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No doubt it was just a few "bad apples":
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.
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.
And here's the kicker:
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.
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.
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I can’t read this story without wanting to scream bloody murder.
Laws are for us little people.
FOG and FOD need not apply.
The so called DOJ should be made a separate branch of government. If something like this happened to my daughter, it might push me over the edge.
Some “nothings” that ever happened, as observed by Hannah Allem of McClatchy:
here
TexBetsy’s on the case
http://texbetsy.headonradionet.....ng-p-and-m
This is a disgrace.
Is it just me or does the choice of photo by ABC suggest she was asking for it?
What do I expect from a company formely run by Dick Cheney, a “man” who still receives money from this horrid company. Cheney doesn’t rape individuals, he rapes countries and kills their woman, their children and the old and sick.
I’ve no doubt Michelle Malkin will say she was asking for it.
A small consolation is that Dick is also old and sick.
And the Republicans have to gall to be proud of the likes of Rudy, Mittie and Huck.
Damn the leadership of the DOJ.
1,691 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN GOEZ ON AND ON AND..
Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
OK Firepups…has ANYone out there had enough??!! Good God…and Harry Reid is afraid ta play hardball with the budget ‘cuz contractors need ta be paid!!! How do we end this charade of representative government…democracy in this country will only be achieved from the street!!
KEEP THE FAITH AND REMEMBER THE CURE FOR FASCISM IS MORE DEMOCRACY!!!
(Comment edited by commenter prior to submission)
When you’re a multi-billion dollar multi-national with direct ties to the White House why worry about some 22 year-old woman who is clearly whining to get on TeeVee?
Honor and Diginity? More like Disrepute and Disgrace. Even the some of the 22% who still worship Preznit Ineffectively Infalliable are probably cringing over this. How long til Michelle Malkkkin publishes this girls medical records and such? My guess, one maybe two news cycles.
Wonder what Cheney would do if one of his kids was raped by “his” company? Or for that matter, what would GWB do?
I read this at RawStory earlier today and there are no words to describe how appalled I was when I read it. How can something like this happen? How can these people not be punished for it? I am beyond disgusted.
Would push me over the edge.
I really like those Barrett .50 calibre rifles.
Does anyone here favor war in any circumstance?
If so, please expect what you’ve got here.
She was wearing make-up and western clothing. She brought it on herself. Oh, I forgot. She’s an American - she used to have a right to wear make-up and western clothing and be the keeper of her own body.
This nasty assault business is part of a pattern of the Bush party.
I read this earlier today and found myself unable to control my anger. Here is where women has to take matters into our own hands because it just won’t happen by war mongers. This is part of the war mongering rite of passage.
Rape is a male problem. The violent act is done by them. Bet someone says, “They heard of some women raping.” Compared to 99.9% of male violence.
I wish to apologize to the men on this site but rape is one of those forbidden subjects we dance around lest we offend the “good and decent” guys. I expect the men to be the ones most outraged by what happened to this woman as well as other women.
When I lived in Bali rape didn’t exist. It didn’t exist because the men in the culture saw it as a male problem and they went after the man or men who committed this act. Men were disgraced. The rape victim went through a ceremony by the priests and was made whole again. She was not disgraced. The offenders were banished and their families felt the shame by the entire community. What a deterrent! There is no way America society will change so women need to drive the demand for justice.
And then there are the reported and unreported sexual assaults committed by the U. S. military in Iraq and elsewhere.
That’s not consolation enough. He will never suffer as his victims have suffered.
I suspect that along with this disgusting situation lurks another, under-reported, very important problem: steroid abuse among contractors. ‘Roid rage is a terrible thing.
I just wanted to emphasize what you said.
After reading the ABC story, I read a few of the comments. Apparently, according to the wingnuts, it’s Clinton’s fault. Their grip on reality is getting weaker every day.
QuakerGirl. I agree with you. I did not know that Bali had such a system. Theirs sounds like a good one.
I don’t expect any action by “new and better”, AG Mukasey or Gates. Do you?
What are the Democratic frontrunners saying about this incident?
And…just when and why did Halliburton dump KBR???
Any day now, Pelosi and Reid may have a comment about this crime.
