an email from my cousin in iraq

[veganwitch]

this was in response to my question of whether he was getting enough to eat with the kbr subcontractors threatening to withhold food service.

this is uneditted and from a guy who is pretty conservative in political views (read didnt like clinton and non-americans getting american jobs) and im not sure how this experience will sway his views of the republican party. but i found it interesting knowing him personally.


"If any of these civilian contractors do anything stupid like that, the military will kick them out, and military services will be brought in to take over. I think it would actually save the government money to do this stuff themselves. The civilian contractors are very wastefull, and stuff would get done quicker and easier if the military handled it themselves. We have heard that the starting salery for the civilian contractors here is about 80K a year tax free as opposed to the 30-40K a year we make from the military tax free. That is in addition to them being housed and fed at no cost to them. You also know if the employees are making that much money, that the companies are making even more. Even worse, the third country nationals (phillapinoes, mexicans, south americans, etc.) that the contractors hire for peanuts have to be escorted by military personell everywhere, so you are paying a military person anyway in addition to taking yet another job away from an American. I really don't understand how this whole arrangement is saving the government any money. It must just be another political strategy. It started way back with Clinton, and has contineud with Bush, so there must be some advantage."

edit: p.s. keep your fingers crossed that he gets to come home in april.

[Qanisqineq]

1. I heard similar things

from my husband. Except he doesn't make nearly 30k per year. They have no love for Halliburton/KBR over there. And the cots supplied in Kuwait are crap -- heard this from first hand experience and from an article. Wish I could find the link for a story on them.

[AP]

2. BTW, a soldier interviewed on Democracy Now today said he thinks the ONLY

reason the US has the troop level we have there today is to justify paying more to the private contractors.

I think I heard him say that they could do this job with 10,000 soldiers, and people could go home, except that the Bush administration couldn't justify paying as much as they do to Halliburton if they reduced the troop levels.

I wonder if the Spanish troops are forced to buy from Halliburton too? That might be why Bush wants them there.

[4MoreYearsOfHell]

3. This is believe, actually started with Cheney

When he expoused subcontracting non-combatant military jobs just before he left as SecDef under Bush41.

[leesa]

4. So many conservatives learning the lesson of privatization as a failed

concept. Much like the lesson of bombing "terrorists" makes more "terrorists".

[Roaming]

5. Fingers duly crossed for April homecoming.

Tell him thanks for serving his country.