Obama administration skirts responsibility for dead prisoners

Image by abardwell via Flickr

During the Bush years, the government made all kinds of disastrous endeavors into the world of privatization. The US military’s duties were privatized under the banner of Blackwater, which quickly descended into a hellish nightmare of massacres, child prostitution, fraud, and a global war against Islam.

But since these armed mercenaries work for a private company, there is no system of accountability in place to ensure operatives are prosecuted for their crimes. The US military has procedures in place to deal with rogue soldiers, but private armies do not have to adhere to any guidelines when their roid-filled lunatics shoot 17 unarmed civilians.

The US ultimately dropped the charges against Blackwater, inciting outrage in Iraq. In turn, Iraq ordered Blackwater out of the country, not that this in any way hurt the company’s business model. Blackwater is currently in the running for a $1 billion contract to train Afghanistan’s national police force.

When the name started to draw too much attention, Blackwater employees created a shell company called “Paravant.”

four Blackwater/Xe operatives working for Paravant LLC, a subsidiary of Blackwater/Xe are alleged to have fired on a civilian car they say they saw as a threat, killing at least one Afghan civilian.

But surely, these operatives had clearance to carry those weapons, right?

Brian McCracken, the former Paravant vice president, conceded to Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) that it never received authorization from either the Army or U.S. Central Command, as it needed before carrying guns in a war zone. He nevertheless said he discussed it with the Army and a “decision was made.”

The decision was made by whom? Well, by Blackwater, and then the US government wiped their hands of the whole mess by saying, “It was a private company’s decision!”

Such are the dangers of outsourcing core responsibilities of the government like defense, or incarceration. Following the Blackwater “Not Our Responsibility” logic, the Obama administration argued in federal court this week that the government had no liability for neglect or abuse by private contractors running the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I.

It was two deaths at this specific detention facility that previously inspired Obama’s White House to say all kinds of nice things about the need for transparency and accountability.

In one case, captured by security cameras in 2008, a Chinese computer engineer was dragged from a Rhode Island immigration jail and mocked by guards as he screamed in pain from undiagnosed cancer and a broken spine. In the other, a Salvadoran detainee held for two years in a California detention center was denied a biopsy for a painful penile lesion, though government doctors suspected the cancer that eventually required amputation of his penis.

[snip]

The government’s lawyer, Helene Kazanjian, argued that it was “completely unfair” to expect an agency “that has no contact with the detainee on a regular basis,” to know that Mr. Ng was in dire condition.

But Fidelma L. Fitzpatrick, arguing the other side, pointed out that the agency had been repeatedly notified that Mr. Ng was in terrible pain and unable to walk, and that he had been denied a wheelchair and outside medical care by the detention center, run for profit by a municipal corporation in Central Falls.

“The U.S. government cannot just hire someone and then close the file,” Ms. Fitzpatrick said. “The government must take responsibility for the actions of ICE.”

Except, “hiring someone and then closing the file” is what the US government has been doing for the past few decades.

Privatization and the free market were supposed to serve as panaceas for all of America’s woes. When the US military was stretched too thin, the Bush administration brought in Blackwater. When ICE got tuckered out from locking up brown people, they outsourced the job to a municipal corporation in Central Falls.

Sure, people are dying as part of this Kafkaesque circus where authority figures claim immunity for the terrible deeds performed by contractors merely substituting for cowardly government officials, who are desperately trying to recuse themselves of responsibility. But that’s how Americaville rolls, baby! We put the guys who want to dismantle the government in charge of running the government. It’s all one big race to the bottom.

Also, privatization is profitable. Just ask Dick Cheney, who simultaneously profited from privatized war during his years at Halliburton, and privatized prisons owned by the Vanguard Group. Side-note: Cheney and Alberto Gonzales were indicted when Gonzales was accused of using his position while in office to stop an investigation in 2006 into abuses at one of Vanguard’s privately run prisons.

Fun money parties aside, privatizing things like the military and prisons are dangerous for two reasons. First, there is great incentive to cut corners for the sake of maximizing profits. For example, KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, killed 18 soldiers in Iraq by using shoddy wiring. KBR was also accused of exposing soldiers to unsafe water, food and hazardous fumes from burn pits.

Joshua Eller, a civilian computer-aided drafting technician at the Joint Base Balad in Iraq where KBR worked its magic, shares his journey with privatization:

Eller filed his claim after he deployed in February 2006 for 10 months. The lawsuit claims he developed skin lesions that subsequently spread, filled with fluid and burst. He said they went away, then reappeared, followed by blisters on his feet that made it painful for him to walk. He said they healed, but continue to return every three to four months.

Then, Eller said he experienced vomiting, cramping and diarrhea, and continues to suffer severe abdominal pain.

“Plaintiff witnessed the open air burn pit in operation at Balad Air Force Base,” the lawsuit states. “On one occasion, he witnessed a wild dog running around base with a human arm in its mouth. The human arm had been dumped on the open air burn pit by KBR.”

Second, by allowing war and prison to become profit-oriented, there is greater incentive to go to war and lock up people. That’s where we get expressions like the “Military-Industrial Complex” and “Prison-Industrial Complex.” Throw in some revolving door clients, say a Halliburton executive-turned-Vice President, and the whole ugly business becomes a real problem.

This ultimately ends with a businessman like Dick wearing the mask of a public servant like a serial killer donning his victim’s skinned face. A free marketer playacting as a government official is always still a free marketer. His primary concern is the business world, and ensuring his business buddies make as much money as possible.

The only way to stop the bleeding is to enforce the pretty rhetoric about privately operated services not being exempt from accountability in order to show the US government cannot hire someone and then close the file when that hired muscle starts killing people. Unfortunately, it seems like this is yet another Obama promise that is headed for the morgue.

Privatization of the military and prisons may not be on everyone’s radar right now because Blackwater and places like the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility deal in killing and locking up poor brown people. But this trend will eventually reach the suburbs. In fact, in some cases, it already has.

In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.

[snip]

Prosecutors say Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC. The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shortly afterward.

A private prison paying judges for more prisoners in order to boost revenues. How utterly predictable. It’s kind of like a huge military contractor cutting corners to save a few bucks here and there, or detention facilities neglecting prisoners. They’re foreign brown people who don’t speak English. Fuck ‘em. After all, who’s going to make us stop? The government?! HAHAHA! They’re the suckers who hired us!

This is probably why some things shouldn’t be for sale.