How quickly and easily those in power
manage to divert our attention from the real issues of the day, and from
the questions that are more inconvenient for themselves. Consider, for
example, the extraordinary fallout of the Volcker Report, the peculiar
result of an exercise which was stage-managed from beginning to end by
a US government that has shown its complete contempt for both international
law and the UN itself.
Quite apart from its other effects, this has completely diverted the attention
of national and international media from the huge and ongoing corruption
in Iraq. Currently the real scam is happening there, whereby the Iraqi
people are not only under daily physical attack but are also deprived
of even basic reconstruction because of the pervasive corruption of the
American military contractors so beloved of the Bush administration.
This has meant that, even while tens of billions of dollars are supposedly
spent by the US on "reconstruction" and American companies rake
in the profits on such activity, Iraqi citizens continue to be denied
basic services, the infrastructure continues to be in a shambles (and
even more is destroyed by the day) and even workers for such companies
are denied their due wages.
Yet none of this is documented, much less advertised and disseminated
in the international press and other media, which maintains a veil of
silence and allows the rampant looting of Iraq by its current rulers
both US and local - to persist. And because so much of what happens in
Iraq now is explicitly hidden and non-transparent, it is extremely difficult
to get any real sense of the actual extent of what is acknowledged to
be widespread corruption.
We may still get some idea, though, from the instructive yet sorry example
provided by relief work within the US in the areas like New Orleans
that were hit by Hurricane Katrina. The enormous damage caused by Katrina
and the complete failure of local and national governments to look after
the citizens are now well known. But the bleeding of the region continues,
and is now being extended, by the manner of the post-disaster reconstruction
and relief work.
The recovery of the city of New Orleans has been slow, especially because
the City of New Orleans is now so impoverished and without federal support
that it has been forced to lay off thousands of workers who could have
played a crucial role in the much-needed reconstruction. But there were
other areas that were affected, where it was expected that the US government
would take a much more pro-active role in ensuring a rapid recovery.
For example, among the destruction caused by Katrina, a number of US military
bases along the Gulf Coast of the US were affected, with the buildings
destroyed and streets and other infrastructure badly in need of cleanup
of the human and other debris. Since these were military installations,
it was expected that the Bush regime would spare no expense in a rapid
reconstruction, given both the current importance of the military and
the close association of the Bush administration with a range of military
contractors.
But the sleaziness of the subsequent deals is already having its effect.
Immediately after Katrina, as part of "emergency measures:, President
Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires employers to pay "prevailing
wages" for labour used to fulfil government contracts. The administration
also waived the requirement for contractors rebuilding the Gulf Coast
to provide valid employment eligibility forms (I-9 forms) completed by
their workers.
These measures operated to increase the profitability of the contractors
who were brought in for the reconstruction of the military bases. The
foremost among these was Halliburton the company which has recently
benefited from so many US government in the United States, Iraq and Guantánamo
Bay. The company here appeared in the form of its subsidiary, Kellogg
Brown Root, now known simply as KBR.
The "emergency" labour market deregulation measures allowed
Halliburton/KBR and its subcontractors to hire undocumented workers (usually
migrants from Mexico and other countries in Central America) and pay them
very low wages well below the legal minimum wage. Usually these migrants
were brought in on promises of much higher wages, but their illegal status
meant that they had no bargaining power and could not register any complaints,
even with non-payment.
Intense political pressure has forced a reversal of these labour market
measures President Bush reinstated the Davis-Bacon Act in early November,
while the Department of Homeland Security reinstated the I-9 requirements
in late October. But these policies have already allowed extensive profiteering
by these favoured companies beneath layers of legal and political cover.
There are documented cases of very young workers often as young as 15
or 16 years old being brought in from Mexican villages (especially poor
regions such as Oaxaca) by subcontractors, made to work for weeks, and
then not even paid at all, forced to sleep on the streets of New Orleans
because they have nowhere else to go. The subcontracting companies in
turn claim that they have let the workers go because they have not been
paid for months by KBR, which meanwhile has continuously been receiving
payment for the reconstruction work from the US government.
So the migrant workers are exploited and denied their dues, while local
workers have not only lost all their material possessions as well as sometimes
their family members, but even their jobs. And these local workers are
not being used for the reconstruction work because they would have to
be paid the minimum wages and be given basic workers rights.
If this is happening to "relief work" within the US, imagine
the scale of worker oppression and corruption in countries like Iraq.
And yet all of us in the rest of the world still allow representatives
of such regimes to preach to us about corruption and supposedly murky
deals.