No Justice for Crimes in Iraq by contractors

(Update 4/11: Here's a link to put a face to a name.
More links here, here and here )

AArrgh. This is painful to read. Another KBR contractor (this one from Illinois) is raped in Iraq by a soldier and another contractor.

Prosecutorial jurisdiction for crimes like the alleged rape of Jones is easily established under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and the Patriot Act's special maritime and territorial jurisdiction provisions. But somebody has to want to prosecute the cases.

Horton wonders what the 200 Justice Department employees and contractors stationed in Iraq do all day, noting that there has not been a single completed criminal conviction against a US contractor implicated in a violent crime anywhere in Iraq since the invasion.


(h/t dailykos)

I just wrote an email to my senators, Durbin and Obama:

Dear Senator Durbin:

Can you please help this lady, Dawn Leamon? Long story short, she is an Illinoisian, a paramedic, who was raped in January by a KBR defense contractor and US soldier while in Iraq working for KBR. I read this whole article with tears in my eyes

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080421/houppert

Because she carries the health insurance, and her husband has had a stroke and needs the health insurance, and she is languishing in a netherworld of NO ACTION by THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT on any abuse cases that have occurred in Iraq by contractors, she actually has to contemplate returning to this lawless hell-hole in Iraq. What a horrible choice! (BTW, her son is also serving in Iraq)

You need to press the Justice Department to start prosecuting these cases!!!!

We need affordable and PORTABLE health care so people don’t have to make these horrible choices!!

Best Regards,
L__Z___