Halliburton/KBR Blocks Troops' Access to Battlestar Galactica

As part of its LOGCAP III contract, Halliburton/KBR provides support services to our troops operating on or near the front lines overseas. I should know; I worked on the team that submitted Halliburton's bid.

Among those services: providing MWR - Morale, Welfare, and Recreation - facilities, including satellite TV connections to programming back home, and high-speed Internet access.

How long until Halliburton/KBR - acting on the orders of the Bush/Cheney Chain Gang - block access to SciFi programming on TV and online, under the pretext that it is demoralizing the troops?

To learn more about LOGCAP III: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22LOGCAP+III%22

To learn more about sending DVDs and flash drives with webisodes of Battlestar to our troops through the MWR care package program: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=mwr

To learn more about how Senators Warner and Allen of Virginia - like so many of the "leaders" of my party - have ignored patriotic Halliburton/KBR whistleblowers:

* http://www.shareholdersonline.org/pdf/092006senateinvestigationrequest.pdf
* http://www.HALwhistleblowers.org
* http://www.BushBunglesBrigade.org
* http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?company=smith+david+allen&CIK=&filenum=&State=&SIC=&owner=include&action=getcompany

Finally, to see how James Addison Baker, III and his law partners at BakerBotts are now trying to spin off KBR: http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?company=kbr&CIK=&filenum=&State=&SIC=&owner=include&action=getcompany

How can you stop James Baker and the Bush Bungles Brigade from spinning off the politically-radioactive KBR unit?

Buy at least 1 share of HAL - yes, that's right, of Halliburton - which gives you an ownership stake and an owner's voice.

So say we all!

: )

- David A. Smith, Editor of BushBunglesBrigade.org and HALwhistleblowers.org
(not to be confused with David R. Smith, VP of Tax at Halliburton, my former employer)

P.S. To date myself: in the days before my family acquired a VCR, Sunday night church services were a race against the clock. If the pastor of my Pentecostal church finished by 7:55, I could race home and catch the opening theme song of the original Battlestar just in the nick of time. But when "the Spirit moved him," I'd fume when I'd come in part of the way into the episode. Thank you, TiVo!

Really, would you put it past them?

In the name of "preserving troop morale," could you conceive of them quietly trying to shut off the troops' access to that programming?

In the name of "security," the troops' access to certain websites is already blocked.

- Dave

I can't say I'm surprised. Disgusted, but not surprised.

Painting "our side" as the insurgency, showing them being tortured in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, depicting the sitting government as the puppet of dark and sinister forces, and having the leader of the insurgency pretty much quote from the Al Qaida playbook...the show might demoralize the troops further. Sure. Of course. :sarcasm:

Last night, I took back a lot of the things I said about BG in its first season.

From hooded detainees being led away by occupation forces to suicide bombers, BG was loaded with comparisons to the US occupation of Iraq. I was surprised at how much the show got away with!

Any U.S. soldier who has ever seen the green-tinted scene of a mother crying (in any language), "My baby!" is going to get the point.

- Dave

That's the point where I asked the s.o. (who's convinced we're getting carted off in the middle of the night any minute now) if we should watch something else (I was DVing it anyway). We stuck it out. Interesting that all the stuff that's supposed to make you think these days is so hard to watch or read.

Oh, and welcome to DU! :hi:

The night vision scene also reminded me of the Halliburton/KBR group's favorite passtime: playing Tom Clancy first-person-shooter games over the network, without giving a thought to the irony.

After all, Halliburton/KBR has raked in obscene private sector fees - footed out of the U.S. Treasury, financed by foreign buyers of our bonds - that are many multiples of what we pay our brave men and women who are called on to *actually perform* first-person-shooter exercises using night vision goggles.

That gave my stomach an extra turn.

- Dave

P.S. If Tom Clancy only knew how many bootlegged, pirated copies of his first-person-shooter games are floating around Halliburton/KBR's facilities.

Want to prove that Democrats support our troops (which is distinguishable from supporting this mis-guided misadventure of a war)?

Send MWR care packages to the troops.

Include such thought-provoking items as Battlestar Galactica DVDs and webisodes on flash drives, to short-circuit any attempt by Cheney, Rummy, or the other Kleptocratic Iraqeteers to cut off the troops' access to the show's topical message.

Include whatever else you think the troops would enjoy, and include items that Rummy - the Sissified Soliloquizer - would say is "subversive".

- Dave

In the 2000 Florida recount debacle, the issue of military ballots became crucial.

Will the troops have their access to hard news such as this restricted too?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2341252&mesg_id=2347330