You know it. Those bald-headed muscle-bound small-peckered ‘roid heads are known to develope anger management issues. Lots of them over there, I’d imagine. Especially with Blackwater. Some Military guys too.
What the hell is happening to this country
of ours.I don’t even recognize it anymore.I feel
terrible for this innocent woman! God I hope it’s not
too late for us!
It seems like it’s time to mention that, no matter how much a post like this may make us feel differently, advocating violence against other people is not permitted at FDL and will result in your comment being removed from the thread.
And Pelosi and the rest are practically begging Bush to take Iraq funding monies.
I’m guessing that Jones’ lawyers will be very interested in that question. If Halliburton is asking that their portion of her suit be dismissed because they divested themselves of KBR, this question becomes critical. They’d love to find something in the Halliburton files that says “gosh, KBR is really exposing themselves legally (and thus financially) because of the lack of supervision and accountability over their employees — let’s dump them before we get sucked into it.”
Can you say “discovery”? How about “subpoena”? Sure you can. And so can Jones’ lawyers.
Yes. I’d sure like to see this investigated.
I remember reading a story about a female military person dying of dehydration in Iraq. Issue was that women did not drink enough water, lest they have to get up and pee in the middle of the night- apparently at least one woman had been raped when she went out to pee.
Wherever there is war - there is rape, torture and murder. Its especially bad in zones where the soldiers can’t go into town and socialize. Good thing they’re all practicing Christian warriors.
Actually, they’d better not, since they would be charged under UCMJ if they were found to have it in their Urinalysis test…
Thank you. That one made me queasy.
God help us. We pay for this government and its subcontractors. Like Pach wrote this weekend, we all have blood on our hands.
Thanks for the reminder. Given that Christy’s a former prosecutor, she takes such things very, very seriously.
If we hadn’t gone into Iraq (based upon presidential and vice-presidential lies) this incident would not have happened.
Question for anyone who knows (and I think I need an answer fast). I tried to digg Jane’s story, and it got back to me asking if it was the same story as one of three other stories. There is apparently a story on Ameriblog that is similar but with a different author and different “publication”. Does that mean I should digg the other one and drop this one? Or can the same story be there with different authors from different blogs?
wsa reading about the Long Island couple ….ENSLAVING their Indonesian maids today!!!!..Merkka is great ,no?
you can digg it here, it’s all ready been submitted
exactly why it is a last resort….we never learn
This is an outrage.
Ultimately, I blame Bush and those who are behind him.
OT
Dana Perino on CSPAN sputtering through press conference
First, b/c they are milquetoasts, they must measure their opinion carefully against the prevailing right-wing sentiment that attractive women may deserve to be raped.
TNX for navigation links at top and bottom. *purrr*
Can one of the fine attorneys out there tell me…
If Bremer’s Order 17 created the loophole that protects KBR and their employees, can’t Jones sue Bremer? Doesn’t he bear the responsibility for creating a lawless zone where US citizens can rape and imprison another US citizen?
“nothing like this happened before” bet that isn’t true in the least. I bet it is commonplace. They probably use indigent sex slaves more often.
I’m just counting down the minutes until Ann Althouse notes that the raped woman has breastesses and shouldn’t have been walking around and stuff with them right there on her chest.
I am sure this has been mentioned but DNI Mike McConnell has an op-ed at the NYT entitled “Help Me Spy on al Qaeda”. It is a plea to extend the horrendous Protect America Act with its basket warrants and retro-active immunity for telecoms.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12.....ref=slogin
Basically, McConnell uses the “Be afraid, very afraid” argument.
In other words, support this or the terrorists will kill you.
Here is what McConnell wants:
1. Foreign to foreign surveillance has never been an issue
2. There is broad agreement that this includes such communications if they pass through US switches
3. It is not about privacy protections for terrorists but for ordinary Americans. McConnell apparently has trouble distinguishing between the two
4. There is no discussion of reverse targeting: using a foreign hook to surveil an American
5. McConnell does not mention minimization (what is to be done with incidental communications picked up on Americans) and how he wants the DNI and Attorney General (and not the FISA court) to call the shots on these.
