Some well deserved doses of karma, 5 to be exact, ended up in Cunningham’s Cheerios this morning. Since he’s such a Jesus-guy, I thought I could help in conceptualizing exactly how criminally insane an evangelical can get with the ‘ask for forgiveness and it’s done’ arrangement. He never recognized how hypocritical his existance had become.
This man conspired to profit from other people’s misery. He sought money in exchange for Iraq contracts that he could ensure went to whoever bribed him. By instilling a ‘no-bid’ system of awarding contracts, the opportunity for this kind of thing happening was huge. And while the Iraq dialog here at home is about the future, from all of the soldiers’ accounts I’ve read, a common thread I’ve noticed (whether right or left) is a high amount of frustration over the abundance of private contractors and how much more they’re making.
Here’s an officer currently serving in Iraq in a letter written to Operation Truth on the subject:
Speaking of contracts, KBR is a joke. I can’t even enumerate the problems with their service, but I guarantee they do not receive less money based on how many of the showers don’t work, or how many of us won’t eat in the chow hall often because we get sick every time we do.
There is so much. I could go on forever. the worst thing, which we have discussed, is that they are playing these bullshit numbers games to fool America about troop strength. If they stopped paying KBR employees $100,000 to do the job of a $28,000 soldier, maybe they’d have enough money to send us enough soldiers to do the job. As it stands we have no offensive capability in the most dangerous city on earth…I wish every American could see this for him/herself. Registering your frustration at the ballot box isn’t nearly enough. There should be jail terms for this.
The play on our heartstrings from politicians is to envision a soldier fighting in Iraq, and to sympathize with how they’d feel if we failed there. The disconnect politicians have always had with this concept is that the idea of ‘putting ourselves into their shoes for a day’ is only valid when prompted out of political necessity. Poignant to point out what Cunningham said in the past about the Vietnam War protesters.
“I would have no hesitation about lining them up and shooting them [Vietnam War protesters]. . . Those people should be shot for what they did to us over there.” (Feb. 2002 to a Blade-Citizen reporter)
Pay attention to, “what they did to us over there”, because the sentiment is strong in the tradition of approaching criticism as something unpatriotic and detrimental to the lives of those who are fighting the war. Protest is worth execution, yet taking bribes for military contracts is just fine. Clearly, the willy-nilly process of awarding these contracts has brought about a level of angst amongst our troops fighting in this war.
So Cunningham will go to jail for “what HE did to us over there”! See how that works? The man is elected, in love with Jesus, yet morally devoid when it comes to ANY of that good stuff from the New Testament. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Samuel Johnson said “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
In today’s political environment, if it’s a Republican in the crosshairs, you can be sure they’ll take a stop off at religion as well. Keep that in mind as we begin to discover how deep this corruption runs, how often these politicians lie right to our faces. Many of Cunningham’s colleagues came to his defense when these allegations first surfaced, and they were all either lying or ignorant. He was one of many crooks still left to lock up in DC!
These contractors don’t HAVE to do a good job over there. They operate in a zero-accountability environment, for 4 times the amount we pay the soldier (plus 2% on top of all expenses). This man was part of that mess, and for the rest of my life I’ll approach the preclude to any war Americans fight in with all of this in mind. The private sector bennefited from this war, everyone else involved has been fighting uphill since day one.
That’s what this case is about. The prosecutor had to get involved to stop this ONE GUY! White House search this out? Congress lead the way on getting to the bottom of this? No. We didn’t elect ‘that kind’ of a DC, we elected a DC that loves Jesus, guns and war. Easy to figure out why they love them so much. The first one will get you elected. The second and third ones will make you RICH!
“Duke Cunningham is a hero,” DeLay said during a press briefing Tuesday. “He is an honorable man of high integrity.”