No, they don’t. Most publications and television stations won’t run a picture of a rape victim as a matter of policy. If the victim wants pictures of her to run, though, they will.
The shipping container part has already been established as misleading. However, if there are armed men prohibiting me from leaving one, I would not consider it “my protection” no metter how well-appointed it was.
If she was in the Green Zone, did she really need the “protection” of being locked under guard whether she liked it or not? Congressman Poe seems fairly certain that he sent State Department workers from the embassy to ‘rescue’ her so I can believe that she was not being allowed to leave at her own will.
In any event, even if the entire incident were made up, the real story seems to be a situation in which accusations of violent crimes by US subcontracted workers are not pursued and that even a US Congressman can’t find answers for how this accused crime is being handled by either KBR or the government.
The guards also refused to bring her food and water. Why would they do that if they were “protecting” her?
Her allegations appear to be supported by bothe the army and the State Department and I haven’t seen any substantive denials from Halliburton or KBR, only attempts to keep as much information out of the public record as possible.
When I call those guys ‘fuckers’ I didn’t mean it literally.
Well, hopefully the truth will come out during the trial. Oh, wait, that’s right. There’ll be no trial. Because the alleged perpetrators are special people, hired by a special company, and they have been put outside the reach of the law because it was politically convenient.
If that doesn’t piss you off, it should.
I can’t wait for the feminists to come take a miami-sized dogshit on this thread, because this seems like a classic case of “blame the victim.”
However, my immediate reaction was, “wait, wouldn’t that make her like 19 or 20 when she was over there!? Huh?” I really don’t envision a mega-corp like Haliburton hiring people with GED’s to head into a war zone…
No, actually it isn’t. Inside the Green Zone there are a large number of workers in their early-to-mid twenties, including administrative personnel, office temp workers, and political staffers with school or family connections to the Bush Administration. Concern over personal security and theft, even inside the Green Zone, is a real issue, and the amount of criminal activity and graft is…well, actually unsurprising, really. If Graham Green were alive today, he could easily substitute Baghdad for Vienna in his screenplay for The Third Man, except he’d have to replace the multinational interests with corporate ones.
For a basic if somewhat limited description of life in the Green Zone under the first year of Cccupation, try reading Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone. Far from being a zestful attack on the Bush Administration or a defense of Saddam Hussein regime (he spends considerable time investigating how Hussein’s rein, particularly in the post-Iran-Iraq war and post-Gulf War environment, bankrupted the country and encouraged corruption) it is a thoughtful exposition about the well-meaning but often naive attempts of many people to introduce the fundamentals of modern democratic government, financial and banking systems, and education into post-invasion Iraq, only to be foiled by a lack of political and logistical support, pledged funding, internecine struggles between the State Department, the military, and the Bush Administration-appointed interim Coalition Provisional Authority, and a lack of unity and security among the initially welcoming populace, exacerbated by the crumbling infrastructure of Baghdad under Hussein’s later rule. Anybody who thinks that the problems there are easily manageable, or that the situation is or was ever under control will be in for a surprise.
Stranger
I find it easier to envision a 19 year old woman working for KBR in Iraq than to envision the State Department not calling up Congressman Poe and asking him what drugs he was on when he sent them to rescue an imaginary woman.
In Basra. Nowhere near The Green Zone.
I agree with all you say, except this. Enforcing an arbitration agreement is pretty standard in employment litigation. In fact, in her opposition to the motion to compel arbitration she says:
There is an arbitration clause in her employment contract.
She demanded, and is apparently pursuing, arbitration for some of her claims.
She raises a lot of arguments in the Opposition, some possibly winners (the arbitration clause wasn’t in the contract when she signed it, fraud in the inducement, some of the claims aren’t covered by the clause) and some non-starters (sometimes they don’t enforce the arbitration agreement, unconscionability, breach of quid pro quo). But that doesn’t mean the defendants are sleazy just because they raised the issue.