McConnell calls FISA itself “an outdated statute that did not reflect the ways our adversaries communicate.” FISA already has easy, flexible procedures for obtaining a warrant. FISA itself has been modified many times since it was first enacted in 1978. The FISA court has almost never rejected a surveillance request. What this is really about is basket warrants. McConnell wants the power to surveil whole groups and classes of people. This would likely mean that large numbers of Americans would have their communications hoovered up in such operations. You also have to consider the kinds of Americans who would be most likely caught up in them: those of certain ethnic backgrounds, businesspeople, politicians, reporters, and academics.
And, of course, the call for telecom immunity because when corporations break the law it shouldn’t count. As McConnell says, “I served for almost 30 years as an intelligence officer before spending some time in the private sector.” You want to know what he was doing in the private sector? He was director of defense programs at Booz Allen Hamilton, the large defense and intelligence community contractor. He was also chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, the NSA and CIA contractors’ trade association. So when he claims, “When I returned to government last winter, it became clear to me that our foreign intelligence collection capacity was being degraded. I was very troubled to discover that FISA had not been updated to reflect new technology and was preventing us from collecting foreign intelligence needed to uncover threats to Americans,” I have to admit to a certain skepticism. Unless he was drunk most of the time, he knew very well what was going on with FISA. He probably had a pretty good idea too about the illegal programs the government and the telecoms were engaged in. But then this is nothing new. McConnell buffaloed a wimpy Congressional leadership into the August version of the Protect America Act with a false terrorist threat to the Capitol. He followed up with lies about how the PAA was used to capture 3 terrorists in Germany and how FISA had somehow delayed surveillance of Iraqis holding kidnapped American soldiers in Iraq.
McConnell has a pattern of lying and this op-ed fits the pattern. It also fits the pattern of the op-ed section of the New York Times being made available to any kook, liar, or neocon who wants to use it.
When a story is first submitted to Digg, they go through (I’m guessing) an algorhythm that searches for key words. When it finds similar wording, it flags as a potential dup. I make sure that they have not already picked up the FDL story I’m submitting and then go on and continue the submit.
I am watching John Edwards on Hardball.
I hope Clinton and Obama cancel each other out with their negative campaigning, and Edwards emerges as the compromise candidate.
I have to wonder if this had happened to a daughter (working, or serving in Iraq) of any of the politicians who refuse to admit their vote to attack Iraq was a mistake, would now change their minds.
Only 22. I hope she has the strength and resources, both monitarily and emotionally, to make Halliburton take a serious hit on this. I hope it is covered over and over and over. I’d love to see Jamie very wealthy.
Sorry for the OT, but could someone explain in one or two sentences what the significance of “Digg” is? I have done some Google searching, but all I am getting are very technical descriptions, not what the overall purpose is.
As things stand now, I will not vote for HRC or Obama in the primary.
If it happened to Jena or Not-Jena, it would probably result in summary execution, via proxy mercenaries, to the perpetrators.
Hugh- keninny had a post up earlier about Dodd’s reply to McConnell.
http://downwithtyranny.blogspo.....ttern.html
Did Tweety just say “Well we don’t like you!” to John Edwards? That’s what it sounded like!
Shipping container? Why didn’t Halliburton just waterboard this victim?
Okay. Now I know I was first, because I remember the number in the “Digg” box was zero when I started. Not knowing what to expect they gave me several choices to make like the title and the comment and the picture. Then when I was done with that, after I submitted the story, they gave me some choices of which of the stories could be a duplicate to the one I was submitting. In the meanwhile, I guess Eureka Springs completed the form and submitted the story while I was asking here about the rules, because her story was not among the choices I was given. So, now I am going to try to Digg it again, but I tried it before I wrote this and it would not let me. Now I’ve learned how this works, better luck to me next time.
There is a not so vague similarity between this woman us. A sense of “helplessness”.
Here is another classic Kommander Decider Guy doing his funny and amusing schtick. Iraq and private military contractors is a funny topic that greatly amuses him.
Q. What law governs the actions of private military contractors?
Kommander. I was going to ask him [Rummy]. Ha Ha Ha. Help! Ha. Ha. Ha.
