Wednesday

Squalid

Yep...squalid. Why? Because I'm running out of words to describe the shit-sandwich clusterfuck that some like to call the Iraq war. This story from McClatchy is just another example of the absolute dearth of humanity exhibited by companies whose biggest champions just happen to be running our country (into the ground) at the moment.

BAGHDAD — About 1,000 Asian men who were hired by a Kuwaiti subcontractor to the U.S. military have been confined for as long as three months in windowless warehouses near the Baghdad airport without money or a place to work.

Najlaa International Catering Services, a subcontractor to KBR, an engineering, construction and services company, hired the men, who're from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. On Tuesday, they staged a march outside their compound to protest their living conditions.


Hmmm. KBR. I'll be dipped in shit. Is there anything that company is involved in that doesn't weigh in on the ethics scale between criminally negligent and morally depraved?

Some of the men who've been living in the warehouses said that KBR representatives visited the site two weeks ago. They said Najlaa held their passports until the KBR inspection, which Najlaa officials denied. Seizing passports is a violation of the U.S. military's 2006 instructions to contractors.


I would hope that human-trafficking is also a violation of military instructions, but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't. Honestly. I wouldn't.

KBR didn't answer direct questions about the warehouses (no kidding?) but issued a two-paragraph statement. "When KBR becomes aware of potential violations of international laws regarding trafficking in persons, we work, within our authority, to remediate the problem and report the matter to proper authorities. KBR then works with authorities to rectify the matter," it said.


I feel much better knowing that the company responsible for nearly every civil project catastrophe in Iraq is working with authorities "to rectify the matter".

This next one is rich:

While the main complaint in the warehouses centered on living in what many considered prison-like conditions, Najlaa officials said it was crucial to keep the men in the compound to prevent kidnappings or other dangers. "We're in Iraq; it's a war zone," said Isha Rufaie, a Najlaa logistics manager who tried to calm the protest Tuesday.


And how does that justify your company practically enslaving these men in prison-like compounds? Just because it's a fucking war zone doesn't mean that you get to treat your human cargo like herd animals. Unbelievably, it gets worse:

A group of about 50 men living in tents about a mile away were even worse off than the men in the warehouses, and they appeared to be victims of human trafficking. They live in huts they built with tarps and pieces of carpet, and said they had no access to food or water.

The property is under the control of the Iraq Civil Aviation Administration, which couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday.


I'm guessing it would be tough to get in touch with an organization that has absolutely no reason to exist. The "Iraq Civil Aviation Administration", really? I didn't realize that things had gotten so good in Iraq that there needs to be an equivalent of the FAA there.

These men apparently didn't arrive in Iraq with contracts promising them work, but instead had relied on agents who were supposed to place them in jobs. The men in the tent camp, who're from the same countries as those in the warehouses, said they paid close to $5,000 to the agents.

"We came to make a good salary and go home, but we're not lucky," said Ganesh Kumar Bhagat, 22, a Nepalese man who sleeps with four others in a tent along the main airport road.

He hasn't told his family that his plans did not succeed in Iraq, instead assuring them that he lives and works safely on an American base.

Bhagat and others at the camp gave a McClatchy reporter phone numbers for the agents who led them to Iraq. Some numbers had been disconnected. In other cases, people quickly hung up.


The surge worked! Everything is roses now. I life was fair, all the architects of this debacle would be put on a desert island somewhere and forced to fend for themselves for the amusement of all the people that they have un-remorsefully shit on during the past six years. It would be very Survivor-esque, but with many, many more obese, rich white guys.

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