Sunday, February 15, 2009

HOW CORRUPT WAS IT?


"Halliburton and its former KBR subsidiary have agreed to pay $579 million in fines to settle criminal and regulatory charges of having bribed foreign officials to win billions in construction contracts. There may be some taxpayer comfort in the fact that this scandal was rooted in Nigeria, not Iraq, where the Halliburton megacorporation (you know, the one Dick Cheney ran before he became vice president) reaped multibillions as the Bush administration’s most favored no-bid contractor"

That's the first paragraph of an editorial in this morning's NY Times.

Here's the full article, entitled, "More Annals of Global Greed Inc. "

By the way...

Speaking (as we were only a few days ago) of Dr. Strangelove, many of us have always associated the Peter Sellers character of the same name with Henry Kissinger.

But how hysterical was it to see this era's Strangelove, Cheney, being wheeled into the Obama inauguration in a wheelchair!

Did any of you notice him trying to stop his right arm from saluting?

3 comments:

NRF said...

If you want a more complete story than NYT tells, read 'Halliburton Settlement Leaves Unsettling Questions' by Scott Horton, an international law expert:

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004408

Everything that Scott Horton writes for harpers.org is worth reading.

NRF said...

It is fun to put a real name to Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. The scary thing is that there are a few serious possibilities besides Herr Kissinger.

1. Herman Kahn, promoter of the good sense of strategic nuclear war.
2. Edward Teller, nuclear bomb maker who believed bigger is better.
3. Werner von Braun, faithful Nazi scientist, untroubled by concern for humanity.

David Berner said...

Never forget that Werner Van Braun was the auhtor of that beloved tune, "I aim for the stars...but often hit London."