Archives for December 2003

In one of his shoddier posts, Kevin Drum comes to the conclusion that Haliburton is nothing more than a ‘War Profiteer.” Of course, Kevin is a good Democrat, so he has probably thought that all along and just waited for the slightest bit of evidence before making his defamatory proclamation. Go read his post, and then ask these basic questions:

1.) Did he factor into the price differential of the labor costs of each provider? Certainly Kevin is aware that the military labor costs are fixed (they never paid overtime when I was in the service), and certainly Halliburton employees in the region deserve a decent wage. After all, Kevin believes that grocery clerks should command $17.90 an hour.

2.) I am pretty certain Kevin did not factor underwriting costs. The military doesn’t have to pay for private insurance on their employees and their equipment, and it would not be factored into the cost per gallon as it most certainly would for Halliburton.

3.) Kevin completely ignores the cost of captial outlays for things such as, say FUEL TANKERS. The military’s are paid for- you and I paid for them. Bet hat does not get factored into the price per gallon, either.

4.) If he really wanted to compare like services, he should compare the costs of Halliburton vs. another independent company, rather than comparing the military to Halliburton.

5.) Halliburton, in order to receive government contracts, must adhere to the workplace and environmental standards set forth by Congress. Not so for the Kuwaiti source, and the military eats the cost.

6.) There is going to be a markup of some sort- Halliburton is a profit business. Kevin needs to let us know what an appropriate markup is, and then maybe he can tell us above and beyond what number is actual war profiteering.

It is like liberal Tourette’s anymore. “Ch-Ch-Ch-Cheney! Halliburton! No Blood for Oil! War Profiteering!”

*** Update ***

Cripes. Here is another doozy from our favorite left coaster:

….Conservative bloggers are up in arms: there was an anti-terrorist demonstration in Baghdad yesterday that attracted about 10,000 people but the U.S. press said almost nothing about it. Here’s Instapundit:

Had these demonstrators been marching on the other side, this would have been a big story instead of the closest thing to a non-story. So why isn’t it a big story when it’s good news? Because they want us to lose?

I got a couple of emails about this too, so I got curious. Did anyone cover it?

This isn’t exhaustive, but after a few minutes of checking the answer is no. The New York Times, LA Times, and Washington Post had nothing (or next to nothing). But neither did the conservative Washington Times. The Guardian didn’t report it, but neither did the conservative Telegraph. Among Mideastern newspapers, it was almost universally ignored too: I found a front page link in the Bahrain Tribune and a picture but no story in the Jordan Times, but nothing else. Even Iraq Today doesn’t have anything up yet. Ditto for the Israeli papers and the Asian papers.

In other words, as near as I can tell, this just isn’t big news. CNN and Fox covered it briefly because demonstrations make for good TV images, but aside from that neither liberal nor conservative news outlets cared much. This isn’t any kind of anti-war bias, it’s just news judgment: there was lots of other news yesterday, some of it Iraq related, that was more important.

In short, Instapundit and others claim it should be big news, questioning the judgement of those presenting the news. Kevin confirms their argument- it wasn’t big news, therefore it isn’t big news. Just the judgement of the mainstream media.

Thanks for our daily dose of circular logic. My head is spinning.

*** Update #2 ***

Oliver reads a different version of the same story Calpundit originally linked to, except the version Oliver read uses more inflammatory language than the analysis Kevin originally linked to in his post. He then asserts that I am wrong. I am going to start checking lefties for reading comprehension.

BTW- If KBR really is overcharging, I have no sympathy for them. I am just tired of this whole Cheney/Halliburton/War Profiteeriong mantra that the left brings out whenever anything regarding the countries is metioned. At any rate, since Oliver didn’t get past the headline of his story, I would recommend that you read it, since it is far less clear cut than Oliver would have you believe.

I really don’t know where the left is coming from anymore. If Halliburton and KBR are overcharging, I am getting screwed to- I pay taxes just like everyone else on the planet, so it certainly is not in my interest for this to go on, if accurate. I am also not a Halliburton employee or stockholder. What irks me is the knee-jerk response and the automatic assumption that this administration has done something wrong (why else mention that Cheney once led Halliburton?). IN essence, Oliver would like you to believe we went to war to make Cheney rich. Thatis what you are saying, isn’t it, Oliver?

Actually, that is exactly what Oliver is saying:

We were right to go into Afghanistan. The Taliban government provided aid, refuge and cover to Osama Bin Laden, and refused to turn him and his organization over to international authorities after 9.11 – but the lack of attention, and the diversion of resources to Iraq has undercut the authority of the Karzai government and makes an example to the world that we’re more interested in carving up contracts for Halliburton than aiding the people of the middle east.

Moderate Oliver is pretty deep into the kool-aid today.

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