Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse

[andrewducker]

US kidnaps workers and uses them to build Embassy in Iraq:

I mean, what the fuck?

Comments

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

ITYM: First Kuwaiti Trading and Contracting Co. kidnaps workers and is retained by the US to build Embassy in Iraq. Not that this makes it acceptable, obviously, but accuracy is good.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell!

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

I concur. WTF and bloody Hell!

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Okay, in case anyone missed this, the US is the country that tortures people, passes laws to "stop" it that still allow it, and justifies it as being completely necessary even when it's been rather widely criticised. Where senior government figures say that it's sometimes necessary. It also freely ignores the laws of allied countries and depending on what you read may well have a fairly indiscriminate policy of just shooting anyone they can who looks a bit dodgy.

Slave labour is hardly surprising.

I suppose it's only because of transport costs that they don't ship out US convicts to do some hard labour in Iraq.

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

I know but it's the fact that it's so blatant and they can't use terrorism to justify it no matter how hard they try. Probably use The Bible this time round.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Look, this seems to be a case of a Kuwaiti contractor doing evil stuff without appropriate amount of oversight, and the US covering it up after the event in order not to look crap. However much you dislike the US, it's not the same thing as them instigating slave labour.

[ratmist.livejournal.com]

The responsibility ultimately lies at the State Department to vet contractors and manage them properly, and they are at the very least culpable if the charges laid against them are true. If true, this is a clear case of kidnap and slave labour done for the US, by US-paid contractors, rubber stamped somewhere at some point by State officials. Saying the US doesn't instigate slave labour - but allegedly benefitted by it in this case - doesn't make them any less culpable for damages. One of the greatest failures of the current administration is the inability to accept responsibility for one's actions. The mismanagement before and after Hurricane Katrina and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan demand someone to take responsibility, and the more the someone says, "Not my fault even though it was done on my watch and was ultimately my responsibility" smacks of arrogance at best, and willful neglect at worst.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I agree they're culpable and have failed in serious ways, but I was replying to a comment that said things like I suppose it's only because of transport costs that they don't ship out US convicts to do some hard labour in Iraq. - implying that somehow slavery was policy.

To give an analogy, they're (in this case) more like a drunken mechanic who doesn't check the brakes on a bus and signs it off as OK, than a murderer who sabotages the brakes. Both are culpable, morally and legally, but there's a bit of a difference in how I (at least) see them.

The fact that I can't stand the current US administration doesn't mean that I should judge them more harshly as a result.

[ratmist.livejournal.com]

I don't know international law and how it would apply in this case, but I think it's only fair to judge the US administration as harshly as it judges other governments and peoples around the world.

To put it another way, how would the current US administration react if a foreign contractor, working for a foreign government, allegedly kidnapped skilled US workers to work on a foreign government's embassy building, effectively turning skilled US workers into slaves? I think you'd see them take your analogy and definitely compare align the culpability towards the murderer, not the drunken mechanic.

And anyway, drunken mechanics in that situation in the US could possibly get sent to jail for murder rather than manslaughter, depending on the prosecution and the state and federal laws where it occurred, and whether it killed pregnant women and whatnot.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I am absolutely not prepared to argue that people who run stupid judicial or political systems should be judged according to their own systems as opposed to being judged with the best eye to equity and justice that can be managed. It might have a nice ring of irony or whatnot to it, but I consider it immoral.

[ratmist.livejournal.com]

Heh, fair enough. :)

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[ratmist.livejournal.com]

When I heard this clip, my first thought screamed that Filipinos weren't allowed to work in Iraq anymore since the hostage crisis that occurred a few years ago. I am not surprised that Filipinos may have been targeted for a project like this, considering over 60% of the workforce work abroad and send money to their families in the Philippines.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Uh, just as a note... the lips match the speech for the first minute or so of the video, and then stop matching entirely when he gets to talking about the Filipino nationals. I find that a bit weird, especially as the way they're purportedly kidnapping people seems so blatant, and why would they be allowed to get on a plane going to Iraq with boarding pases labeled Dubai? Maybe I just don't understand how things work in non-US airports (strike that: I certainly don't understand how things work in non-US airports, so maybe this isn't atypical), buut with the lack of matching in the lips that begins at the crucial point it's all just... odd.

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

Are you suggesting that there could be a falsehood here? On the Internet? Where Truth is sacred? Blimey!

[marrog.livejournal.com]

There's a blip on the visual, but the mouth is still moving correctly with around a single syllable lag. I had to watch that section several times (sometimes with the sound off) to figure it out as he doesn't move his mouth very much when he talks, but if you take a transcript and watch with the sound off I think you'll see that it still matches up.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

The longer the war/occupation continues, the more small-scale similarities between the behavior of these occupiers and those of a previous bunch (Europe circa 1940-45) emerge.

It's as if some pathological behaviors are naturally emergent side effects of this type of situation.

See also Milgram, Zimbardo, et al ...