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Sometimes one simply can't cast a vote with one's wallet. How many dollars did you choose not to spend on Halliburton's supply of rotten food to the troops?

This is the problem with government. It is forcing an agenda upon us. THAT is what lobbying is all about, and what the constitution is supposed to protect us against. When 'we the people' don't get a chance to provide input on a decision in ballot or wallet form.

We (the United States) spent all this money because there were enough people in enough power positions to get really, really, really rich off of it. We pretend it's in the name of "security" or "liberty" or "an Islamic Caliphate" or whatever other crap there is. The reality must be that some people, in the United States, in the Middle East, and in the richest corporations across the world, got way richer. I can't fathom that this was an accident. I can't accept that it's just a coincidence that Dick Cheney used to be CEO of Halliburton, and just HAPPENED to be Vice President of the United States from 2001-2004 when Halliburton got billions in government dollars. http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/about_hal/chronology.html

Since the beginning of civilizations, it always has been, and always will be, about the money. Even when it's about the religion, it's still about the money. All the theater we put on about how "evil" the "extremists" in Islam are and how "they hate us for our freedom" and blah blah, it's all crap. It's all about money. Some people with political ties made billions off the trillions spent. It happens all the time, in every culture, across the world, and 9/11 just allowed politicians an excuse to squeeze more money out of the near-bankrupt US system for their own pecuniary/familial/political gain.

I'd rather risk dying in an unexpected terrorist attack if we could have spent a trillion bucks on eliminating most use of fossil fuels in ten years. I'd take the one in a million (or whatever it is) risk getting killed by an "extremist" car bomber if it means we could have had an education system that isn't totally fucked. I'd take that personal trade off without hesitation. But you don't hear about people like me in the news. You hear about the families of the victims of 9/11....

It's always about the money. It always will be about the money. The plutocracy and cronyism is more rampant now than ever before. I mean you don't have to be a crazy conspiracy theorist to accept that it's all about the money. Just recently, Meredith Attwell Baker, an FCC commissioner who just voted to approve the Comcast-NBC merger, just agreed to take a job at the new Comcast-NBC corporation. Can it get any more transparent?

That's not really what the military-industrial complex does. The jobs that are created are jobs developing, manufacturing, maintaining, and operating high-technology weapons and other equipment, not jobs repairing the stuff we blow up.

That is false. The military-industrial complex blows stuff up and then rebuilds it. See: Halliburton, the military contractor deemed the only one ready to rebuild Iraq... while numerous major stakeholders operated our government. It's the same cast of characters running it all.

No paper trail is required to prove corruption. All that has to be shown is that your people benefited, that friends, colleagues, former coworkers etc. gained from your decisions while in office.

The Halliburton no-bid contracts are an excellent starting point, with many more like them to investigate.

> in that most of the Oil-for-Food funds were being siphoned off for Saddam's personal use while his people starved.

did you think that iraqi people is going better now ? (maybe yes if your source is foxnews )

>we saw how much corruption there actually was in the Oil-for-Food program. Thanks France.

uhm USA got more oil from this program than france in fact usa got 52% of it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/17/otherparties.iraq

and about corruption you should backcheck halliburton http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/ or blackwater http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1163 too

Easy, but not a good example. Halliburton, or more to the point, Kellogg, Brown & Root, is the only company in the US that can handle what needs to be done in Iraq. Ever wonder why no other company has sued the government over the Iraqi contracts? Because no one else can do the job. Sorry, try again.

This is an international issue. The FBI, CIA, NSA, and other "government" agencies now operate world-wide, and have become, in effect, a secret police.

It is possible that this particular case has been picked for its public relations value. The U.S. government's spy agencies have for many years been using ANY tool at their disposal to spy ANYWHERE. It is possible that this case is designed to try to get approval from U.S. citizens for this kind of spying, when much of the spying they do is not to prevent crime, but to help a company like Cheney's Halliburton make more profit.

This is an international issue. The FBI, CIA, NSA, and other "government" agencies now operate world-wide, and have become, in effect, a secret police.

It is possible that this particular case has been picked for its public relations value. The U.S. government's spy agencies have for many years been using ANY tool at their disposal to spy ANYWHERE. It is possible that this case is designed to try to get approval from U.S. citizens for this kind of spying, when much of the spying they do is not to prevent crime, but to help a company like Cheney's Halliburton make more profit.

