[jmvar]

I am a big believer in that the the US cannot pull out of Iraq unitl the job is done..... I am completely against the war but now that the US is there, the job must be finished...

that being said, the US needs to protect the troops as best they can, so why would the military contract companies that subcontract 3 times over people from India and other countries? What is stopping Al Quaeda from sending people to those countries and having them recruieted to serve the troops their food? Isn't this a huge hole in security?

Another beef I have is remember this argument? "He killed his own people, imagine what he will do to others....long record of human rights violations"

To me if you contract someone and you are not providing them with clean drinking water, that is a human rights violation. And that is just the begining. The US cannot go over to Iraq and commit the same crimes and violations that Hussein committed. And I don't want to hear that it is the contractors responsibility to ensure the well being of the staff, the contractor relationship belongs to the US military.

It is a long article so I won't paste it in...

Article: link

 

[llkoolkeg]

Dropping chlorine and mustard gas on sleeping villagers is not quite the same thing as having to contract for potable water.

 

[Toshi]

the contracting business does seem quite sleazy. american management gets the money, but bring in "armies" of foreign workers for a pittance

 

[jmvar]

Dropping chlorine and mustard gas on sleeping villagers is not quite the same thing as having to contract for potable water.

Agreed, however, just like with the prisoner abuse cases, when you are trying to win the local public over, you should not perform acts or allow instances to go over that imply some lives are worth less than others. If I were an Indian contractor and was told I couldn't drink from the same water source as others, I would feel like a mule, brought over to work until I die. Kind of reminds me of the Jim Crow laws.

llkoolkeg, still surprised I haven't ran into you at the shed yet?

 

[jmvar]

My biggest problem with this is THE TROOPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Any Al Queada soldier can go in and contaminate food and water!!!!!!!!!!

I seriously doubt they do backround checks on these sub-sub-sub-contracted slaves/employees ($7 a day to go and risk your life).

 

[Serial Midget]

My biggest problem with this is THE TROOPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Any Al Queada soldier can go in and contaminate food and water!!!!!!!!!!

I seriously doubt they do backround checks on these sub-sub-sub-contracted slaves/employees ($7 a day to go and risk your life).

Where do you get this crap? The big problem is spending too much $$$ for western workers who have little or no knowledge of Iraqi infrastructure - the real crime is rewarding big business with fat contracts when the Iraqis could have done a better job themselves. Iraqi public works officials aren't even consulted about the utilities they built and maintained throughout some very difficult years.

 

[jmvar]

What is it about my post that you are having trouble understading?

I will break it down for you....recruiters are going to coutries like India and getting people to come work for $7 a day. An Al Quaeda soldier can go to India and be hired to serve US troops. Not a good idea. It is bad enough US troops are being shot at and abmushed in the field, there is no need to introduce a new danger element at camp.

Let me know if I need to make it more simple for you.

 

[Serial Midget]

No - I think you are simple enough for me. Some proof would make it believable... your link requires a membership to the Washington Post.

 

[llkoolkeg]

Agreed, however, just like with the prisoner abuse cases, when you are trying to win the local public over, you should not perform acts or allow instances to go over that imply some lives are worth less than others. If I were an Indian contractor and was told I couldn't drink from the same water source as others, I would feel like a mule, brought over to work until I die. Kind of reminds me of the Jim Crow laws.

llkoolkeg, still surprised I haven't ran into you at the shed yet?

If I were so unfortunate as to be a contractor in Iraq, I would drink nothing but bottled water from somewhere else...and only after my coal mine canary didn't drop first after testing it.

Have we never crossed paths at Whitetail or the 'shed or WG or Spring Mt. or Wisp or Brush Mt. or ANYWHERE? I'm pretty hard to miss- fat guy on a Banshee trailing smoke like flak-riddled Zero...

 

[Silver]

your link requires a membership to the Washington Post.

http://www.bugmenot.com/

 

[Serial Midget]

Well there is a huge difference between allegations and facts. I read the entire article and all that coincided with your assertions was that a worker claimed to have only been paid $7.00 a day.

Meanwhile, Ajayakumar and the others are trying to bail themselves out of debt. While they were paid their promised base salaries -- how much overtime they deserved and got is a matter of dispute -- it was not enough to make up for the agent's fee and the interest payments many had racked up. They had assumed they would be working for two years, not nine months.

It actually sounds like they are just disgruntled low wage workers who eventually ended up with bottled water and air conditioning but were still scared by bombs, guns and such...

 

[N8 v2.0]

....trailing smoke like flak-riddled Zero...

Ah, a true word-smith... that's a great description!!!

 

[Chuckwagon]

the contracting business does seem quite sleazy. american management gets the money, but bring in "armies" of foreign workers for a pittance

Contracting is standard practive for virtually all industries.

Curious, Toshi, how much are the contracting companies paid, and how much do they pay their workers? And, where, in US$, is the break point for defining something as pittance/not pittance?