Q. How do you propose to bring private military contractors under a system of law?
Kommander. I wasn’t kidding. Ha. Ha. Ha…I don’t mean to be dodging the question although it is convenient in this case. Ha. Ha. Ha. THAT IS HOW I WORK. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Here is another one of Iraq’s Funniest and Amusing Videos courtesy of Blackwater.
Pete Stark was correct and Nancy Pelosi as usual was wrong. Kommander Guy is amused. But he is also the Legal Decider Guy so the joke is on us, for thinking Law applies to private military contractors. We now know the Law is what Kommander says it is. Ha. Ha. Ha.
“innocent people…get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.”
Pete Stark.
Holding the woman in a shipping container against her will is false imprisonment. No water or food create other legal issues. Seems legal to do anything in Iraq if one knows the right people. Sue Paul Bremer - No rules - just right.
From the KBR website: “HOUSTON - April 5, 2007 - KBR (NYSE:KBR) today announced its separation from Halliburton (NYSE:HAL). KBR has been a subsidiary of the oil services company for the past 44 years. Today’s announcement marks the end of a separation process that began in 2005.”
Thanks for the link. Good for Dodd. What always irritates the hell out of me with McConnell is that he flat out lies. Even when he is caught in a lie, he doesn’t miss a beat. He just lies again.
I don’t think anyone should believe anything he says, certainly not in the Congress or the New York Times.
digg is a way to get the word out, to spread the story around. The more diggs the better!
there are more of these, clearly more, that have not come forward.
this is not nearly as distrubing to me as that video of the snipers just shooting innocent families random on the streatt as they drove on a beutiful day
they were proud of this, they posted it to the tune of some elvis presley movie
these are the stories we’ve heard about, how many have we not heard about?
tom hartman had on a great piece today about rumsfeld and cheney
nixon brokered the detant piece treaty and rumsfeld and cheney would have none of it
rather then piece as soon as ford came to office these two criminals created a “cia b” which was designed to manufacture evidence just like cheney’s propaganda machine about Iraq and Iran
so they made believe russia had nuclear submarines that were undetectable, faster then our subs, totally silent, each equipped with missiles to destroy america, SO SECRETY, even our own cia didn’t know anything about them
the real cia kept saying “NO SUCH ANIMAL”
cheney and rumsfeld said “see?…even the cia doesn’t know about these”
HOLY CRAP
WHY THE HELL ISN’T THAT STORY YELLES AT THE TOP OF OUR LUNGS?
I had no idea, I didn’t know anything about that but H0W THE HELL DOES RUMSFELD GET TO BE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE when that happened, how the HELL does cheney get to make believe there are ANY threats?
these criminals have a fuhfriggin TRACK RECORD of creating FEAR and creating stories THAT DO NOT EXIST
I have a special request, I am hoping someone on this board does a special blog concerning that story with rumsfeld and cheney
man oh man oh man, I WISH I knew that story before these IDIOTS attacked Iraq
Actually I had another politician’s daughter in mind. ;0)
No, he said “well, we like you!” He does like Edwards, and he especially likes Elizabeth Edwards. He also does not keep that to himself, which is one of his few saving graces.
hey, preview is working for me…first time it has since this side of the glass
very happy
For this, I predict a hat tip on the front page in your immediate future!
I’m sorry for being so obtuse, but I don’t quite understand how it does that.
No! Exactly the opposite. Matthews likes Edwards.
Speak for yourself, but you are wrong. I am not waiting for God. I have NO blood on my hands. I do not think most of the folks deserve that comment. Most of us do our best to stop the madness.
I saw that Q & A session. It is unbelievable. Went to see it via your link. After all this time has passed, there is still no law to govern contractors in Iraq. Its intentional.
When did Dick Cheney sever his relationship with Halliburton? Does Dick still get money from Halliburton directly and KBR indirectly?
According to the story, the embassy would have records of her call for help, the military would have records of her exam or at least that one occurred. Then there is this:
IANAL and am not sure about criminal convictions against the specific individuals involved but “disappearing the rape kit” is pretty much game, set, and match a for a civil suit against KBR.
