No, it’s not about Scott Beauchamp:
There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut.
He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers  all of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary, he said. He told a federal agent the buyers were Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees.
The seller, he claimed, was the Iraqi-owned company he worked for, Shield Group Security Co.
“It was a Wal-Mart for guns,†he says. “It was all illegal and everyone knew it.â€Â
So Vance says he blew the whistle, supplying photos and documents and other intelligence to an FBI agent in his hometown of Chicago because he didn’t know whom to trust in Iraq.
For his trouble, he says, he got 97 days in Camp Cropper . . .
Assuming, for the present, that the stories in the article are true, heads must roll.
Assuming his accusations are true, heads will roll.
Any such entities should be sued under RICO, and the money ought to be awarded to families of dead and injured soldiers.
I’m not saying that the story’s a lie, I don’t know. The story didn’t provide much factual information, just lots of unsubstantiated and vague accusations. The burden of proof lies with the AP. Given their track record, I’m inclined to be skeptical until they (the AP) can provide some proof.
An under the table arms market in Iraq??? Shocking… Inconceivable..
So what’s the next shocking expose, that a duck’s ass is water tight? The Pope is Catholic? A bear shits in the woods?
Deborah Hastings? She works for the AP. The AP is a notorious anti-American propaganda organization. If you go here, you can trace how Deborah Hastings distorts the facts of Donald Vance’s case to create a propaganda piece predicated on the fabulation that Vance’s detention was in retribution “for daring to report illegal arms sales.” For example, Hastings neglects to mention that Vance was allowed to communicate with his fiance in the US after two weeks of detention. Oh, and also the US military very likely saved our young Nancy Drew’s life. Suffice to say, it’s a bit more complicated than Hastings admits here, and the first time about, the slant was that Vance’s case highlighted procedural flaws in the detention system in place in Iraq in 2006. Mistakes were made with respect to Vance’s “97-day” detention, but the truth in this world is, you don’t get the Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize if the judges aren’t assured you have an agenda. cf. Joseph Wilson.
It’s too bad that we have to add the caveat “if it’s true.”
Further, in anticipation of the LLL avalanche of accusations, war profiteering is as old as war, it happens in every war, and its existence says nothing one way or the other about the justness of the war.
However, if people are being demoted, imprisoned, etc. for trying to stop it, then I agree: heads must roll.
Did you get the impression from Hastings that Vance had filed a whistleblower lawsuit? Nope. Hasting is conflating whistleblower suits with Vance’s wrongful-detention suit.
Hastings does this because she hates America.
Apr 01 2003 0:25:11 PST
TV Captures Images Of Iraqi Children
Deborah Hastings
Their faces shine with innocence and raw pain, captured on television footage and in photographs that testify to the price paid by Iraqi children for adults waging war.
To TV viewers and newspaper readers in the United States and other countries far from the fighting, the cavalcade of images are the only documentation of Iraqi children orphaned or wounded in the bombing, shelling and street-by-street fighting.
– A 4-yr-old Iraqi girl, cradled in the arms of a Marine medic, had just become a motherless child. Her pink sleeve bloodied, her eyes focused on something only she can see.
– A 5-month-old baby, whose name in English means “Flower,” her tiny feet ripped open by bullets during a barrage that killed her parents, laying on an operating table in a makeshift hospital tent.
– An infant younger than the war itself, completely alone and swaddled in a box inside a shack, found by U.S. soldiers who’d just overrun a village.
– Boys and girls begging for food from advancing U.S.-led coalition forces. Trailing grown-ups, they carry sacks of belongings nearly as big as they are.
Relief agencies watch the images, too, but war’s dangers limit what they can do.
“We’re very concerned,” said Geoffrey Keele, a UNICEF spokesman forced to flee Baghdad for Amman, Jordan, when the war began.
In cities such as Basra, Iraqis working for the UN aid group are struggling to purify water and restore power after electricity and drinking supplies were cut by the fighting, Keele said Mon. In Baghdad, local UN staffers have been able to deliver food and blankets to disabled and unwanted children who are institutionalized, he said.
Little else can be done.
In the Iraqi capital, some parents give children sleeping pills to get through nights filled with the sound of thundering bombs and explosions. Pharmacies have run dry of Valium, according to news reports. Schools no longer function.
