Goddess, puh-leeze!

December 13th, 2007

I like men — I’m issuing this as a disclaimer to any notion that this is a post focused on male bashing; for many of my early years, I liked men better than women. I recognize now that life is, especially in youth, moved ahead by ones glands and desires … a little “practice period” for how to use the equipment and understand it … but back then, I found most of my girlfriends confusing, irrational and bitchy, if not downright treacherous. It was easier to understand … and trust the clearer signals given by … the male animal. I came to appreciate their sensibilities.

That said, there is much about their basic programming that gives me the willies [no pun intended, but there you have it.] We’re all breathless, today, awaiting the new report on which sports MVP’s [and there appears to be several] might have taken “performance enhancing drugs” to better their game [so we can feign shock and disapproval] — and that whole drill encapsulates what I find most concerning about unenlightened male critters; their preoccupation with “winning” and “performance” and “games.” Add “group consciousness” and “gang mentality,” and you’ve got a combination of aggression and glandular overload that can only seek the lowest common denominator … and that’s usually below the beltline.

All of which is why the infusion of Goddess consciousness is desperately needed to balance out not only our activity, but the way in which we think. Patriarchy and its sexist, racist, power-hungry ownership of all it surveys is dying a bitter, brutal and loudly-protesting death, but Matriarchy is not the answer either — as with all humankind, it is our commonalities that are important, not our differences. Coming to recognize and value them, and the respectful dialogue that they invite, is the challenge of our times and the invitation to a doorway of paradigm change.

Until that happens — rape and rumors of rape will fill our front pages. Rape and war are synonymous — and under this government, we are ALL Jamie Leigh Jones. [Watch 20/20 on ABC Friday night for her first person account.]*

Second disclaimer — I’ve come to fully appreciate and depend upon the consciousness of my sisters; as the glandular stuff waned, so did the competition. The whole business of propagating a species seems to override any other instinct in humankind but it did not take me long to learn to recognize the difference between women running on their basic programming and those who loved and nurtured themselves. I have, literally, no idea what I would do without the remarkable, loving and supportive women in my life.

* ABC published their article with a glam photo of Ms. Jones — I’ve seen other pictures in the last days that are not so bunnyesque and which surely would have been more effective to the solemnity of these allegations. This prompted a blogger to respond thus:

Is it just me or does the choice of photo by ABC suggest she was asking for it?

~ Elliott, December 10th

And, Elliott, m’man … my thoughts exactly. There you have it, America — throw on some too-bright lipstick, go creative with your eye makeup and wield the hairspray like a blowtorch and you TOO can be “asking for it.” You must not celebrate your body or seek to enhance your beauty if you wish to be thought of as anything more than a slut.

Goddess — help us!

Commentary first, then political fallout.

Jude

Gang Rape Cover-Up by US, Halliburton/KBR
Brian Ross, Maddy Sauer and Justin Rood, ABC News
Monday 10 December 2007

KBR told victim she could lose her job if she sought help after being raped, she says.

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.

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.

“It felt like prison,” says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming “20/20″ investigation. “I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened.”

Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.

“I said, ‘Dad, I’ve been raped. I don’t know what to do. I’m in this container, and I’m not able to leave,’” she said. Her father called their congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas.

“We contacted the State Department first,” Poe told ABCNews.com, “and told them of the urgency of rescuing an American citizen” - from her American employer.

Poe says his office contacted the State Department, which quickly dispatched agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Jones’ camp, where they rescued her from the container.

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.

A spokesperson for the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security told ABCNews.com he could not comment on the matter.

Over two years later, the Justice Department has brought no criminal charges in the matter. In fact, ABC News could not confirm any federal agency was investigating the case.

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.

“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.”

Congressman Poe says neither the departments of State nor Justice will give him answers on the status of the Jones investigation.

Asked what reasons the departments gave for the apparent slowness of the probes, Poe sounded frustrated.

“There are several, I think, their excuses, why the perpetrators haven’t been prosecuted,” Poe told ABC News. “But I think it is the responsibility of our government, the Justice Department and the State Department, when crimes occur against American citizens overseas in Iraq, contractors that are paid by the American public, that we pursue the criminal cases as best as we possibly can and that people are prosecuted.”

Since no criminal charges have been filed, the only other option, according to Hutson, is the civil system, which is the approach that Jones is trying now. But Jones’ former employer doesn’t want this case to see the inside of a civil courtroom.

KBR has moved for Jones’ claim to be heard in private arbitration, instead of a public courtroom. It says her employment contract requires it.

In arbitration, there is no public record nor transcript of the proceedings, meaning that Jones’ claims would not be heard before a judge and jury. Rather, a private arbitrator hired by the corporation would decide Jones’ case. In recent testimony before Congress, employment lawyer Cathy Ventrell-Monsees said that Halliburton won more than 80 percent of arbitration proceedings brought against it.

In his interview with ABC News, Rep. Poe said he sided with Jones.

