NYT invented “evil conspiracy” to pay off a company for cheating us. The rubes believed it. | The NYT invented this idea that Halliburton is an “evil conspiracy” that George W and Dick Cheney conspired to pay off a company for cheating us, while ignoring the corruption of their favorite Presidents; FDR, Bill Clinton, Johnson, JFK, Nixon and so on. This lead to investigation, exoneration, and yet the myth persists in the minds of their rubes (readers). |
~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2005-08-04
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| The NYT invented this idea that Halliburton is an “evil conspiracy” that George W and Dick Cheney conspired to pay off a company for cheating us. This lead to investigation, exoneration, and yet the myth persists in the minds of their rubes (readers). |
There was a no-bid contract. These are not illegal, but ask why they were picked? We had an immediate war/need, KBR was the only company (a small division of Halliburton) at the time qualified to do what they needed done. This is exactly what Clinton did in Kosovo (with KBR), was he corrupt too? In total of the $10B spent, only $100M (<1%) was ever in dispute and it would have cost the military 5-10x the cost to do the same things. |
History
Halliburton has been around for 50+ years and has one division (Kellogg Brown & Root : KBR) that uniquely supplies military support services; what they call “force multiplication”. They do most of the logistics, support, and even security and other functions, for both the U.S. and UK, to free up the military to do more the fighting. They are the only ones providing this (at this scale). They provide those services at a fraction of the cost that the military/government does, and they are more “on-demand”. (Rapid hiring of consultants, without long term pensions). It is outsourcing of logistics services. So wehad a war to fight and a choice do we put a lot more troops in to do the job worse and at a higher cost, or outsource the job to specialists for a fraction the cost?
How much of Halliburton is the defense support division? According to their annual report, there was about $3.6B in a peak year. Because it is one of the least profitable divisions (thinnest margins), and it caused so much political pain (and there were plenty of scandals that weren't related to the Iraq War), and it was not a substantial part of their business, they sold off the division in 2006 (completed in 2007). If it was the War Profit machine that the left imagined, this would never have happened. }
Halliburton was picked in a “no-bid” contract. This is not criminal; this is common sense in these cases. We could have debated for months and gone through the normal bid and acquisition process, and lost lives while waiting for the bureaucracy to catch up. But the truth is they were the only American company, or arguably company in the world that does what they do; so fast track it with some auditing, and we’ll do the debate later. This is exactly how Clinton did it in Kosovo which gave Halliburton the same kinds of contracts that George Bushes administration did in Iraq. If GWB’s methods were wrong, then where were the same naysayers under Clinton?
But NYT needed fake news to fuel the readership declines, and tying the hated Dick Cheney, to a small division of his old company, and corruption was gold in their disinformation machine. It hit all the memes: corporate greed, Bush's imaginary puppet master pulling strings, the fantasy that Iraq was about Oil or Corporate profits. They got to spoon feed every liberal trope in these articles. So they ran multiple stories on how big a scandal anything with Cheney's old company had been [1].
Bunnatine Greenhouse raised a stink that Halliburton had been unlawfully receiving special treatment for work in Iraq, she said that military auditors caught Halliburton overcharging the Pentagon for fuel deliveries into Iraq. She also complained that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office took control of every aspect of Halliburton's $7 billion Iraqi oil/infrastructure contract. She of course found plenty of voice in the NYT, again.[2]
This lead to the liberal myths about Cheney (who had left the company), and how much money was made because of the Iraq War (all grotesquely overstated). Because of these claims, Criminal investigations were opened by the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Pentagon's inspector general. These investigations found no wrongdoing within the contract award and execution process.
