‘National affairs’ Archives
The Contractor’s Fight at Home
War for Hire: Dan Rather explores the "invisible army" in Iraq and the combat contractors face. In an extended online report for HD.net scheduled for June 4, Rather portrays the 100,000 or more civilian contract workers as being caught in the "crosshairs," whose uncounted casualties and injuries go overlooked in daily Pentagon briefings and the [...]
Giant Sucking Sound at the Border?
DynCorp is Hiring Again: 120 openings. Compensation includes more than $134,000 in salary, much of it tax-free, plus a $25,000 bonus for signing up in time for a May 5 training session. Working Conditions: Challenging. The border is in Iraq. (more...)
War in Iraq Costs: A Half-Trillion-Dollars and Counting
Receipts for the war in Iraq to will soon be ringing up to $564 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. That's more than ten times the $50 billion that the Bush administration once predicted before the war started in March 2003. "It's worth it," Bush said last May, when the tab was about $320 billion. "I wouldn't have [...]
Willing to Please
There once was a line of thinking that the sign of a good manager is when one knows his or her weaknesses and compensates those weaknesses with the strengths of a well-rounded staff. Good presidents also go out of their way to find the strongest thinkers of opposing views to help probe policies for their weaknesses and figure out where solutions [...]
A ‘Clara Barton’ of the Web for Civilian Contractors Injured in Iraq
Jana Crowder, raised in Houston and now living in Tennessee, just may deserve a medal. Certainly, many owe her their thanks. Using the Internet to optimum effect over recent years, Ms. Crowder quietly built a community network that addresses the concerns of civilian workers and shares information among those fighting for medical treatment and [...]
Iraq Vet Says Bank Heist Might Be ‘Political’
AN ARMY VET HAS BEEN TELLING THE NEWS MEDIA that he witnessed US military personnel commit war atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the rape of an Iraqi woman, the execution of 12 to 17 prisoners in Afghanistan and robberies. He claims that after reporting the crimes to his superior officers he was told "to forget about it." Former Army [...]
Al Gore Taps the Internet
From the man accused of taking credit for inventing the internet, a new political crusade is heating up to fight global warming. Fresh off his Oscar winning power-point presentation, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore launched a chain email lobbying effort this week to pressure Washington into heeding his documentary's warning: time is running out for [...]
Tim Hates Chris and Other Nasty Business
Kiss, kiss in the Beltway. Tales of media favors, backstabbing and manipulation. This morning's Los Angeles Times reports on the Libby trial: As they talked by phone, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby scribbled down a series of Machiavellian suggestions from Cheney's then-communications guru, Mary Matalin: What to do about MSNBC talk show host Chris [...]
Strange Business Behind US Embassy Contract in Baghdad
A fog of secrecy has shrouded the $592 million contract for building the US embassy in Baghdad ever since it was quietly awarded in summer 2005 to a Kuwaiti contractor. The award, in itself, is odd. New York-based Framaco claims to have made the least expensive bid. One company source told me Framaco was $60 million to $70 million less than First [...]
Well, It Sounded Good Last Week….
..... According to The Washington Post: Twenty in 10: Bush said in his State of the Union speech last week that he has a "goal of reducing U.S. gasoline usage by 20 percent in the next 10 years." The fine print: Administration officials said that the goal is 20 percent below projected annual gasoline usage, not off today's levels. That's very [...]
