Halliburton Green Zone Jobs: Perks
You get new breast implants after they rupture during your gang rape by fellow employees!
Jamie Leigh Jones, a former Halliburton/KBR employee, now 22, has filed a complaint against the company alleging that several men, also employees, drugged and violently gang-raped her. She woke up twice during the encounter, covered in blood (Complaint, 8). Ultimately, her breast implants ruptured and her pectoral muscle was torn.
After reporting the rape and her subsequent medical examination, Jones alleges that she was locked in a trailer without a phone, and requests to call her family were denied. She says she was told she could either ‘Stay and “get over it”‘ or ‘return home without the “guarantee” of a job on return’ (Complaint, 22).
Jones likely understood what this meant as she had been transferred to (I can’t believe this) Camp Hope, Iraq after sexual harassment, intimidation and retaliation from a supervisor in Texas.
She eventually convinced someone to let her call her father, who had to enlist the aid of his congressman to get her the hell out of Camp Hope.
As pointed out by Moe at Jezebel, the second paragraph of the complaint opens with ‘For clarification, this case is not about a pinch on the backside, or a few politically incorrect jests at the office’ (Complaint, 2).
That’s like saying, ‘Don’t worry, we know that women sometimes get all uppity about that low-level sexual harassment and abuse. But this is the serious stuff - you know, conspiratorial drugging, violent and repeated rape, and physical and mental damage.’
Maybe if companies like Halliburton/KBR (and, oh I dunno, US culture) took those pesky complaints seriously, they wouldn’t currently be in civil court defending themselves.
Yep, I said civil court. Her contract said any ‘complaints’ had to go to arbitration. No criminal charges have been filed against the men involved.
I’m really over this week’s theme.
Links:
h/t to Jezebel/Wonkette.
Jones, Et Al v. Halliburton Company et al - Complaint
Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR [ABC News]
December 12th, 2007 at 6:21 am
As cold as this sounds, are you really suprised that there’s not honor among theives here? Mercenaries are not the army with different uniforms. They are pirates. Pirates are sea rapists.
I agree with you that the fact this goes unpunished is indicitive of the ‘not my problem’ culture so acceptable in terms of anything Iraq, but I would go so far as to say that the reprehensible fact here is that anything is done under the banner of war as a business opportunity instead of offically through the US military is going to be subject to that attitude. On a person to person level I’d imagine Halliburton employees feel for this woman etc, but Halliburton the entity (using the same excuse blackwater used) says it is a corporation and as such not concerned with anything but profit maximization. It’s not in the interest of mercinaries to litigate against their own employees. Which should be a case for the elimination of private contractors in military roles.
The real hope crushing kicker here is not that this lady got raped in the name of capitolism, but that the system is setup to profit from ‘not my problem’ so there’s no motivation to fix it.
December 12th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
No, they are not the army in different uniforms, but the army doesn’t exactly have a spotless record in its treatment of women either, does it?
This is not about private contractors in military roles or capitalism. Pretending it is detracts from the guilt of those who perpetuated this crime and all those who covered it up. It also detracts from the real issue here which is the world’s attitude towards women, the culture we live in that breeds men capable of such abuses and the various systems which continue to fail women when they fail to suitably condemn and punish this violence.
You say that ‘the fact this goes unpunished is indicative of the ‘not my problem’ culture so acceptable in terms of anything Iraq.’ I think the fact that this goes unpunished is indicative of the ‘not my problem’ attitude towards the continuing gender inequality and abuse of women, which we see in many and varied forms across the world.
Trying to make it about anything else makes us complicit in the ongoing failure to recognize the reality of gender inequality and violence against women.
December 12th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
For the record, Blackwater applicants are required to be veterans of our armed services to be considered for employment and are, therefore, former members of our military. The distinction between military men and mercenary men seems to really only be the lack of appropriate restrictions placed on their expression of dominance. Unfortunately, I agree with Sam. I believe that this incident speaks volumes about the violent nature of masculine gender socialization. These aren’t unique because they are pirates. They are unique because they got caught.
December 13th, 2007 at 3:17 am
That assumes there is one. Three female American soldiers died of dehydration in Iraq because they refused to drink water for fear of being raped by fellow soldiers as they went to the toilet at night.
And ‘command rape’ - coercion into a sexual relationship by a military superior sounds exactly like what happened to Jones before she left for Iraq. So it’s not that there’s a distinction between the military and the contractors - with the slight exception that military offenses might be punished in a court martial.
If her allegations are correct (innocent until proven guilty…) it think it’s clear that nearly everyone Mrs Jones interacted with did not ‘feel’ for her on a personal or corporate level. You can’t tell me that getting locked in a trailer after a gang rape has to do with cold corporate interest. They know they’re protected from criminal litigation. That’s a group of people who don’t give a shit about the 20-year-old, blonde admin assistant with breast implants.
Imagine how she must have looked. And they locked her in a trailer and wouldn’t let her call her family. That’s not calculated; that’s ‘the bitch was asking for it.’
This woman didn’t even count after she’d been brutalised. And that stems from larger cultural problems regarding women and what is deemed acceptable to do to them.
December 13th, 2007 at 7:47 am
I’m confused - Halliburton/KBR are oil companies (is an oil company?) where I come from. What does that have to do with mercenaries?
December 13th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Halliburton and KBR (which, for the record, are two different companies now) have been hired for various duties in Iraq. Cheney used to work for them and they got a $2.5 billion no-bid contract for reconstruction in Iraq. A good deal of that money has gone missing. Lots of American troops get blown up when guarding KBR trucks, even though they’re an independent company. They’re making a killing on Iraq - and they’ve gotten tied symbolically, at least, with Blackwater.
December 16th, 2007 at 9:35 am
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
December 16th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Okay, why not?
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Did you hear about on of the first victims to bring public awareness? rape victim Tracy Barker that was drugged, raped and locked in a shipping living container and left in the desert for 19 hours after this lady came home kbr and the state department ignored her case but sent this alleged gang rape victim to Tracy Barker and her family for help http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/2008/tracy-barker/
October 20th, 2008 at 1:26 am
hey Guys, Iraqi girl among you, you know what we had enough from saddam, and new government and not sure if US can helps Iraqis, now my family in baghdad and i am here in another country i am crying and crying every day and night and the thiefs going around iraq looking for money, the target here is the money only the money nothing else, the fighting is for chair and money, Iraq has good history and all wanting to destroy it, that is all it’s easy right??? easy to destroy things!!!!!!!