I don’t usually comment on current events, because others do it better, but I’m having a hard time letting this one go. Fresh Air featured an interview today with a journalist, Cam Simpson, a Chicago Tribute reporter who has written a story about 12 Nepalese workers who were abducted and executed in Iraq in August. The full story is available at the Chicago Tribune Online.

So here’s where your tax dollars are going:

  • Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a division of Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s company), supply most of cheap labor required for support services for the troops in Iraq.
  • Because of (legitimate) security concerns, KBR sources most of its workers as so-called Third-Party Nationals.
  • Many nations, including Nepal, have banned their citizens from working in Iraq because of concerns of safety and exploitation, but KBR looks the other way.
  • KBR uses Middle-Eastern subcontractors to source these workers, who use the same fraudulent and coercive practices that the US condemns in other countries.
  • US Federal law requires that companies like KBR provide death and disability benefits to workers in venues like Iraq, but KBR does not inform workers or their families of this, and isn’t paying against any claims.

So the 12 Nepalese workers that the story describes borrowed $3500 (a huge sum!) to work (they were told) in Jordan for $800 per month. Instead, they were taken to Iraq where they would have earned $300 per month, effectively in debt-slavery since they would never be able to pay off the loan given the interest they were charged. On the road from the airport they were given no protection (not cost-effective!), and were kidnapped, held, and gruesomely executed on video a few days later.

We heard very little about this story on the news, even on more serious and balanced sources like NPR.

I feel an enormous sense of anger and shame at my country when it condones and facilitates such exploitation and neglect of human life.