Nice dissection of the DNI’s B*llsh*t, Hugh! 8-)
Matthews had a great smackdown of Tinkerbell for her thinking it was cute that she didn’t know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was. Tied it into the larger point that none of the dimbulbs in the WH know their history…nor learned anything from what little they supposedly knew.
The appointment of Tinkerbell by the way, is one in a long line of appointments that show Dubya’s utter contempt for America. His appointment to represent ND on the US Civil Rights Commission was a local Republican gadfly whose main claim to fame were her previous career as an exotic dancer and her ongoing advocacy of nudist camps. I don’t think their civil rights are what are at risk.
Apparently powerful people that don’t have much time find it easier to go to Digg for their stories and headlines, as they are more orderly and there are some stories from a number of different blogs. The number of people that thought the story digg-worthy is also considered indicative of the interest level of the story.
Looking at Olbermann.
Bush: what missing torture tapes?
Nixon: what missing 18 1/2 minutes?
KO just stated that McConnell will be in closed sessions with Senate Intel tomorrow and House on Wednesday.
You’re welcome. It’s all just so typical of McConnell and the NYT both.
Because when you win you get to pack government with partronage jobs. It the stupid fuckin system that we have.
The story of this woman breaks my heart. I am sure her case will be taken by some good lawyers and I hope she can identify the animals who abused her and get their pictures pasted all over the media as examples of the great recruits of Blackwater.
Everyday confirms a bit more and more that this country is a nation of idiots and aggressive animals who only think about themselves.
Look at all the pedophile out of control Republicans and Craig has the balls to sit in senate. These people are repulsive.
No one in the right mind wound countenance what the repubs had do, will do… that is anyone who is not wealthy. These people disgust me.
I can’t can’t stand this country. Look at what it is. It’s a disgrace, an embarrassment.
It only gets more and more like alice in wonderland.
All the Spew that’s fit to print… ;-)
It is not just Haliburton. The enormity of what war, and particulary modern war does to all who participate is hard for someone to comprehend if they have not been there. Then it is still hard.
The military sponsors games to civilian youth to get them desensitized to killing. Then it take soldiers in their late teens and early twenties and puts them in tanks with game like music blasting in their ears - yes modern tanks are equipt with music, and send the young men out to paly their game. One of the hardest news videos to see for me was a young man bounding out of his tank to see his “kill” only to find real humans - many civilains. No wonder the suicide rates are so high in this war. We have morphed in to human looking monsters.
If you desensitize people to humanity can rape and humiliation be far behind. This was has to stop and we need to begin to revisit our humanity.
PUSH, Shove, Shut it down.
here’s the wiki link, it explains it better than I can, I hope that helps :)
Wow! Did I really just hear that! The guy that did the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah has come forward (just today, apparently) and said he was waterboarded and he says he has come to decide this is torture!
I find Matthews disconcerting. He will act and talk like a bubbleheaded idiot and then the mists clear and he has a moment of clarity. IUnfortunately, it never seems to last, wish it did.
“Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have
never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn’t touched.
I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that
ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven
terror–of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again
in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme
moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at
some vision,–he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath–
‘The horror! The horror!…’
… Mistah Kurtz– he dead.”
-Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness”
Shouldn’t this break this whole (soon-to-be)case wide open now?
Coming in From the Cold: CIA Spy Calls Waterboarding Necessary But Torture
Fortunately, KO and Turley have no problem with the vapors… 8-)
Thank you, Ann!
Now I understand. I wasn’t getting that the whole idea is that people go to the Digg Web site and see what other people are Digging.
I prefer my own shovel.
Our government (the Republicans) is completely out of control. We are getting close to being nothing better than an authoritarian banana republic.
Oh and btw, Who exactly ordered you to conduct torture?
With nukuler weapons.
I think it is very cool that one of the greatest masters of the English sentence to ever live was not a native English speaker.
I just sent a note to Hardball asking Matthews that if what the Dem candidates do is pandering to special interests in order to win the nomination, what does he call it when the Repubs cater to the Religious Right, demonize brown people, and give so much credence to Grover Norquist and his ilk.
I do not expect a response.
Why do you think Chiquita is such a large contributor to the Repugs…?