The High Costs of Private Contractors

The fury I feel at this – and hope that Congress is finally exerting the strength over these despicable contractors – is compunded by emails that get forwarded to me from Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Whether the assaults on women come from contractors or within the military, too often they and soldiers in general get sent to RW chaplains rather than qualified psychologists. One anonymous report from a rape victim reported that when she went to talk to said chaplain, he told her that it was God’s judgment on her for not being a good “Christian” (wrong denomination apparently) so she should suck it up and live a better life.

The rates of suicide among our troops can be tied quite directly to the sources of their “counseling”. I’ve had some very serious discussions with veterans’ advocacy groups that showed me the men and women most likely to commit suicide are those counseled by chaplains from the RW fundamentalist, End Times view of Christianity. The troubled troops are also told that if they had been “good Christians” they’d not be bothered at ALL by the deaths around them, the actions they saw and took, the horrors of war. So it’s all THEIR OWN fault that they are traumatized by the killings of civilians, children, women – those were just Muslims, so God wanted them dead. Trauma, guilt, horror – those are “unChristian” emotions.

The disgust I feel about this nation’s unrelenting march toward fundamentalism in our military – and even our civilian world – cannot be articulated. I fear that as the phony progressives, in both the secular and faith communities – hold Obama to an impossible standard, and as they revile Congress for trying to balance the disparate wants of a diverse nation – failure to vote will allow these people to return. This morning’s paper said that the bright star of Congress, Republican Keven McCarthy, is rallying his troops to bring about a Republican majority in 2010. It’s not that independents and progressives will vote for that – it’s that they won’t vote at ALL allowing the Palins and their ilk to return to dominate Congress.

I blame HP in large part for this. The failure to keep the eye on what is really being achieved, what a horrendous mess Obama has inherited, and how measured and LEGAL he has been in his responses – all that has been dismissed by the progressives who rely on hype and simplistic analysis. We live in a world where “God ain’t it awful” and “they’re all alike” are our only interpretations of actions.

If we let the RW come back into power, it will be horrid. I fear the progressive and even liberal part of our nation’s inability to understand how hard governance is. Too many of my allies would rather just curse the darkness. We’re simply too used to it. I am truly scared for the nation and therefore the world.

Thanks, Emerald. Now my blood pressure is going up up up !! These companies and the people who work for them are the lowest of the low. War profiteering is supposed to be illegal, isn’t it? They should be taken over by the state and disemboweled. Call me a pinko.

Frontline is such a wealth of information. It is too bad more people do not use it instead of the mainstream media hype. I had seen or actually read this story about Halliburton leaving supplies out in the desert when they broke down on Global Research. Some of their blogs are sometimes on the “conspiracy” side, but I have found alot of very insightful articles using actual “investigative journalism” there as well. One I read about H1N1 said the hype was all about selling vaccines, well it appears the flu virus never did manifest like we were all told it would, but big pharma did sell it’s vaccines. You just have to pick through the fact and fiction and check on facts. There are a few bright stars still on HP but they are being overshadowed by the “hype, sensationalized headlines” of the rest.

Emerald, this is such an important story. Not only do contractors operate outside the code of military conduct, they cost us three times what the same work costs when done by our military forces.

If our military responsibilities can’t be handled by our military, then maybe that’s a sign that we can’t afford the military action. Either that or pay our troops more so we can recruit more people.

Emerald — I’m going to link back to HP for the bulk of your article. We need to be careful about reprinting entire articles because of copyright issues. One or two paragraphs shouldn’t be a problem.

Good Morning Everyone!

“Bad Voodoo’s War” aired on Frontline almost two years ago.

If you’ve never seen this documentary, you should. The men of Bad Voodoo Platoon (National Guard) brought Iraq into living rooms around the world, and KBR was called out then for not doing its job.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/badvoodoo/