“Air things out in a public forum of a courtroom,” said Rep. Poe. “That’s why we have courts in the United States.”

In her lawsuit, Jones’ lawyer, Todd Kelly, says KBR and Halliburton created a “boys will be boys” atmosphere at the company barracks which put her and other female employees at great risk.

“I think that men who are there believe that they live without laws,” said Kelly. “The last thing she should have expected was for her own people to turn on her.”

Halliburton, which has since divested itself of KBR, says it “is improperly named” in the suit.

In a statement, KBR said it was “instructed to cease” its own investigation by U.S. government authorities “because they were assuming sole responsibility for the criminal investigations.”

“The safety and security of all employees remains KBR’s top priority,” it said in a statement. “Our commitment in this regard is unwavering.”

Since the attacks, Jones has started a nonprofit foundation called the Jamie Leigh Foundation, which is dedicated to helping victims who were raped or sexually assaulted overseas while working for government contractors or other corporations.

“I want other women to know that it’s not their fault,” said Jones. “They can go against corporations that have treated them this way.” Jones said that any proceeds from the civil suit will go to her foundation.

“There needs to be a voice out there that really pushed for change,” she said. “I’d like to be that voice.” ++

Gang Rape Cover-Up by Halliburton/KBR Revealed
KBR told the victim she could lose her job if she sought help after being raped by her fellow employees.
Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone via Alternet

Yes, a gang-rape in Baghdad, by Halliburton and KBR employees with a Halliburton employee as a victim. The cover-up has been swallowed, if not actively abetted, by US personnel there. This should result in massive investigations and firings. In Bush World it will probably result in renewed Halliburton contracts and medals for their workers.

There’s not much one can say to increase the disgust that this story is going to serve up to the American public on ABC’s 20/20 in a couple nights. A young American woman working for Halliburton was gang raped by her fellow employees, then Halliburton covered up the crime and threatened the woman if she chose to report it. Evidently the US government, such good friends of Halliburton, is supposedly taking part in the cover-up, evidently favoring Halliburton over a gang-raped citizen. Here’s the report, but the video is on TV in a couple days:

[...]
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.
[...]

You know, that sounds like kidnapping to me. The rest of the article shows how evidence was taken by Halliburton employees, and subsequently disappeared. It shows the United States government refusing to comment, and also refusing to bring charges, thus forcing the victim here to go to civil court to redress her extreme grievances.

I can’t say more than that my government is supposed to be better than this, but time after time Bush and Company has shown itself without morals of any kind. We should all be outraged. ++

The Pirates of Mesopotamia
digby, Hullabaloo
12/10

So, apparently Halliburton isn’t just pillaging the treasuries of Iraq and the US. Their mercenaries are allegedly raping their own female employees, with no repercussions. From Jane Hamsher:

No doubt it was just a few “bad apples”:

[...]

Nothing like this has ever happened before. Except for maybe when the drunken Blackwater employee killed a bodyguard for the Iraqi vice president and the State Department helped whisk him out of the country before anyone could investigate.

Thank you, Paul Bremer and Order 17. No charges have been filed against the drunken Blackwater employee either, and for the same reason.

And how about those Blackwater contractors responsible for shooting 17 Iraqis in Baghdad? Not to worry. If Order 17 doesn’t get them off the hook, the State Department seems to have offered them legal immunity.

Someone needs to be asking serious questions about the relationship between the government and contractors who seem to be calling all the shots. Why exactly were army doctors handing over a rape kit to Halliburton employees such that they could “lose” it?

I doubt Halliburton is worried. This, in the end, is all that matters.

And except for this:

Middle-aged men having sex with 12- to 15-year-olds was too much for Ben Johnston, a hulking 6-foot-5-inch Texan, and more than a year ago he blew the whistle on his employer, DynCorp, a U.S. contracting company doing business in Bosnia.

According to the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) lawsuit filed in Texas on behalf of the former DynCorp aircraft mechanic, “in the latter part of 1999 Johnston learned that employees and supervisors from DynCorp were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior [and] were purchasing illegal weapons, women, forged passports and [participating in] other immoral acts. Johnston witnessed co-workers and supervisors literally buying and selling women for their own personal enjoyment, and employees would brag about the various ages and talents of the individual slaves they had purchased.”

Rather than acknowledge and reward Johnston’s effort to get this behavior stopped, DynCorp fired him, forcing him into protective custody by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) until the investigators could get him safely out of Kosovo and returned to the United States. That departure from the war-torn country was a far cry from what Johnston imagined a year earlier when he arrived in Bosnia to begin a three-year U.S. Air Force contract with DynCorp as an aircraft-maintenance technician for Apache and Blackhawk helicopters.

It’s not like we didn’t know ahead of time that the “contractor thing” was a very bad idea. I posted about that DynCorp case back in April of 2003. And the issue then, as now, was the fact that private military contractors don’t fall under any legal jurisdiction.

