Kvatch's Kommandos take to the rails!
Click the photos for a larger image and check out some additional photos posted at Ragebot! and The Unruly Mob.
Toy soldiers aren't just for playtime anymore
Jamie Leigh Jones was a 20-year-old woman working in Iraq for a subsidiary of Halliburton when she was drugged and brutally gang-raped by several co-workers.
The next day, Halliburton told her that if she left Iraq to get medical treatment, she could lose her job.1
Jamie's story gets even more horrific: For the last two years, she's been asking the US government to hold the perpetrators accountable. But the men who raped her may never be brought to justice because Halliburton and other contractors in Iraq aren't subject to US or Iraqi laws. They can't be tried for a crime in any court.2
This is one of the most disturbing stories we have come across in a while. We're calling on Congress to investigate Jamie's case, hold those involved accountable, and bring US contractors under the jurisdiction of US law so this can't happen again. If hundreds of thousands of us speak out against this outrageous story, we can force Congress to take action.
Can you sign the petition? The text is in the blue box at the right. Clicking below will add your name.
http://pol.moveon.org/contractors_accountable/o.pl?id=11800-4861130-Yyk1Bd&t=3
After you sign, please forward this email to friends, family and colleagues—we all need to speak out together.
When you get an email from us, it doesn't usually include a graphic description of a brutal attack. But when we heard this story, we knew we had to do something about it.
Here's how Jamie described what happened after the attack:
I awoke the next morning in the barracks to find my naked body battered and bruised. I was still groggy from whatever had been put in my drink. I was bleeding... After getting to the clinic and having a rape kit performed...I was locked in a container with no food, no way to call my parents, and was placed under armed guard by Halliburton.3
Jamie's attackers aren't the only ones exploiting a legal loophole to get away with their violent crimes. Another female employee of Halliburton says she was raped by her co-workers in Iraq.4 Employees of Blackwater, another private contracting firm in Iraq, were accused of killing innocent Iraqi civilians, and that incident turned into an international scandal. Worst of all, they may never be punished.5
Private contractors in Iraq are making massive amounts of money, operating above the law and are accountable to no one. This has to stop.
Congress needs to act now to bring these contractors under the rule of law. If they don't, nothing will prevent a case like Jamie's from happening again. No man or woman working in Iraq should have to fear that they can be attacked without consequences.
Please sign on to the petition: "Congress must investigate the rape of Jamie Leigh Jones and others, hold those involved accountable, and bring US contractors under the jurisdiction of US law." Clicking below adds your name:
http://pol.moveon.org/contractors_accountable/o.pl?id=11800-4861130-Yyk1Bd&t=4
Thanks for all you do,
–Nita, Wes, Karin, Marika, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Friday, December 14th, 2007










asically live in Pleasantville. Very Bush and Bible lovin' Pleasantville.
statues that have each been painted by different (here I would so love to say, I ache to say artists) 'groups', with different 'themes'. There's the USA Soccer Dragon (go team! - oops, sorry), there's the 'Happily Ever After Dragon' and so on. There are actually some cool ones done in mosaic, or with a really original themes (2 years ago it was Bears, and someone actually stole the "Love Me Tender Elvis Bear"!! - the town is yet to get ov
er the shock). It's all for a good cause, because at the end of . . . ? hmmm not sure - all the lovely rich people get together and have a grand dinner and auction and bid on the "oh so cute and 'pleasant' dragons" and all the money goes to the United Way and everyone is happy with themselves. What they do with the damn things I have no idea...
dodging women in pink track suits and french manicured toes with children whose shoes cost more than my entire closet, these kommando soldiers fearlessly were deployed on the most 'pleasantest' of dragons, AND outside a very popular coffee shop. I am proud to say never did they blink, or shirk their duty and remained standing proudly as I managed a quiet get-a-way in the barney-purple-soccer-mom mini van, feeling honoured to have been associated with them.

