Freedom Rider Halliburton Detention Centers

By Margaret Kimberley

Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid
of their country and become unapologetically paranoid.
Paranoia should now be the normal state of mind for
thinking people. Sneers and dismissive remarks about
"conspiracy theorists" must be ignored. We don’t want
to end up like the proverbial frog who boils to death
because the heat was turned up slowly.

The Bush administration is becoming ever more brazen in
its effort to snoop on the American people. The
Attorney General is making the case that warrants
aren’t needed if the government wants to spy on us.
Unlimited government power is predictably effective.
Anyone not wire tapped, investigated or banned from
airplanes will be too intimidated to speak up or even
to "Google."

The Bushmen are too smart to only go after political
opponents. Instead they are honing their tactics on
everyone who does an internet search, a majority of
people in the nation. Under the guise of investigating
the extent of child pornography on the internet, the
ironically named Justice Department demanded that the
largest search engines in the country turn over the
results of millions of internet searches in the
country. Yahoo, MSN and AOL all gave up without a fight
and handed big brother the results of your inquiries on
any and every issue or topic. Only Google challenged
the subpoena in court.

If internet snooping doesn’t give one pause, then
Halliburton can always be counted on to frighten anyone
with half a brain. Vice President Dick Cheney’s
personal cash cow is the lucky beneficiary of yet
another government contract. The Halliburton story of
banana republic corruption is well known to anyone not
living under a rock. Because their crimes have gone
unpunished, news of Halliburton chicanery barely raises
eyebrows anymore. Halliburton’s latest contract strikes
close to home, literally, and doesn’t allow them to
build barracks in Iraq or clean up after hurricane
Katrina.

What ought to shock and terrify every American is that
KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, was awarded a $385
million contract to build "temporary detention
facilities" in case of an "immigration emergency":

"The contract may also provide migrant detention
support to other U.S. Government organizations in
the event of an immigration emergency, as well as
the development of a plan to react to a national
emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event
of a natural disaster, the contractor could be
tasked with providing housing for ICE (Immigration
and Customs Enforcement) personnel performing law
enforcement functions in support of relief
efforts."

Anyone paying a little bit of attention will ask, "What
immigration emergency?" If there is an immigration
emergency looming on the horizon it is a big secret. Of
course immigrants will be the first ensnared in the net
that big brother Bush has in mind, but the net won’t
stop with them.

What sort of national emergency requires detention
centers? America has plenty of prisons. More of our
population is behind bars than in any country on earth.
There are detention centers for immigration in
existence already. As for helping in case of a natural
disaster, hurricane Katrina proved that saving American
lives is not on the Bush agenda.

When the word detention comes up, hairs should rise on
the back of every neck. Thanks to the Patriot Act and
the creation of "enemy combatants" these detention
centers can be used to lock up anyone for any reason
for any length of time that Uncle Sam wishes.

In the best case scenario, this contract may be just
the latest hand out to the welfare queen of corporate
America. It is a sad day indeed when we must hope that
good old fashioned greed, and nothing more, is at work
with this latest theft from the United States treasury.
Even if greed is the larger part of the equation, the
threat of taking our rights and subjecting us to fear
cannot be far from the minds of Dick Cheney and his
ilk.

Bush has successfully used fear to stay in power and
quiet the ineffectual opposition. When questions arose
about the legality of warrantless wiretaps, suddenly
Bush revealed a three year old plot to crash a plane
into a Los Angeles skyscraper. This announcement was
even news to the mayor of Los Angeles, leading the
cynical among us, the smart people, to ask if such a
threat ever existed in the first place.

What sort of national emergency will trigger the
beginning of detentions? Probably not Mexicans heading
for the border. If Democrats show uncharacteristic
boldness and begin impeachment proceedings against
Bush, we will begin to see Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib on
U.S. soil.

The endless war on terror would no doubt be a pretext
for detentions of immigrants or Americans. Just ask
Jose Padilla, the American citizen accused of planning
"dirty bomb" attacks. Actually you can’t ask Padilla
anything. He hasn’t seen the outside of a jail in
years. An entirely new category of criminals, enemy
combatants, was created to justify endless
incarceration. If our government is planning to create
more Padillas, Halliburton definitely needs a new
contract.

You can look it up, if you dare. Searching for the
words "Halliburton" and "detention" may bring more than
you bargained for.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears
weekly in BC. Ms. Kimberley is a freelance writer
living in New York City. She can be reached via e-Mail
at margaret.kimberley@blackcommentator.com. You can
read more of Ms. Kimberley’s writings at
freedomrider.blogspot.com.

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