I just Stumbled! upon a video by a journalist for the Nation which had some disturbing things to say about our candidates and their position on private contractors in Iraq.

View it in the extended entry and then tell me what you think.

I don't know if anyone is watching PBS, but I am watching a show on PBS that is describing a horiffic story about a US company, K*R, a subsidiary of Halli***ton, a large US company with government connections.

The show is about a process of human trafficking, and it spotlights the case of 12 missing workers. the show describes a process they used of getting - and keeping workers in Iraq. Its incredibly heartbreaking.

The show describes a process in which the people who buy the workers from Third World human trafficers for these contractors are insulated from liability. There appears to be a huge human pipeline that enables these companies to make huge profits because they pay their workers, who often come from South Asian countries and HAVE TO PAY BROKERS FOR THEIR JOBS.. very low wages, then base their contract prices on what similar workers would make in the US. they actually bragged about this! They took their passports when they entered Iraq so they could not leave.

The 12 people were kitchen workers - They were told they were going to be working in hotels in Jordan, but then they were instead brought to Iraq by people K*R described as 'subcontractors' and abandoned by the side of a highway where they were kidnapped by an Iraqi terrorist army, held for ransom, which it appears was ignored, and executed.

Is anyone watching this? Its a heartbreaking story.

As an Internet Organizer for Progressive Future, I've been busily spreading the otherwise buried reports of the atrocities and abuses committed by military contractors in Iraq. As outraged as they made me, I had to wonder why these stories failed to reach the mainstream American public. Now I know why.

With all the breaking stories exposing KBR's policies of corruption, abuse and fraud leading up to Tuesday's Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing on the misuse of taxpayer money in Iraq, the findings of KBR's gross mishandling of funds should come as no surprise. We already knew about KBR's use of a judicial loophole to avoid prosecution in an alleged rape case, and about their scheme to avoid paying taxes on employee salaries. And yet, when sifting through the details of KBR's scheming practices and lining them up one by one, it is astounding that our leadership has not taken an aggressive role to hold these contractors accountable for the unending list of ways they have taken advantage of the American public and have pocketed from this war.

Highlights from the hearing included findings of ridiculous tactics used by KBR to take advantage of their "cost-plus" contracts, including using taxpayer money to individually stamp their logo onto towels supplied to troops. Also revealed was the U.S. Government's ineptitude (or perhaps unwillingness) in accounting for contractor activity: "Administration efforts to prosecute individuals responsible for the waste or theft of billions of taxpayer dollars have been grossly insufficient." Finally, the most imploring piece of testimony taken from the hearing resport is that, "the most effective way to fight al-Qaeda and other insurgents in Iraq is to cut off their funding by implementing strict accountability measures over all monies."

"And who in his mind has not probed the black water?" - John Steinbeck: "East Of Eden"

The many layers that envelop the ongoing military contractor controversy are being gradually unpeeled to reveal some ugly truths at its core. The most reprehensible of them all is the common refrain about how trigger-happy commandos on a corporate payroll get by with no government oversight. And how acts such as intoxication on the job and reckless, unprovoked murder on the part of these hired guns have been systematically silenced by the State Department. Once again, we learn that under the Bush Administration, we no longer live in a nation of laws. It's now a nation of men who unscrupulously have each other's back when it comes to preservation of self-interest.

Up until recently, if you were to present that last statement to me as a claim with proof, I wouldn't have bought it. That was until I heard about how contractors can operate in foreign countries and remain exempt from local laws. And how the Bush Administration sidestepped assistance from the UN or NATO allies in favor of private military firms (PMF's), now with close to 20,000 troops in Iraq. When I heard that there were more PMF troops on the ground in Iraq than military troops from any one ally, including the UK, I sensed something was wrong. That grew to a feeling of certainty when the lobbyists for PMF's became known, with millions of dollars invested toward both K Street and political campaigns.

Democrats need to demand accountability. It's good politics (the Courage Campaign polling in CA-50 is persuasive on that point), and it's good policy.

But the Democrats can't just say "we are for accountability." We need to stand up and call for specific steps, and we need to speak with one voice to show Independent voters that there is a difference, that we will run things differently.

And last week, there was news that illustrates, again, the path for us to follow ...