Red, White, and Without a Clue

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, America naively asked in its stunned stupor, "Why do they hate us?" In consoling us, our fearless leaders appealed to our collective sense of superiority and self-righteousness by explaining that the Muslim world (a.k.a. "they") hate us because of what we stand for: freedom, democracy, Mom, baseball, and apple pie. Comforted, we patted ourselves on our collective back for being so gosh-darn wonderful and condemned the savage heathens who wanted nothing less than to destroy all that is right and good in the world -- us.

Thanks to a recent confluence of events involving our interaction with the Muslim world, it is clear that "they" do hate us for what we stand for. Unfortunately, what we stand for is not freedom, democracy, nor any other high-minded ideal. Rather, we stand for arrogance, barbarism, and violence.

Sure. We talk a lot about freedom and democracy and bringing such enlightenment to the Muslim world. The thing is, we stop far-short of actually putting those ideals into practice. Instead, we look at the people of the Muslim world as being somehow inferior and not really deserving of the noble gifts so generously bestowed upon them by America the Almighty. But, as pitying nobility, bestow we must.

Take, for instance, our penchant for torturing, degrading, and dehumanizing Muslims whom we routinely round up as part of our never-to-end war on terror. We note how those silly, unenlightened Muslim men are ashamed by nudity, so we stack them naked in human pyramids. We force them to masturbate in front of a crowd of gawking U.S. soldiers, men and women. We smear them with shit, or, better yet, with what they believe to be menstrual blood, fresh from a female soldier's crotch. We attach wires to their extremities and tell them, oh so teasingly, that if they move... zap!

We force them to dig their own graves, fire shots over their heads, and then laugh hysterically when the stupid sand-niggers realize in a mix of horror and relief that they really haven't been executed. Then, after the sub-human Muslims finish wetting themselves like untrained dogs, we chuckle a bit more and let them go.

We desecrate their holy text and mock their religion in order to break their spirits during interrogation. We kick the Koran, piss on it, shit on it, cut it up with scissors. With Rumsfeld's blessing, we confiscate their religious trinkets and forcibly shave their facial hair. But what's the big deal? After all, ours, the Christian god, is the only true god. Theirs is but a false idol, undeserving of respect, much less of worship and adulation. Indeed, according to legend, our god is the benevolent protector and savior of America, our blessed nation. Theirs is but a blood-thirsty savage, worshiped by other dirty, smelly, blood-thirsty savages.

We march into towns like al-Qaim and Fallujah, ostensibly to rout out "foreign fighters" who for some reason use our occupation of Iraq as an excuse for waging Jihad. In the name of efficiency, however, we bomb entire neighborhoods to kill a handful of insurgents. Non-insurgent townspeople are forced to evacuate and live in ad-hoc refugee camps in the desert, leaving what little they have behind. They struggle to stave off thirst and starvation as they watch plumes of black smoke replace their homes. After we declare victory and withdraw, those whom we claim to be liberating return to towns reduced to rubble, without power, water, or sewer. Even the hospitals are gone. We blew them up to kill the insurgents rumored to be hiding inside.

Who cares that the "liberated" have nothing to return to, no water to drink, no food to eat, no hospital for when they become sick with dysentery or cholera? Not us. We only care that our military was successful and that insurgents died. If the "liberated" dare complain about such collateral matters as dead or wounded loved ones or homes reduced to rubble, we write them off as just a bunch of Muslim ingrates who fail to appreciate how lucky they are to receive American benevolence.

The results of our inherent distaste for the Muslim world are evident. Thousands of ungrateful Shiites took to the streets of Iraq denouncing the U.S. occupation of their country. In an act of contemptuous disrespect for their liberating benefactors, the godless Shiites painted the American flag on the steps of their houses of unholy worship, desecrating it with each passing step. How dare they step on our flag, blessed by our god?

How dare they, indeed.

Maybe next time terrorists attack the United States (and there will be a next time), we won't be so stupid to ask, "Why do they hate us?"

Touching Evil: Holding Hands with Uzbekistan

Last week, President Bush spoke to thousands of adoring fans in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. He spoke of freedom, liberty and justice and held up Georgia as an example for other nations to follow. Referring to Georgia's progression to democracy, Bush declared, "Now, across the Caucasus, in Central Asia and the broader Middle East, we see the same desire for liberty burning in the hearts of young people. They are demanding their freedom - and they shall have it."

Unless, of course, they happen to live in Uzbekistan.

Days after Bush got his ego stroked in Georgia, soldiers in Uzbekistan killed hundreds of civilians in the city of Andijon as they protested the arrest of several prominent business owners on charges of religious extremism. At one point, the protesters began calling for the resignation of Bush's "key ally" in his global war on terrorism, Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

That's when Uzbek soldiers opened fire into a crowd of women and children, and even Uzbek police officers, who begged the soldiers not to shoot. After the opening salvo, the soldiers walked among the hundreds of bodies, shooting the wounded. The dead were laid out for identification in front of a local school. On Monday, Uzbekis began digging a mass common grave under the watch of Uzbek forces.

While denying that his soldiers opened fire on the demonstrators, President Karimov attempted to keep reporters out of Andijon , as well as Pakhtabad where another 200 civilians were killed by Uzbek troops.

Over the weekend, Britain condemned the actions of the Uzbek government as "a clear abuse of human rights." The U.S., on the other hand, while "concerned" about the slaughter of hundreds of civilians in Uzbekistan, was "particularly" concerned with the escape of prisoners, "including possibly members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan."

