<p>So the evil Republicans are to blame? Are you sure? Wow - maybe this is a message to vote Democrat.</p>
<p>We’re so fortunate that this film is available just before the coming elections!</p>
<p>I think we’re always fortunate to get the facts about American lives being needlessly endangered and money that could help our soldiers being wasted. Wouldn’t you rather that, even if it if costs your side an election, than to live in a country like the USSR, where information that reveals problems with the ruling party is ruthlessly surpressed?</p>
<p>A lot of servicemen gave their lives for our country to have the freedom for citizens to know what our government is up to…government is supposed to be accountable to the voters.</p>
<p>Yes, conyat!</p>
<p>parent2noles, I suspect that this movie is something upon which democrats and republicans can all agree. </p>
<p>I think this discussion will be more fruitful once more people have actually seen the film. I would be amazed if ANYONE could see it and not feel outraged.</p>
<p>The problem is many (most?) of these so-called fact films are one-sided political sniper attacks. After Michael Moore’s film, I am very wary of any startling ‘new’ fact films being released just in time for an election.</p>
<p>I get my news from a diversity of sources. I then decide, based on such information, how I’m going to vote. I really don’t need political propaganda films ‘revealing’ supposedly new facts - just in time for an election.</p>
<p>News does not work that way - it comes out when it comes out. This is all old stuff that has been hashed and rehashed by authorities. </p>
<p>Yes, Halliburton and similar companies may get contracts in Iraq but what was found out is that they can deliver goods and services worldwide into areas no one wants to work. They deal with the military on classified information and security, with NATO on multi-national security and with other governments on customs and the myriad laws that must be observed. Plus, they pay for and recruit contractors who risk being beheaded by terrorists if they get captured; armed attacks, land mines and you name it. Mostly they hire ex-military types who are familiar with all the associated red tape and risk of getting beans from Baghdah to Kirkuk and from Kandahar to Badakhshan. </p>
<p>Whom would you suggest do this work? Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream or Apple Computer?</p>
<p>Most of the folks on this board are probably wealthy. Most probably own stock or other funds that invest in stocks. Many will be invested into these companies…so they indirectly benefit from military contracts. They are, in fact, getting rich off the execution of American policies by American soldiers in hostile lands using goods provided by companies they may hold up for scorn for alleged abuses. As unfortunate as this is, it happens in every war - and people get prosecuted for fraud in every war.</p>
<p>parent2noles,</p>
<p>There is no possible positive counter-weight for sending empty trucks up and down booby-trapped roadways in order to jack up ‘expenses’ for a cost-plus contract. You should see the film. Let it be one of your sources of information. You will be nauseated.</p>
<p>This is far beyond $5,000 toilet seats.</p>
<p>So maybe we should send trucks with passengers down the booby-trapped roads? I’m no expert, and I haven’t seen the movie and I don’t plan on it. But that doesn’t mean you are an expert on tactics. Perhaps they are special trucks for this purpose, and an effective measure of lowering casualties? Regardless, I would rather trade a few trucks for any chance that a bomb wont take a soldier or civilian life.</p>
<p>Did you know that the army spends hundreds of dollars per soldier on special shirts and hats?! This must be an example of war profiteering and a secret conspiracy of the elite! </p>
<p>Oh wait. These vests and helmets save lives.</p>
<p>For anyone who wants to see this movie or others movies that speak to progressive issues go to this website:</p>
<p><a href=“http://bravenewtheaters.com/[/url]”>http://bravenewtheaters.com/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://bravenewtheaters.com/films[/url]”>http://bravenewtheaters.com/films</a></p>
<p>GHBrown, there are civilians driving those trucks without armor and without guns who have been killed and maimed. </p>
<p>Parent2noles – In response to your earlier post, I posted links to various articles on the internet which appeared at or near the time information became known, so if you are suspicious of information in a film released in September before an election, then you could read the links I gave you. Those articles go back as far as April 2004. Actually, I didn’t know you wanted old news, or I would have posted more – most of the links I found were older, but I thought people would want recent, up-to-date reports so I tried to avoid article before 2006.</p>
