Blood For Profits

Here's another possible scheme to get rid of my $22,571.27 credit card debt. Maybe I could, ummm, perhaps do a little exterior painting on some presidential palaces in Baghdad after the war?

After all, I see where the Bush administration has quietly drawn up an initial $1.5 billion in contracts for private U.S. companies to do reconstruction work in post-war Iraq (Here's one sample article from the Washington Post). In the past, most such post-war work has been carried out through the United Nations and through nongovernmental organizations, but this government prefers to pass out these plum contracts to its corporate buddies in thanks for all their campaign contributions. The UN, foreign governments and international charity and development groups have protested this decision to no avail.

"No Blood for Oil" has been a popular chant among antiwar protesters, but oil is just a small part of it. This war looks to me like one massive transfer of public funds to a small group of politically powerful corporations. First, we use up all these armaments to bomb Iraq (which will mean big contracts for defense companies to replace the bombs and missiles), and then we hand out billions more to U.S. companies to rebuild what we just blew up. So what if countless people have to die in this unnecessary war? There are big profits to be made, and profits made at public expense are the best of all.

I thought maybe since they were passing out all these billions, maybe I could bid on some little job, just enough to cover my credit card debt. You know, sweep up broken glass, repaint one of the presidential palaces in red white and blue trim, scissor Saddam's picture out of school textbooks, put up Pepsi billboards...I don't know, just some little job too small for Bechtel or Halliburton to profit from. But no, I can't stomach the thought. Bush's lies and his willingness to sacrifice lives for profit make me sick.

Guess I'll just going to have to keep paying off this debt the hard way, one monthly payment at a time....