The claim about escaped terrorists was naturally made by the Uzbek government. There has not been any independent confirmation that terrorists were actually freed by the demonstrators. Any such claims by Uzbekistan are inherently incredible anyway. According to the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Uzbek authorities frequently have political and human rights activists declared insane and involuntarily committed to stop their anti-government activities. Uzbekistan also has a record of arresting protest organizers and their families in order to prevent demonstrations. Additionally, on at least one occasion, officers of the Uzbek Antiterrorism Department beat political activists and threatened them with more serious harm if they engaged in protest activities.

In other words, Uzbekistan is not known for tolerating political dissidence.

Assuming for the sake of argument, however, that the demonstrations did lead to the release of suspected terrorists, what kind of statement is the U.S. making by de-emphasizing the deaths of hundreds of Uzbek citizens? The statement is that the U.S. is apparently less concerned about the reactionary slaughter of hundreds of people than it is about the alleged escape of a handful of possible terrorists. The U.S. is less concerned about the gross human rights abuses of the Uzbek government than it is about keeping a heavy-handed ally in Bush's infinite war on terror.

It is the same statement on Uzbekistan that the U.S. has made since Bush embarked upon his crusade. The U.S. has long known that, in the words of the State Department, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights." The U.S. knows that the Uzbek government has a "very poor" human rights record and continues "to commit numerous serious abuses," as evidenced by the fact that its police and security service "tortured, beat, and harassed persons." In fact, the best thing the State Department could say in its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices about Uzbekistan was, "Unlike past years, there were no credible reports of persons dying in custody as a result of torture."

Talk about damning with faint praise.

Nonetheless, in spite of (or, more likely, because of) Uzbekistan's atrocious record of torture and human rights abuses, the U.S. sends terror suspects there for detention and interrogation. In other words, the U.S. sends terror suspects to Uzbekistan to be tortured. Knowing what it does about Uzbekistan's penchant for torture, particularly of suspected Islamic extremists, the U.S. cannot plausibly deny that it knowingly employs Uzbekistan to do its dirty work.

The U.S. has brokered a deal with the devil in its alliance with Uzbekistan. In exchange for military bases and torture facilities, the U.S. looks the other way as Karimov violently oppresses and kills the Uzbek people. As a result, the blood of hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded Uzbekis, gunned down for demanding the freedom Bush said they would not be denied, is now on our hands.

Crony Capitalists

On Tuesday, May 10, 2005, and without a hint of shame, the Bush administration awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) $72 million in bonuses for its "very good" and "excellent" work in Iraq.

Excuse me?

Just two months ago, the Justice Department indicted a KBR manager for "major fraud against the United States" under the same LOGCAP contract for which KBR is now being awarded bonuses. According to the indictment, former KBR manager Jeff Mazon billed the U.S. more than $5.5 million for $680,000 worth of work. In other words, Mazon inflated KBR's bill by over 700 percent.

By the way, that LOGCAP contract is a cost-plus-award-fee, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract. That means Halliburton/KBR supplies an indefinite quantity of supplies for an indefinite period of time, its costs are fully reimbursed, and it get paid an additional amount of 2 to 7 percent of those costs. Good work, if you can get it.

Bush & Co. decided to award KBR over $72 million in bonuses despite the fact that senior Halliburton/KBR officials perjured themselves before the House Committee on Government Reform back in July of 2004. At the time, the Committee was investigating allegations that Halliburton/KBR employees were taking kickbacks under the LOGCAP contract. At the hearing, Halliburton/KBR representatives testified, under oath, that none of their thieving employees were managers.

Oops. According to the federal indictment, Mazon was KBR's Procurement, Materials and Property Manager.

Aside from the LOGCAP contract, Halliburton/KBR has bilked and defrauded the U.S. for millions of dollars on other contracts associated with the "rebuilding" of Iraq. Investigations by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), revealed that Halliburton/KBR overcharged the U.S. no less than $212 million under its Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract. The Bush administration awarded the RIO contract to Halliburton/KBR without asking for competitive bids.

Under the RIO contract, Halliburton/KBR was issued ten task orders for oil-related work throughout Iraq. While the Bush administration has repeatedly refused to provide Congress with any unredacted copies of the DCAA's audits of the ten task orders, the National Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Reform was able to obtain the audits for task orders 5 through 10. Those audits reveal that Halliburton/KBR overcharged by as much as 47.4 percent of the total value of the individual task orders. The average overcharge by Halliburton/KBR amounted to 12.6 percent of the task order value.

Ever-eager to defend the good name of the Vice President and his former company, Bush & Co. have repeatedly refused to provide Congress with the audit reports prepared by the DCAA. In fact, Bush & Co. made the extensive redactions to the audit reports at the specific request of Halliburton/KBR. Then, when the National Security Subcommittee threatened to subpoena the audit reports (after its requests for the audits were denied no fewer than 12 times), the Pentagon replied that "issuing a subpoena will not get the material released any faster."

Or, in the immortal words of our poetic Vice President, "Go fuck yourself."

In fairness, what good would it be to have the Vice President in your pocket if it didn't allow you to conceal evidence of your fraudulent activity and then get a $72 million bonus?

Regardless, Bush & Co. have decided to conceal the documented criminality of Halliburton/KBR despite Bush's earlier promise to the contrary. Upon the release of the DCAA's preliminary findings regarding the fraud and thievery of Halliburton/KBR, Bush declared at a press conference on December 12, 2003, that the DCAA's investigation would "lay the facts out for everybody to see."

Apparently, Bush doesn't include Congress and the American public in his definition of "everybody."