<p>I continue to be amazed at the deliberate denial and refusal of people to consider information that they think will go against their preconceived political biases, even without seeing the source of the information or making the slightest effort to understand it. In answer to the question as to who should be doing the work – The film included interviews with soldiers who were upset because they were required to train private contractors to do THEIR jobs, and then they were reassigned to lesser, support combat positions. So in answer to who should be doing this work, much of the high-priced contract work is supposed to be done by military personnel and specialists – and those soldiers, who may very well have signed up for the military in the first place because of promised training in specialty fields, are being reassigned to more dangerous, but less skilled, combat operations like sentry duty.</p>
<p>But the main point is that there should be oversight for the work and there should be consequences for willful fraud and mismanagement.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s very disheartening the people who dismiss this information out of hand, without even bothering to read it. You would think with men and women’s lives on the line, people would care more about that than about keeping their party in power at any cost.</p>
<p>People should be horrified that contractors are endangering Americans needlessly…instead of being horrified that other people might find out about it.</p>
<p>Calmom, with respect, managing supply operations during a war is simply going to be difficult. It’s tough enough to get ammunition, water and food to soldiers at a front (in that order). It’s not that I dispute out-of-hand the propensity for error and fraud in a war zone, I don’t. I realize full well the probability of error. ‘Mismanagement’ does not accurately describe the circumstances, because it implies that ‘management’ is reasonably possible. I offer that it’s extremely difficult such control was likely, under the circumstances, if even possible. Want an example - consider how difficult it was to get mere clean water and food into New Orleans after the hurricane - and few if anyone was shooting at the delivery trucks during the process. Consider how tough it would be were skillful and planned attacks routine. Now - think back and remember how jumpy folks were in the DC area when only ONE sniper was likely loose. If ONE sniper can create that much concern, image what a war is like.</p>
<p>It’s also very possible that truck runs, empty, were made for tactical reasons that the drivers were not privy to. This should not be discounted. Soldiers are generally given orders for reasons the officers may seldom explain. </p>
<p>What gives me pause are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Your (albeit implied) claim that this is a political issue. It’s not. Republicans don’t sit at home and plot ways to get Americans killed so they can make a buck. Greed knows no party. The contractors allegedly comitting fraud are as likely Democrat as they are Republican. People like that flat don’t care.</p></li>
<li><p>The timing is suspicious. It’s obviously designed to try and influence an election. I don’t like that - because it’s cast in the guise of ‘education’. This has been tried before. It’s not going to work with me, at least. I view it as political propaganda.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I respect your passion on the issue and your obvious desire to correct a supposedly dangerous wrong. I merely suggest your efforts would be better placed with repeated contacts with your U.S. Representative and Senators, who are generally privy to classified information the public would not have access to.</p>
<p>Actually, parent2noles, no one seems to be trying to make this a political issue but you. </p>
<p>I cannot think of any legitimate “classified” reason that the 4 employees of Blackwater who died in Fallujah were sent out on the road without maps and a tail-gunner, both of which had been guaranteed them in writing by their employer. But once the men, one of them a former Navy Seal, got to Iraq there was no way to enforce the contract; Blackpool could do what it wanted, and did. And four good men died a horrible, easily avoidable, death, because they got lost in hostile territory–for lack of a map–and didn’t have enough men to watch the side, rear, and front. They were taken by one man, who simply walked up to the rear of their vehicle and opened fire.</p>
<p>And by the way, it shouldn’t have been difficult to get food and water into New Orleans by say, three days, after Katrina. People drove out on Highway 90 in commandeered school buses, all the way to Texas. The funny thing about Highway 90 is, it runs east as well as west. You can get from Texas to New Orleans just as easily as you can from New Orleans to Texas. It’s true that supplies weren’t brought (except by some groups like Vets for Peace that ran the military blockades that were set up to prevent people bringing food to New Orleanians), but it wasn’t true that logistics is what stopped it. Bureaucracy is what stopped it.</p>
