Bunnatine Greenhouse, a civil servant with 20 years of contracting experience, had complained to Army officials on numerous occasions that Halliburton had been unlawfully receiving special treatment for work in Iraq, Kuwait and the Balkans. Criminal investigations were opened by the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Pentagon's inspector general that continue to this date (2/24/09). In one of the many examples of abuse, Greenhouse said that military auditors caught Halliburton overcharging the Pentagon for fuel deliveries into Iraq. She also complained that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office took control of every aspect of Halliburton's $7 billion no-bid Iraqi oil/infrastructure contract. After her testimony Greenhouse was demoted, allegedly for poor performance, though USACE. Greenhouse had received excellent performance ratings in the past
So in my opinion, I still believe Cheney has ties to this company along with Rumsfeld and they probably would lose a lot of potential income if the Iraq war was to end and Halliburton was not allowed to help rebuild Iraq. It will be interesting to see what happens when we leave. But the problem was starting this war in the first place. Though they try to convince the American public that this was a necessary war, common sense people knew different. Now those who are blindly patriotic have finally seen the light and put a man in charge who will try to fix this mess. But the problem is we have dug in so deep that our reputation is again at stake, much like it was in Viet Nam, and our military is being weakened by fighting in a place we never should have been.
Now we have true threats from countries like Iran and North Korea, who just conducted another illegal nuclear test yesterday. This test was conducted at an underground site in North Korea, and unlike their missile launch of a few months ago, they drew criticism from their Russian and Chinese allies as well. North Korea insists, as does Iran, that these nuclear weapons programs are vital to the defense of their countries. In a way, I can't blame any country that wants to protect itself from attack by having the same weapons as your attacker. You know the old saying, you don't bring a knife to a gunfight. When you look back through history, that's how the United States stole most of this country from the Native Americans, and how most of the world super powers have controlled most of their territories around the world, through superior weaponry.
But we have also seen the United States hold the title of World Police mainly due to the fact that we are the only country to use the atomic bomb, and we used it on a mostly civilian population, just to show them we could eliminate them from the face of the Earth, and to send a message to the rest of the world. Since then, the Soviet Union (succeeded as a nuclear power by Russia), the United Kingdom, France, the People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, have all tested nuclear weapons, with North Korea being the real threat to world peace, as their leader is not a rational man. It is speculated that Israel also has nuclear weapons, as they are a real target in the Middle East, and Iran is using this as their excuse for needing these weapons. But Iran is at least willing to talk about their role in the nuclear world.
The best thing would be for every country to eliminate these weapons from their arsenal, but you know that would never happen, even if they all agreed to it. Somebody, including the U.S. would still try to horde these weapons "just in case", and now that nuclear power has been used as a reliable source of energy. you can't tell who is using it for what. Everyone misunderstood what Joe Biden meant when he said Pres. Barack Obama would face a major test from the international community in his first year as the leader of this country. What he really meant was no matter who got elected they would face this challenge, he was just campaigning for it to be his man and not John McCain.
Very few people have the "luxury" of knowing when or how they are going to die. I can think of three groups offhand. Terminally ill patients have a slight window as to the exact time, death row inmates, and suicide bombers. But we are headed for certain destruction with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and I can only hope that the Planet of the Apes is in the distant future.
