Well, that didn’t take long. Even before Gaddafi was found and murdered, Western businesses were dreaming of the huge profits that could be made. Disaster capitalism on crack. Now, in a front page New York Times story, the joys continue: The guns in Libya have barely quieted, and NATO’s military assistance to the rebellion that…
Showing all posts tagged privatisation
How Australia is creating mental health crisis with Serco’s help
Last week’s ABC TV 4 Corners, on the mental trauma suffered by refugees inside Australia’s immigration detention centre network, was a devastating portrait of dysfunction. We are literally breeding individuals who are going mad, if not worse. Locking people up for sometimes years is both unnecessary and unethical. And who is making money from all…
Those poor military contractors in Iraq just need a good hug
Trouble in paradise, as a legacy of American war-making (privatised security) faces new challenges. CNN reports: With the removal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year looking more likely, absent an agreement to extend legal immunity, a large contingent of U.S. contractors will still remain facing their own legal and…
Holding power to account in PNG when resource curse hits hard
This is welcome news, as corporations are systemically raping Papua New Guinea; it’s disaster capitalism on crack with little oversight: A US federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit seeking to hold Rio Tinto responsible for human rights violations and thousands of deaths linked to a Bougainville copper and gold mine it once ran. A…
Private companies love war on terror lasting forever
Just one day, via the US Department of Defence website: Global Integrated Security (USA), Inc., Reston, Va., was awarded a $480,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the reconstruction security support services throughout Afghanistan in support of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Work will be performed in Afghanistan, with an estimated completion date…
Washington loves crony capitalism to protect Israel through Egypt
Great recent piece in the Washington Post on a key source of maintaining the brutal Egyptian dictatorship for so long; the US tax-payer: Beginning two decades ago, the United States government bankrolled an Egyptian think tank dedicated to economic reform. A different outcome is only now becoming visible in the fallout from Egypt’s Arab Spring.…
Creeping private security pervades our “democratic” life
Our world is being outsourced and barely anybody has noticed: Hundreds of privately contracted police officers are working for forces across the country despite being unaccountable to the watchdog responsible for investigating deaths in custody, public complaints and allegations of wrongdoing, an investigation by The Independent has found. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has…
Washington’s footprint in Iraq will continue for years to come
Wired explains that the American occupation of Iraq isn’t ending, despite what Barack Obama preaches: President Obama announced on Friday that all 41,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq will return home by December 31. “That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end,” he said. Don’t believe him. Now: it’s a big deal that…
Another day and more Serco violence in Australia
ABC reports: Three people have been treated in hospital after a riot involving more than 100 people at the Scherger Immigration Detention Centre at Weipa on the Cape York Peninsula. The violence broke out yesterday afternoon, causing property damage at the facility. The Immigration Department says two detainees and an officer were injured and taken…
Get moving, exploiters; disaster capitalism already running in Libya
A country is in ruins. Months of war. Not to worry, business opportunities abound. Let a thousand disaster capitalist flowers bloom. Libya, you are about to be mauled: The starting pistol for British firms to pursue contracts in Libya has been fired by the new defence secretary, Philip Hammond, who urged companies to “pack their…