Filipinos forced to work in Iraq on US embassy

[Winston]

And note: Slaughtermeyer of all people deemed it imperative to bring up this story as a topic of serious discussion.

[Patroklos]

The problem with the service is that it was filled with idiots.

Coming from someone why couldn't hack it

[Dinner]

Couldn't hack it? They begged me to stay and I decided that I could make more money, with less effort, and having more free time in the real world.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Winston
And note: Slaughtermeyer of all people deemed it imperative to bring up this story as a topic of serious discussion.

...as did NBC and MSNBC.

[Winston]

Not really. MSNBC reported it. Do you believe everything the media report, Zkribbler? Or do you sometimes stop and wonder whether they're sensationalising things that perhaps have no real merit? It's been known to happen..

[Zkribbler]

For the longest time, I had my doubts about the Nixon Whitehouse covering up the Watergate break in.

But this is a subcontractor of Halliburton using slave labor. This sounds plausible to me.

Nor have I yet heard any denials from anyone...except you of course.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
I'll be sending Erik Cartman over to your place to kick you in the nuts.

Hey that's the impression I got from the pro-slavery parades in the city a while back.

[Zkribbler]

The good news is I got to meet Christina Chavez (Cesar Chavez's granddaughter) and one of those rallys. She is hot. LINK

[Berzerker]

And you deserve a ****ed up embassy.

If you didn't read a contract before you signed, you deserve what you get.

These people thought they were going to Dubai, if the verbal contract is in conflict with a written contract because the employer lied, the written contract is void.

What does this have to do with that? Are you assuming these workers are sub-par because they are Filippino?

No, he's assuming they'll be real pissed off and wont care about the quality of the work

[Slaughtermeyer]

And to rub it in, those Filipinos technically violated a ban on travel to Iraq which was imposed in 2004 after Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz was seized by insurgents.

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/news/view_article.php?article_id=63929

[Berzerker]

another reason for the employer to lie about where they were going.

[Winston]

Has it occurred to anyone here to await an actual complaint from the people who were supposedly wronged - before we all go foaming at the mouth and fall over backwards with indignation?

All we have to go on at the moment seems to be the rather vivid imagination of some lame-ass medic who went complaining to MSNBC because the government officials didn't pay enough attention to him and all the exciting stories he had to tell.

[Slaughtermeyer]

I doubt the Filipinos are in any position to file any kind of complaint.

Here's a more detailed account of conditions at the US embassy site, including the following account of an escape attempt:

Once when 17 workers climbed the wall of the construction site to escape, a State Department official helped round them up and put them in "virtual lockdown", Owen said.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1026-06.htm

[Winston]

Ah, presumably that's another report by an outsider to the real situation. How convenient.

No, I don't click the links you post.

[Berzerker]

Has it occurred to anyone here to await an actual complaint from the people who were supposedly wronged - before we all go foaming at the mouth and fall over backwards with indignation?

We have an eyewitness

“The steward was having problems keeping guys in their seats because they were so upset, wanted to get off the airplane,” says Mayberry. “They were upset they weren’t headed to Dubai where they were promised they were working.”

He says when he arrived in Baghdad he notified the State Department official in charge of the embassy project about what had happened on his flight and she replied "that’s the way they do it."

That aint an outsider's account