Those who cannot learn from history
are doomed to repeat it.
-- George Santayana --
Perhaps you've heard the horrifying story of Jamie Leigh Jones. Here's an excerpt from ABC news: A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.Outrageous as that first appeared, some new details emerge in this video from Countdown:
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.
"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave.
[...]
According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by "several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally." Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by Army doctors showed she had been raped "both vaginally and anally," but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.
Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.That enormous loophole is of course the infamous (or it would be infamous if only more Americans knew it even existed - thanks again COM) Rule 17, put in place by Paul Bremer, neocon extraordinaire.
"It's very troubling," said Dean John Hutson of the Franklin Pierce Law Center. "The way the law presently stands, I would say that they don't have, at least in the criminal system, the opportunity for justice.
(From Smirking Chimp):The result of all this legal legerdemain, as reported by Raw Story, is a near certainty that the guilty will go free.
On June 27 2004, the day before the United States was to grant sovereignty to a new Iraqi government and disband the coalition provisional authority, Paul Bremer, the US proconsul, issued a stunning new order. One of the final acts of the CPA, Order 17, declared that foreign contractors within Iraq, including private military firms, would not be subject to any Iraqi laws - "all International Consultants shall be immune from Iraqi legal process," it read. "Congratulations to the new Iraq!" Bremer said moments before flying out. His memoir, My Year in Iraq, neglects to mention Order 17.
[...]
Order 17's grant of immunity to contractors guaranteed that more than half of the foreign presence on the ground - for US-paid contractors outnumber US military personnel - would operate for all intents and purposes beyond the law. Order 17 also undercut the authority of the US military, frustrating command and control of the battlefield and upsetting sensitive counterinsurgency strategies. Order 17 meant that the monopoly of violence was fractured and outsourced to those not subject to the law. By unilateral fiat Order 17 uniquely created a red zone of impunity covering the entire country.
A radical break with US policy, such an order had never been promulgated before. Order 17 should not be confused with a status of force agreement negotiated with sovereign nations such as South Korea. Those agreements are subject to complex bargaining and mutual assurance. Nor are contractors subject to the uniform code of military justice because, after all, they are not in the US military. Nor has the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000 been brought to bear on contractors in Iraq.
Ace, quoting his doppelganger the Church Lady, says Jones' story is "too convenient." Curt, who supports actor Fred Thompson for President, says it sounds "too movie like." Shackleford, no doubt wrinkling his brow and rubbing his beard thoughtfully as the wheels spin in his brain, if he has one (a beard, that is), writes, "It's perfect. Too perfect.With thinking like that governing the reight wing, one must ask; how the hell are they doing such a good job of tearing down democracy in America? The uncomfortable answer must be that people on the left are doing such a piss poor job of opposing them. There seems to be an assumption that, "this is America. The problem will correct itself."
[...]
Update: Bob Owens, a.k.a. Confederate Yankee, the blogosphere's Miss Marple, is on the case. If anyone can find a link between Jones and the terrorists, he can."
Although there was a rape kit that confirmed she was sexually assaulted, it was lost and found again and the doctor who performed it doesn't remember doing it. "I have no idea which rape victim you are," the doctor told Jones, "because so many young contractor girls were raped after drinking with the guys…. I performed so many rape kits in the six months that I was stationed there that there would be no way to recall whom (sic) yours was."Geez, Louise! Am I the only one who thinks that, I don't know, maybe something ought to be done about this?!?
I certainly hope so."With every new revelation, I think, 'Is this it?
Will this finally shake people out of their complacency?' "
-- RevPhat --
Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays hail to the chief,
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, lord,
It ain't me, it aint me, I ain't no senators son, son.
It ain't me, it aint me; I ain't no fortunate one, no,
Yeah!
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh.
But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaires son, no.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no.
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, lord,
And when you ask them, how much should we give?
Ooh, they only answer more! more! more! yoh,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, one.
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no no no,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son, no no no.
~Fortunate Son, CCR
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."Seriously, this guy was a Republican? Really?
"If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution."
"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it."