A buddy of mine took a contract job with a US company that builds cogeneration power plants. He worked in Saudi Arabia for $150,000/yr straight out of school at OSU with a BS in EE. Just a factoid.

My point is that there is a big difference between contractors and sweat shops.

 

[Silver]

A buddy of mine took a contract job with a US company that builds cogeneration power plants. He worked in Saudi Arabia for $150,000/yr straight out of school at OSU with a BS in EE. Just a factoid.

My point is that there is a big difference between contractors and sweat shops.

Ah, but is your buddy from India? If he was, I'd bet that same job would pay him about 10% of what he is getting now...

 

[jmvar]

Well there is a huge difference between allegations and facts. I read the entire article and all that coincided with your assertions was that a worker claimed to have only been paid $7.00 a day.

My assertion is that contracting companies are getting slave labor workers to serve the troops. I see a huge security hole in this. If you want to argue about how much Mr. Ajayakumar is getting paid you are missing my main concern.

 

[Toshi]

Contracting is standard practive for virtually all industries.

Curious, Toshi, how much are the contracting companies paid, and how much do they pay their workers? And, where, in US$, is the break point for defining something as pittance/not pittance?

A buddy of mine took a contract job with a US company that builds cogeneration power plants. He worked in Saudi Arabia for $150,000/yr straight out of school at OSU with a BS in EE. Just a factoid.

My point is that there is a big difference between contractors and sweat shops.

the contract details are secret, but it is known that they are "cost-plus" at least for halliburton. basically halliburton can be as inefficient as they want, then tack on profit, then be paid by us. i don't know the exact stats on how much workers, us and foreign, are paid, but i have read news reports that seem to agree that indian and other foreign workers are getting the raw end of the deal. if $7/day is true, that's WELL below poverty line. that's "a pittance" in my world. in the us i'd put the line at maybe median income * 75%.

 

[Serial Midget]

So dishwashers and potato peelers should be making 75% of the mean US income... sounds like fantasy island to me.

 

[Toshi]

the official poverty line is somewhere around 50% times the median iirc...

 

[Chuckwagon]

Here's a first hand story to put $7/day into perspective...

One of my mentors while I was in college was born and raised in a village somewhere in the amazon. I'm not talking native tribe, but just a poor village, no jobs, no $, etc. Anyways, a paper company built a mill about 10 miles from this village; Finally, gainfull employment, right? Bearnie told me how many people in his village indeed got jobs a the mill, including himself. Each was paid $0.25/12-hr day USD. When I heard that, I thought it was riduculous! But no, Bearnie explained, $0.25/day was big money for them, the quality of life afforded by that kind of money was un-believable. People were affording to build homes, buy vehicles, eat well, etc. In Bearnie's case, he was able to go to college. Now in the US, he makes about $300/day.

It is incredibly dificult for americans to fathem how far $1 will go in lesser developed countries.

By the way, these contracted employees are CHOOSING to take these jobs, NO WAY they are being loaded into ships and forced under penalty of death to work. No way they are kept in shackles and chains, deprived of food, beaten when they miss a step...


One more question, is $7/day the base pay for all contractors, the pay for a contractor that is illiterate and un-skilled, or the pay for a degreed individual??

 

[Chuckwagon]

From the discussion about the president's fuel cell energy plans...

"in peru, where the average person makes 150 dollars a month, i pay $4 per gallon. here is has been economically impractical for quite a while, so since long time ago, we use hydro electricity (75%), and natural gas powered cars (about $1.5 a gallon)."


That's $5/day, based on 30 days, or $7.5/day based on a 5 day week.
Comparable to slave labor in Iraq. Oops, I meant contractor labor.

 

[Serial Midget]

the official poverty line is somewhere around 50% time the median iirc...

Many people risk their lives for the opportunity to live a life of poverty in the US and other western nations.

 

[genpowell71]

What is it about my post that you are having trouble understading?

I will break it down for you....recruiters are going to coutries like India and getting people to come work for $7 a day. An Al Quaeda soldier can go to India and be hired to serve US troops. Not a good idea. It is bad enough US troops are being shot at and abmushed in the field, there is no need to introduce a new danger element at camp.

Let me know if I need to make it more simple for you.

Thank you chuckwagon for telling how it is. Jmvar, while I can understand your thinking, let me put your mind to ease. First, we didnt go to India to hire workers. We went out into the economy and had a job fair. This consisted of an application process, a THOROUGH background check with their local tribal leader, muslim cleric, police agancy, and at last a check for extremeist ties. When he/she passes that part, they interview for which job would suit them best. One thing they never have access to is the food or water areas of the compounds. The Military brought in workers from Malaysia to work in the chow hall. The civilian workers are under constant watch by AMERICAN supervisors who are retired military. Trust me to tell you that Al Queda has a hard time getting into the bases in the middle east.

AND, all the salaries are proportional to what they would make doing the same thing in their own country. Which means that we pay the workers very well to do this kind of thing.

 

[jmvar]

thanks for the info genpowell....are you in the military?

 

[genpowell71]

Yup, I'm still in the Army.