yet they DID ***DECLARE*** WAR... MANY TIMES. America just laughed it off.
The fact that the US pushes them around like a bully in the playground and then laughs incredulously when they say they will get even just begs a kick in the nuts... and thats what you got on 9/11 ... it hurts, true, but a kick in the nuts is fair play for an underdog.
And, yes, you deserved it.
Before you accuse me of supporting terrorism, please take the time to note that the US uses the terms 'freedom fighters' and 'terrorists' interchangeably... those they arm one year they denounce and destroy the next. Supporting terrorism is what you do... and lets not forget how you tied the UK's hands behind their backs over IRA terrorism so as not to offend Irish-American sentiments at home whilst we suffered decades of bombs in our city centres.
America is the terrorists fickle friend.
So, forgive me for feeling that 9/11 was a spectacularly creative and precise attack by the underdog on the US's soft underbelly.
Sorry. I feel for you guys, I really do... I wasn't cheering when WTC happened - I cried. But it was a long time coming... and, well, if US foreign policy doesn't change the next attacks will be worse.
You do know that 12 suitcase nukes went missing from the former soviet union... the technology (and fresh uranium) is out there... I think now is the time for speaking softly and repairing relationships.
Seriously.
Posted by: Merkle | November 3, 2006 07:09 AM