Outsourced thuggery

It's bad enough that Blackwater USA headquartered in North Carolina is a source of home-brewed thuggery that's unleashed death and mayhem on civilians in Iraq. But the latest mercenary force in which its convoy was "driving on the wrong side of the street, shooting randomly at civilians and injuring one" isn't even an American-based defense contractor.

The Baltimore Sun reported:

The employer of the workers detained in yesterday's shooting, Almco Group, is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and has contracts with the U.S. Defense Department to provide some bases with essentials such as food, water and tents, the U.S. military said. It also has a contract to build a courthouse as part of U.S. reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

Since the U.S. has no extradition treaty with the UAE, defense contractors headquartered in Dubai cannot be held accountable in the U.S. for criminal activity. Bribe a U.S. congress-critter or perpetrate a fraud? No worries.

Earlier this year, Cheney's former employer, Halliburton, announced the company would relocate its headquarters to Dubai where it can continue to rake in billions of U.S. defense dollars, pay no taxes, and avoid accountability for alleged abuses. Isn't that convenient? The Bush-Cheney Administration doled out no-bid contracts to these scalawags at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

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Halliburton Watch quoted Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies who explained...

...most Fortune 500 companies have global operations, so that moving an entire headquarters to another country is not necessary. "With today's technologies, there's no real reason to have to physically relocate," she said. "Those that have are trying to evade U.S. oversight and tax authorities."...

... Halliburton earned a record $2.3 billion in profit last year. That's almost equal to the $2.7 billion the Pentagon found in the company's overcharges in Iraq....

... Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said, "This is an insult to the US soldiers and taxpayers who paid the tab for their no-bid contracts and endured their overcharges for all these years."

Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, promised hearings stating, "I want to understand the ramifications for U.S. taxpayers and national security."

In light of the Almco Group episode in Iraq, I urge congressional Democrats to expand their oversight deliberations into reviewing all the defense contractors and mercenaries operating in Iraq and Afghanistan to include the ones that hail from Dubai. Maybe Waxman has UAE-based contractors on his radar and I missed it.

However, seems to me, that all U.S. defense contracts should be limited to American-based companies unless there exists an overwhelmingly convincing justification to do otherwise. What would that be? I can't think of one good reason.

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What, Exactly, is going on with Danny Talbert?

If you aren’t in the Kansas City area, you have probably never heard of him. Even if you are here, you have to read more of the newspaper than just the headlines, because the articles about him and the spot he finds himself in have been comprehensive enough, but they have run on the inner pages of the local section.

Danny Talbert is a 26-year-old native of Harrisonville, an exurb just southeast of Kansas City. He spent the last year in Afghanistan, working for KBR/Halliburton on water-purification systems at Baghram Air Base. On Tuesday, February 6, Talbert was detained at the airport in the United Arab Emirates as he passed through security to board his plane to Kansas City. A knife and a piece of foil with hashish residue were found in his bag. He is still in custody in the UAE, pending trial. He faces four years detention if found guilty.

His UA came back clean, as all of his screenings had while he was on the job. He has no criminal record whatsoever, and all who know him swear he has never been involved with illicit drugs and find the whole situation surreal and Kafka-esque.

On the home-front, his sister and best friend have been burning up phone wires, calling elected representatives, embassies and anyone else they can think of that might be able to help. As of last weekend, his only meeting with a KBR representative had been interrupted by his jailers. In today’s paper it was reported that he now has a list of attorneys supplied by the U.S. embassy in Dubai, but no way to tell which ones speak English or handle criminal cases. He has been told to expect legal fees between $20,000 and $50,000 so his mother is mortgaging her home to help her son. Most of us don’t have fifty grand stuffed in the mattress for just such an emergency. KBR/Halliburton has not offered legal representation to their employee, even though they have overbilled the government many times over what it would cost them to defend this kid.

I don’t know Danny Talbert, nor do I know anyone who knows him. I don’t know a damned thing about him, other than he is in trouble. I don’t know if he is innocent or guilty, if he was stupid or if he was set up. I haven’t a clue about his political leanings, nor do I care.

I do know that stranger things have happened than a guys buddies sticking something in his bag as a joke, with the intent he get messed with a little bit by security; and the guy on the receiving end finds himself not just up a creek, but headed over the falls. It’s also not unheard of for someone who doesn’t consume drugs themselves to succumb to the financial allure of selling them; and to get caught because of a stupid, simple slip when preoccupied by other things.

Determining the details is what trials are for, and I just want him to get a fair one.

A legal defense fund has been set up at the Commerce Bank in Harrisonville, but as of today less than a thousand dollars had been donated. Anyone interested in donating can contact the bank by calling (816)380-3224, or checks can be snail-mailed to:

Commerce Bank
1301 Locust
Harrisonville, MO 64701
Attn: Danny Talbert Legal Defense Fund.

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