“All they can do is listen to and hear the war,” said Keele. “There is trauma in Baghdad. It is clear that the bombing is impacting the mental well-being of the children.”
The young have long suffered in Iraq, which has one of the world’s highest infant mortality rates.
Nearly 50% of Iraq’s population is under the age of 15, according to international relief agencies. And an estimated 30% of them suffer from malnutrition, a condition that will only worsen until full-scale food distribution resumes.
Filthy water has led to cholera outbreaks in southern Iraq, with dire implications for young children with weakened immune systems. Diarrhea, which often leads to severe dehydration and sometimes death, is spreading among children in displacement
camps.
Hungry, traumatized, injured and maimed, the children of Iraq suffer in the unfair ways of all wars.
On Highway 7, one of two main roads leading into Baghdad, U.S. helicopter pilots seethed at the memory of being shot at by
Iraqi forces while loading wounded Iraqis onto CH-46 helicopters.
There was one reason they didn’t simply lift off right then, the soldiers said: some of the wounded were children. ©2003 AP
America? Hah. Fuck that shit says Deborah Hastings.
Oh. I just notice that the MSNBC linked in the post doesn’t have a byline. That’s here.
This is because MSNBC hates America.
Atrios talked about Vance here.
This was occasioned by the New York Times article appended to the contemporaneous AP piece here.
Here’s what disturbs Atrios:
I wanted to highlight what I think is a pretty good example of how the current obedience to the odd conventions of modern journalism creates some really crappy writing. So, in the middle of the article about the American detained in Iraq, we get this:
A spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s detention operations in Iraq, First Lt. Lea Ann Fracasso, said in written answers to questions that the men had been “treated fair and humanely,†and that there was no record of either man complaining about their treatment.
Now, the reporter lets this comment stand without any response. The smart reader, of course, will note its Kafkaesque absurdity. They didn’t have access to attorneys. They were placed in solitary confinement. They were in cold cells, with fluorescent lights left on all night.
And First Lt. Lea Ann Fracasso is suggesting she checked with the Complaints Department, and found nothing, so there’s nothing to see here.
[ – my emphasis – ]
Atrios ignores an interesting fact we learn from the New York Times…
July 17 was 3 days before Vance’s release. So it seems likely that Vance’s contact with the Red Cross would have given him the opportunity to report any mistreatment that occurred in at least 94 of the 97 days which he was detained. Clearly when First Lt. Lea Ann Fracasso says there is “record of either man complaining about their treatment”, she is talking about a case about which the Red Cross was aware. The Red Cross is not at all reticent about filing complaints in cases where they suspect detainees have been treated improperly.
When Deborah Hastings writes today that…
…what she’s reporting are mere allegations, no substantiation of which is offered, and certainly not corroborated by any documentation of any treatment which would have alarmed the Red Cross.
Can’t speak to these other allegations, but I am quite familiar with the ordeal Bunny Greenhouse suffered because she had the audacity to do her job as a responsible steward of taxpayers’ money. She cited specific crimes, and could back them up. That she was kicked to the curb tells me all I need to know about the military-industrial behemoth and its regard for the citizens it supposedly serves.
Bunny must hate America, too.
Not that there’s a pattern or anything, but looks like Vance has stories to tell about his previous employer as well (before Shield Group), cooperating with an article about “how something as simple as sandbags can line the pockets of corporations before it gets to the Iraqis the funds were intended to benefit.”
Cynn – it’s apples and oranges. Bunny was a de facto whistleblower. Vance was caught up in a raid and detained. Now he’s alleging TORTURE. He does this more explicitly here.
Cynn – Stand with me and let’s defend America!
Don’t you love America?
Also, ome guy has noticed that Hastings has a pattern of recycling old news like she does here.
*some guy*
OK, it’s fine to try and discredit Hastings for iffy reporting standards and question Vance’s accusations. It’s another thing to dismiss documented accounts of fraud, abuse and outright criminal activity as products of America hate. But of course, nothing will be done, and the only heads that roll are those of the people who try to bring some perspective and accountability to this very lucrative Iraq enterprise.
,i>It’s another thing to dismiss documented accounts of fraud, abuse and outright criminal activity as products of America hate.
Who, exactly, is doing this?