Don’t get me wrong. I think they’re sleazy for a lot of other reasons.
And immunity from prosecution is simply unacceptable.
That’s a really asinine statement to make given that Saudi Arabia isn’t Iraq and this is clearly an example of how a Western secular society is perfectly capable of failing to adequately protect rape victims in the same manner that Saudi Arabia screwed up in sentencing that woman to 200 lashes.
You’ve made a bigoted ass of yourself.
Agreed. However, no contractual arbitration or exclusionary clause can be construed to require compliance in the situation of a violation of criminal statutes. The loophole is, as you note, that KBR and its employees and assignees have been decreed as immune from prosecution, although I question that this should really be the case; it might be extralegal in the case of violations by American contractors against Iraqis in Iraq, but it seems to me that American federal statutes and possibly the criminal codes of the state in which the company is headquartered would still apply to violations of American citizens by employees and assignees of the corporation in question.
The loss of evidence while (allegedly) in possession by the contractor is disturbing. The stonewalling off accused persons and their employer is doubly so. We don’t know–and given loss of evidence we probably can’t know–whether the alleged crimes were actually committed, but the behavior of KBR and Halliburton certainly does nothing to dispell the notion or undermine the allegations. And given demonstrated violations of human and civil rights by this contractor and others, it hardly comes away as exaggerated or unbelievable. The claims that her story and indeed verifiable presence in Iraq at the time of the alleged event are patently “bullshit” due to her age are absurd to the point of offensiveness.
Stranger
If she had been an IBM employee in Germany, and she was raped by other Americans, also employees of IBM in Germany, what would be her legal recourse in the US?
If what she says is true, it was indeed a tragedy and the perps are scum. But I don’t see how US courts would have jurisdiction over this. Do we “own” the Green Zone? The fact that these guys are immune from prosecution in Iraq is the problem. But then, how many would agree to go over there if they weren’t immune? It’s dangerous enough over they without having to worry about violating some Islamic code or another.
I’m still waiting for a cite on people being killed for flashing a little ankle. Do you know that the “at least 40 women” were killed to the last for flashing a little ankle? Or do you suppose there are lots of violations of Islamic dress code and your source made no specific mention of what ones lead to the murders.
Those are also vigilante murders, not state executions. The Iraqi government is not killing women for flashing their ankles.
Seems like a good time to remember one of Bush’s shining moments. April 10, 2006:
Video clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD7BDP3XMG0
Yup, we can ignore corporate sponsored rape rooms because the folks killing women aren’t doing it for ‘flashing a little ankle’, and they aren’t from the government anyway. 
Good points, all!
I’m a little confused as to what the immunity entails, as well. I know the federal government does have jurisdiction over the crimes its contractors commit overseas as illustrated by this case: C.I.A. Contractor Guilty in Beating of Afghan. Mr. Pasarro was tried by a federal criminal court in Kentucky for crimes he committed in Afghanistan.
Who was the micro-cephalic genius who thought up giving KBR immunity from criminal prosecution? How far does that immunity stretch? Is the immunity even legal?
I don’t think it’s as clear-cut as some make it out to be. I cited all sorts of discussions about the issue in the previous thread that I linked. But we’re talking about apples and oranges. You are correct that criminal prosecutions aren’t subject to arbitration clauses. Depending on how the arbitration clause is drafted, courts sometimes do compel arbitration of intentional torts. E.g. http://ds.columbuslawlib.org:8080/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-3965/04-1239.pdf ; http://vls.law.villanova.edu/locator/3d/June2007/064751np.pdf ; but see, http://www.shrm.org/hrmagazine/articles/0803/0803gutterman.asp
Yes, and I certainly hope that Jones gets the benefit of the spoliation inference. Home
I agree. Although their immunity from prosecution robs them of a key means to continue the stonewalling. They can’t invoke the Fifth Amendment.
Which is why I think the spoliation inference is quite appropriate here.
Agreed.