Blood Money: Part One: 500 Dead American Contractors

Listening to T. Christian Miller of The Los Angeles Times, and author of new book, Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq and Terry Gross on Fresh Air, I feel less inclined than ever before to believe Washington’s rhetoric about “liberation” and “democracy,” and more reason to believe we went to war to enrich those in our nation who are already have abundant wealth.

When I hear Halliburton I automatically think money, and lots of it, but in truth, a very small percentage of the employees there make huge amounts of money. Halliburton consists of mainly blue collar workers such as cooks, truck drivers etc. who, although worked very hard, they just could not make the American dream work because their jobs didn’t pay enough money. The Iraq war offered them an opportunity to possibly live the life most of us in America aspire to. What they were not aware of was they were being used to hide the true cost of the war. By using ordinary civilians to do the jobs that otherwise soldiers would do, the US did not have to have as many soldiers over there reducing the cost of war in many areas including the number of casualties reported.