I agree cynn, you’re right – documented accounts of fraud, abuse and outright criminal activity should not be dismissed. But Vance’s claims were taken seriously enough that the company in question was raided by the good guys. Vance’s conflict with the government is with respect to his detention, which is what Hastings inappropriately uses as a newshook for her oppressed whistleblower narrative.
Also – isn’t it odd that there’s no explanation offered for why Vance was detained so much longer than the partner he was arrested with? Not sure what that’s about, but the partner’s point of view is pretty well given short shrift, so the question is there as to what was different about Vance’s case.
“An under the table arms market in Iraq??? Shocking… Inconceivable..”
That, to me, is a dismissal. So what if it’s Business as Usual? War profiteering is de rigeur? I don’t think so. Frankly, because of the high stakes involved, I don’t think it’s beyond the pale to imagine that dissenters are vigorously persecuted. Oh, well, the U.S. “loses” all kind of weapons and ordnance; someone should make a profit.
I don’t think the AP is running a quarterly loss, Cynn.
Ouroboros is a big boy, and can easily defend himself, so I will not presume to speak on his behalf. When I read that, it did not come across as a dismisal, but rather, the shock that this could happen in a war, and the manner in which it was breathlessly reported, as a sign of of failure in Iraq.
I don’t care about how the AP fares; nor do I care about the fortunes of KBR and Halliburton. I’m sure it sounds sappy, but I care about the reputation of my country and the honorable conduct the government officials, civil servants, and military personnel that I pay for and who represent me. Let’s just say I have been disgusted the past six years.
And to anticipate the obvious rejoinders, I have not been happy ever since I’ve been casting a vote.
Happyfeet is right to scrutinize this latest outrage, and I certainly agree that under ideal conditions, if this is true, serious action should be taken by proper authorities. But we live in a “stern letter to follow” political climate populated by wraiths who don’t so much act as respond, so nothing will happen, regardless. Recent history pretty much bears that out.
Also, note that Hastings says only that…
In the 2006 AP article, we learned that…
Now think about that. I know from watching Cops on Fox that when you arrest someone without ID, it’s reasonable to suspect that they ditched their ID for a reason. That could help explain why the disposition of the detention of these guys was handled perhaps too cautiously.
This is because Fox loves America.
Let’s just say I have been disgusted the past six years.
But the eight before that? Unparalleled government purity.
The Clinton Years were the years of Enlightenment. Government ran without corruption. Big business was a friend to the working class, rather than exploiting them. The military was only asked to participate in wars that had no direct bearing on any US interests. Greed was good. The economy was measured solely by the stock market. Blah, blah, blah … Good Lord, it gets tiring hearing about how horrible President Bush has been.
No, not. This crap has been going on forever; I ask you: Why do we permit it? Is corruption and collusion just a good business practice anymore? You all are so sanguine about a suggestion of improprieties in Iraq and other theaters; but you bristle at any suggestion of bad faith domestically. Why is that?
Why? Because there is no evidence to suggest bad faith on any of the fronts. Period.
Cynn, in your question, “Why do we permit it?”, who is the we? We, the U.S., do have laws against fraud; we, the U.S., do have laws against using government office for personal gain. Private and public organizations have procedures to try to ensure that money paid out gets value in return. These procedures are documented, often in excruciating detail, and among the people to whom these procedures apply some clever souls seek ways past those procedures to profit. Sometimes those who are supposed to be preventing the profiteering are themselves part of it, too. That particular fight never does end; check some of the antics in the U.S. War Department in the run-up to the Civil War.
Well, thanks, Nazdar; I mentally read your post in the Underdog voice, and it all makes sense. JD, however, is using the Simon von Sinister moustache twirling argument. HaHa! I said it’s not so! Make it so!
cynn – If I am so wrong, it should be rather simple for you to document the manner in which this Administration has been acting in bad faith.
I think cynn should have a voice all for herself too.
JD: I give; this administration has the very best of intentions. I am floating on air, no need to question, just float on the smooth, even breeze……
Cynn,
I’m not going to defend my statement. It doesn’t need defending.. Does it really surprise anyone that there exists both official and unofficial supply lines in Iraq? Surprised there’s a grey market/black market? With scores of Private Military/Security companies from all over the world doing everything from routine site security to convoy security to top tier PSD and special ops, does it surprise anyone there’s a NEED for an alternate weapons, ammunition, equipment & repair market ?