| Myths: To this day, you mention Halliburton or Dick Chaney, and those victims of the NY Times smear merchandizing will all nod and relate fictional tales about how evil they were on war profiteering. Trying to reason with them, or point out the facts is rarely productive. So there's two histories, the one that happened and the one that is more often repeated or imagined in the minds of Times editors and their readership. |
There were laters disputes on some of those contracts, as there always are on huge contracts of this size. Again, perspective. So far, the disputed billing amounted to less 1% of the value of the contracts (nearly $10B, and there’s like $100M in dispute). They negotiated them out, and signed off on everything. So if they are crooks, they aren’t very good ones; 1% was disputed? Under Clinton we had scandals of far larger amounts. If we had paid the Military to do it, it would have cost 5 times that amount, and congress would have rightly complained that we didn’t save money and outsource. And the Democrats would have whined about something else. So this was just people looking for any excuse to attack the administration and throw up a smoke screen and not a legitimate complaint.
Imagine what a better world that would be with those people unemployed? Or the company/division which employs over 100,000 people (not counting contractors) would be vilified or even shut down by over politics and misinformation. How much better off would we be if we had to pay more to get less, or didn’t have them as an option? That hardly seems to be the huge conspiracy that a few make it out to be. So those making noise about Halliburton are either the gullible (advocating wasting more money), or the partisans that know better but want politics over fairness, savings, or truth.
👁️ See also
Iraq War -
Disagree with American policy or bumbling implementations of that policy. Be anti-war. Just be honest and consistent Preemptive War -
Iraq was the first preemptive war except for all the others. Legality of Iraq war -
No war is legal or illegal, there's only moral or immoral -- and all wars are immoral (some just more than others). Give it more time... -
Some have said we should have waited for France or the U.N. to change their minds, or for sanctions to work... Violence never solved anything -
Some say war/violence is wrong or that it never solves anything. It ended many wars and most mass murderers just fine. Bush lied -
Bush didn't lie: the world's intelligence disagreed on specifics, but all agreed that Saddam was trying to get WMD's. Valerie Plame -
Ex-CIA agent lies that she was outted by Bush Admin. Media perpetuates the lies for years. Quotes/Iraq War -
Leftists want to pretend they had nothing to do with the Iraq War. History (and these quotes) begs to differ. Iraq/Set a date for withdrawal -
Some claimed we should set a hard date and pull out of Iraq. That's stupid. Never telegraph your moves to the opposition. America made Saddam -
During the mid 2000's it was popular among the dim of wit, and big of mouth, to claim that Saddam was created by America. Iraq is because of oil -
All the time I hear people say that the U.S. invaded Iraq because of oil, money, or some other dumber reason. Oil is not a dumb reason. Iraq War Costs -
Everything comes with costs, action or inaction. The price of war, the price of peace. Patriot Act -
The 2002 version doens't bug me, what it might devolve into does. (Is it a slippery slope). Halliburton -
NYT invented “evil conspiracy” to pay off a company for cheating us. The rubes believed it. Guantanamo -
The left made a big deal about Guantanamo, where we had the right to treat people far worse than we did. Abu Ghraib -
Abu Ghraib was one small group of U.S. Soldiers that something bad things, were caught and punished quickly. Security in Iraq -
Militarily Iraq was one of the greatest successes in the history of mankind. Sociologically? We'll see. We should have done nothing -
Of course we can’t know if doing nothing is ever the better choice or not. But we can look at some facts.
🔗 More
New York Times
A never great News Agency has become a shadow of their former self: admittedly biased, occasionally good content.
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Iraq
Republic of Iraq, in Western Asia, borders Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Syria.
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The Left Lies
When the truth disagrees with your agenda, you can grow (change) or lie. The left usually chooses the latter.
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War
War, what is it good for? Democrats seem to like is as a tool for dividing us. (Imagined Imperialism).
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Consequences
Iraq War Consequences (things that likely happened because of War).
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Alt-War
There's the real history of war (what, why, how), and the progressive/left version. They only vaguely resemble each other.
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🔗 Links
Tags: NYT FakeNews Iraq Left Lies War Iraq War/Consequences Alt-War