<p>(The Readers’ Digest carried an article about Vets for Peace running the blockade, in case you’d like to read about it from a decidedly right-wing source.)</p>
<p>
If you had read the links that I posted, you wouldn’t be saying that. You would have seen that I posted links about congressional investigations, and about Republicans in congress blocking the investigation. </p>
<p>I replied in good faith to your post #11. Rather than read the information I posted, you’ve decided to make this a partisan debate. It becomes “political” when the knee-jerk reaction is to refuse to listen, or when people in Congress want to investigate and others vote them down. </p>
<p>We are talking about $335 billion in taxpayer money that has been appropriated and spent for the Iraq war, some of which has been misspent in ways that have created a greater danger to our troops. If you hired a contractor to build an addition to your house, and 6 months later there were leaks and things were falling apart, and you discovered that the contractor had deliberately used substandard material for the construction in place of the high quality material he promised - then you would be plenty angry. You would probably go to court to try to get your money back. You would expect that you would get what you promised. </p>
<p>Does it really cost $100 to do a load of laundry in Iraq? Does it ever occur to you that maybe there’s a problem when money is going to private contractors to do laundry for $100/load, and at the same time the troops are complaining that they don’t have adequate armor on their vehicles?</p>
<p>What’s funny is, no matter when this film would have been released, there would have been groaning about the timing. It would have been to undermine the torture bill, to try to reverse an upswing in the President’s approval rating, a deliberate effort to lower the price of tea in China, or some other thing. There really are none so blind as though who do not wish to see.</p>
<p>But in the end, it’s those in control of Congress who dictated the timing. If they had dealt with this effectively in 2004, instead of ignoring our troops’ complaints about the contractors for two long years, there would be nothing to make a movie about in 2006.</p>
<p>And in the end, all this information will bounce off the Teflon administration, just like all the other malevolence or bad news, because the apologists think it is yet another partisan “nothing” to be scoffed at.</p>
<p>Nothing to see here…moving right along!</p>
<p>Is there a difference between those who do not wish to see and those who do wish to see?</p>
<p>Is there a difference between an adult who calmly hears out an opposing viewpoint and a child who sticks his fingers in his ears and yells, “nyah, nyah, nyah” to drown out anything he doesn’t want to hear?</p>
<p>Listening to an opposing viewpoint is not analogous to ‘wishing to see’</p>
<p>If the detractors here would <em>see the freaking film</em> and THEN detract, I would have more patience. Have the courage to see the film. MAYBE you will feel awful about a bungling administration, rampant cronyism and fraud and the ways both have hurt the troops and the war effort you (presumably) support.</p>
<p>Hmmm…it seems we’re talking past each other. No matter. That’s what elections are for. 
</p>
<p>I am not suggesting your points about specific events in Iraq are without merit. They may well be, it really does not matter from my perspective - which is to say that all wars are fraught with error and even fraud, sometimes even criminal fraud. Another reason why wars are to be avoided if possible.</p>
<p>I am suggesting that Congress does not manage small events, like specific contractors, very well. There are processes to address alleged criminal events short of political hearings and yes, I interpret most or all of this as a political effort to undermine the President and his party. That’s what it is. Casting it as something else makes it no less true. So I disagree with this particular digital bandwagon. It’s like calling ‘wolf’. Liberals/Democrats have alleged so much wrongdoing with regard to the Iraq war on the part of the Republicans, everything they allege is presumed to be a political attack, and the weight diminishes with each one. </p>
<p>It’s really too bad, because the parties should work cooperatively during war. This particular war is most unusual in that they don’t.</p>
<p>By the way - the various links you posted all refer to sites generally biased against the present Administration. That’s not very persuasive to someone like me.</p>