Keralites back home from Iraq after ordeal in U.S. camp

http://www.hindu.com/2004/05/02/stories/2004050203340600.htm

Keralites back home from Iraq after ordeal in U.S. camp

By Ignatius Pereira

KOLLAM, MAY 1. After facing great difficulties, four natives of Velichakala, near here, who worked as kitchen assistants at U.S. military camp in Iraq, escaped from there and reached home today.

Talking to The Hindu today, the four, Faisal, Shahjehan, Mansool and Hameed, said they were taken to Iraq nine months ago by recruiting agents to work in a U.S. Army camp in Iraq. During the nine months, they lived in a virtual battlefield, 70 km from Mosul.

<snip>

Faisal said that several Indians are being cheated and taken by force to Iraq, especially from Kuwait. The promised salaries are not being paid.

He said that he had to warn all Indians that ``whatever may be the attraction, never go to Iraq till the U.S. Army leaves that country.''

American tax dollars paid to a Kuwaiti contractor who kidnaps virtual slave laborers to cook for American troops.

Privatization. What a great thing.

And there has been corruption in contracting: the 'embalmed beef' of the Spanish-American War.

But the Bushistas are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. They can't keep their ideology and their corruption from interfering with one another, can they?