According to this website, Haliburton has a cost-plus contract, which encouraged them to waste money. The movie "Iraq For Sale", which points this out. Unfortunately I know these sources are biased, so they're unreliable. Really, I have no clue what the truth is anymore. I've seen this debunked, but I've also seen the debunker debunked as well. Everything is BS... But something doesn't seem right when Haliburton receives a contract without any competitive bidding.

Quotes from the parent comment: "Wouldn't it be better to have invested in corn and really push ethanol. " and "No, starting a war for profit in the way you describe doesn't make much sense."

Most people who try to analyze U.S. government corruption have the simplistic ideas of the normal, moral way of being. That's one reason why the corruption works, because the citizens can be confused.

The fact is, although the price of oil is down, because the OPEC cartel has not been successful recently at getting its member states to limit production, the price of gasoline is still up. The scheme to make oil prices higher has made hundreds of billions of dollars for the oil companies, and is still making billions.

What is your theory? Why did Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush start a war that anyone with the slightest understanding of the area knew could not be won? This was the lie, and U.S. citizens accepted it: "U.S. government violence in Iraq will create a stable democracy in a region that has always known continual violence, since more than 2,000 years ago." Of course, most U.S. citizens cannot find Iraq on a map, even now.

In actuality, violence breeds violence, exactly as the world has seen in Iraq.

Another issue: Most people don't understand why ethanol cannot replace oil. The fact is, the energy needs of the world are too great for the amount of farm land.

Do you think Cheney and Bush follow the rules? Is Halliburton honest? For some companies, violence is extremely profitable. For the average U.S. citizen, it has been devastating, making each one of them a little poorer.

From the link to the Chairman Daniel Yergins wikipedia page-

Daniel Yergin also wrote and hosted a PBS production called "Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy". This 3-part television production was an advomentary (advocacy documentary) which made the case for free markets by interpreting the economic history of the 20th Century from a capitalist perspective. Yergin interviewed many high profile free-market advocates such as Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and Robert Rubin who presented economic history as a battle between centralized command economies and free market economies.

If he is seriously suggesting that Dick Cheney is interested free markets why does Halliburton get no-bid contracts... DOH! Next they will be telling you the 30% water cut on the Saudi Ghawar oil field is nothing to be concerned about, oh and remember Saddam has WMD and is helping AQ and global warming doesnt exist, oil companies don't conspire with corrupt governments and oh yes fairies and elves really do exist. /sarcasm

I did not know much about LOGCAP before you mentioned it, so thank you for giving me something to reasearch. However, I read the first three articles I could find on LOGCAP and none of them mentioned the competitive bidding process, nor anything comptetive or monetarily responsible that I could see. I would love some links to the competitive nature of the sytem.

HaliburtonWatch was on the top 3 links regarding LOGCAP and provides a none-to-flattering view of this program. Of particular interest is they assert a 9 million dollar study was given to a subsidy of haliburton (KBR) to determine whether or not private companies should be involved in these logistics and that, not suprisingly, the classified study found that the goverment SHOULD subsidize it. After getting the contract in 1992 Cheney became the CEO in 1995. After allegations of fraudulent billing practices in 1997 ( not a Texas megaconglomorate overcharging!) KBR/Haliburton lost the contract to Dynacorp. However, dynacorp was fired when Cheney took office again in 2001, and Haliburton resumed the contract, like clockwork.

Regardless of which puppet party is in control, the issue to me is the conflict of interest, and the repeated violations of trust by halliburton, outlined in detail at halliburtonwatch.org are indicative of the brother-in-lawing that is goin on here.

I don't mean to summarily dismiss your arguments or analogies, I really like this type of discourse, but I really do see very little in common between a for-profit private company getting a no bid contract while the (former?) CEO is vice president, and a public entity like the police being called when someone is breaking into a house.

Halliburton hired for storm cleanup

The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Halliburton subsidiary KBR will also perform damage assessments at other naval installations in New Orleans as soon as it is safe to do so.
KBR was assigned the work under a "construction capabilities" contract awarded in 2004 after a competitive bidding process. The company is not involved in the Army Corps of Engineers' effort to repair New Orleans' levees.

Read this.