u235

Halliburton, Cheney's company, put a clause in their employee contract that said essentially all litigation brought by the employee against the company could only be solved by arbitration. So when a female employee was held hostage in a shipping container and raped, they are being allowed to enforce the 'arbitration only' rule. It doesn't matter that it wasn't at work per se, it was at the barracks. It doesn't matter that it wasn't on the job, but on her own free time. It only matters that it's litigation and that it's against a company protected by the highest of the high (or lowest of the low, depending on your point of view).

It's pretty typical, in this administration, that people are only seen as tools, and that the business trumps individual rights, protections and freedoms. It's one thing to enforce litigation that's work related (such as harassment on the job), it's entirely another to support murder, abuse, and rape against an American citizen, simply because they're working outside the US.

Still we know how it goes, "it's for the safety of America" that contractors get to set their own rules and not be held liable in any way shape or form for the job they do in Iraq.

If "patriotism is the last bastion of the scoundrel" then what do you call someone who unceasingly invokes the specter of fear in the name of national security in order to repress their citizens?