As for the treatment of the whistle blower.. I doubt we know the true ‘whole ‘ story or ever will.. I do know it’s one thing to blow the whistle on a contractor for selling the government a $20K toilet seat.. another thing entirely to start documenting and spying on an arms distribution operation in a war zone and sending that intel to third parties outside the country… From what I read he didn’t seem to know a lot about the big picture as to who sanctioned the operation or who it was benefiting.. He states he saw sales to US and Iraqi government types, US Military, PMC contractors and other Iraqis that in his estimation might not be authorized…
I don’t see this as a case of whistle-blowing on corporate greed.. I see it as a case of a contractor blowing operational security bigtime and being detained to investigate his motives and what intel he’d compromised or could compromise.. And of course the worst torture he can come up with to complain of was lost sleep, skipped a few meals and only had a foam mattress for 90 days.. Hell, if only Ranger School was that humane…
As far as I’m concerned this is just one more case of a leftwing journalist going out of their way to try to give the US military and the war effort in general a black eye.. I’ve seen it too many times, so yes… I pretty much just dismiss this crap.
Hungry, traumatized,
injured and maimed, the children
of Iraq suffer
– haiku by Deborah Hastings, 2003
Which is to say, it’s fairly inert. News flash! Oxygen has a half life of for-fucking-ever!
Actually, the DU that DoD uses in weapons is only 30% as radioactive as natural uranium (on average). Where the soldier this reporter was writing about would have been able to find a large concentration of DU in some breathable or otherwise ingestable form is, conveniently, unstated.
[…] is just outrageous. There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music […]
Dan, I would suggest doing a bit more research on this one… there are some obvious problems with the MSNBC story…
Donald Vance worked in a company that was involved in fraudulent activity. It is his claim, post release, that he was an FBI informant. However, I have found no supporting evidence of this. There is no evidence that that the army raid of his company had anything to do with his “whistle blowing,” and his internment had nothing to do with whistle blowing in any case, so his story at least is a bit of a stretch of the truth. If you do some background reading, what you find is Vance and his partner may both have been involved in supplying arms to the insurgents. They did this in a foreign country, and could reasonably be regarded on that basis as enemy combatants.
Vance also claimed abuse in prison, even though people on the outside routinely had access to him during his ninety day internment, and he filed no complaints during that period. It was five months after his release that he came out with his current story.
Have you ever asked yourself why the reporters take the side of people like this without any testing of their claims for veracity? Why does the media take as gospel the words of people who were interned for fraud (and worse, his company was accused of supplying arms to the insurgents), without a shred of evidence beyond their post-interment stories? Is that even journalism at that point?
The Case of Bunny Greenhouse (also mentioned in the MSNBC story) is another interesting one. The MSNBC article claims that her negative treatment by the ACoE was related to her testimony before a Democratic Party “hearing” in 2005. However, if you look at her story more closely, you find that she was hired in 1997 by Lt General Joesph Ballard in what was apparently an act of nepotism on his part, and has suffered from negative performance reviews since his retirement in 2000, including a demotion that preceded her “whiste blowing” (quotes because it looks more like a political activity to me). That’s about a five year causality gap.
Again, why doesn’t the MSNBC reporter even bring this up? We’re supposed to be a bit more critical here. Why did you accept hook-line-and-sinker anything the MSM reports?
One minor correction (should have sat on my comment a bit longer), according to Wiki, Bunny’s demotion occurred after her “testimony” before a Democratic Party “public committee”. As I pointed out, this act probably constituted an unendorsed political activity, which were more likely the source of her demotion than the act of whistle blowing.
But my main observation remains: This is a very one-sided report, and accepts the word of contractors hired through nepotism and others suspected of consorting with the enemy, without a shred of external proof in either case that “whistle blowing” had anything to do with their current problems.
Carrick – Given the huge qualifier “IF”, I fail to see how Dan took this as true without question.
Bunny gets mention in the article only because she blows the whistle on (gasp) Halliburton.
JD
I agree. I guess my point is that given the seriousness of the charges made, a bit of background research might have been appropriate before even repeating them. Especially when we factor in how anybody who criticizes Bush and the Iraq War is given an automatic free pass.
I’m not even sure my comment is even criticism, but I think it’s good advice in this case.