It’s a feature, not a bug. ++

Congress to Probe Iraq Rape Allegations
House Panel Looking Into Charges by Former KBR Employee
JUSTIN ROOD, ABC
Dec. 13, 2007

A House panel is looking into charges of sexual assault made by a former Halliburton/KBR employee in Iraq.

At a hearing next Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee will hear testimony relating to allegations made by Jamie Leigh Jones that in 2005, a group of Halliburton/KBR employees in Baghdad drugged her and gang-raped her less than a week into her time in the country.

The hearing comes on the heels of numerous letters from lawmakers demanding answers in the case, which will be featured on ABC News’ “20/20″ this Friday.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, wrote earlier this week to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a State Diplomatic Security agent who allegedly worked Jones’ case.

Jones has said Poe’s intervention with the State Department more than two years ago led to freeing her from the furnished container in which she says Halliburton/KBR held her following her alleged rape.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., also wrote to Mukasey, to ask for an investigation into Jones’ claims.

And House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., also wrote a letter to Mukasey, which was co-signed by Poe.

In a statement, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., blasted the administration for taking so long to resolve Jones’ case, calling it “just another example of Justice Department’s inability to complete an investigation into possible wrongdoing by private contractors.”

On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack confirmed the department had investigated Jones’ case and turned results over to the Department of Justice. He declined to give specifics or comment further.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Wednesday the case was under investigation. “We just aren’t able to comment.”

Halliburton, once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, has won more than $16 billion in contracts with the U.S. government for work in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006. It spun off its subsidiary KBR in April. Jones is suing both companies in civil court; Halliburton says she has improperly named them as a defendant.

In a statement, KBR said it was “instructed to cease” its own investigation by U.S. government authorities “because they were assuming sole responsibility for the criminal investigations.”

“The safety and security of all employees remains KBR’s top priority,” it said in the statement. “Our commitment in this regard is unwavering.” ++

CNN legal analyst: Alleged Halliburton rapists may go free
John Byrne and David Edwards, Raw Story
Wednesday December 12, 2007

Because of an employment contract signed by Halliburton employees requiring that all disputes be settled out of court, a legal analyst for CNN says employees alleged of gang raping a former employee may go free.

Former employee Jamie Leigh Jones is filing a federal lawsuit claiming she was gang-raped by employees of Halliburton in Iraq and held shipping container with a bed, then told she would be fired if she sought medical treatment.

“She signed an employment contract and there is a mandatory arbitration clause in that contract,” CNN legal analyst told Kiran Chetry on CNN’s American Morning Tuesday. “It says if there’s any dispute arising out of your employment or related to your employment, that dispute doesn’t go before a jury, doesn’t go before trial judge, goes before an arbitrator.”

“The bottom line is I am surprised that the Justice Department and that the prosecutors have not investigated this to its completion and brought charges and I have to say I think that is coming,” Hostin said. “I think after all the press that we’ve seen, that is going to come, but this is a civil action, an action that she is bringing and typically when you bring a civil action, you can bring it according to The constitution or according to your rights you can bring it in a court of law. She signed that right away with her employment contract and people do it all the time.”

“You’re talking money, not prison time for the accused if they are found guilty,” Chetry added.

[Open link] This video is from CNN’s American Morning, broadcast on December 12, 2007. ++

Embattled State Department Inspector General Resigns
Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers
Friday 07 December 2007

Washington - Embattled State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, under fire for allegedly impeding probes into problems with construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and with security firm Blackwater Worldwide, submitted his resignation Friday.

Krongard has been at the center of a storm for the past two months as current and former State Department employees charged that he blocked them from pursuing investigations into contract fraud and mismanagement at the unopened $740 million embassy and into alleged arms smuggling by Blackwater.

In an e-mail to his staff, obtained by McClatchy, Krongard said that he plans to leave the government by Jan. 15.

In a reference to the upheaval in the inspector general’s office in recent months, he told his staff: “I also ask you, frankly, to make an effort to reduce the static that interferes with the harmony we would like to achieve.”

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.

The State Department’s inspector general is supposed to investigate criminal wrongdoing, audit contracts and inspect the agency’s embassies and missions worldwide [emhasis added - j].

Krongard, a former counsel to several leading accounting firms, became the focus of attention in mid-September, when Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Committee, released a letter questioning his conduct.

Krongard initially vowed to fight the charges.

But his position crumbled at a hearing of the House panel last month, when it became known that his brother, former top CIA official Alvin “Buzzy” Krongard, had been offered a position on a Blackwater advisory board.

In testimony to the House panel, Krongard initially disputed that his brother had ties to Blackwater. But he changed his position after speaking to him by phone during a break in the hearing. The revelation demoralized his Republican backers.

Krongard is the second major casualty in a spreading controversy over Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s management of department activities in Iraq.

Richard Griffin, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, quit in late October amid a furor over a Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad by Blackwater employees that left 17 Iraqis dead. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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Entry Filed under: Political Waves