Corporate warfare

Re “Iraq convoy got go-ahead despite threat,” Sept. 3

I don’t believe in an afterlife, and certainly not in one in which we are either punished or rewarded for our actions here on Earth, but apparently that is going to be the only way that anyone will ever be held accountable for the utter disregard for the lives and safety of the defense-contractor KBR drivers on April 9, 2004. Of all the sickening and sad stories coming out of Iraq, this is one of the saddest and most sickening.

Pam Ford

Los Angeles

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This article about what’s going on in Iraq is chilling indeed. President Eisenhower warned about the rise of the military-industrial complex. Implicit in the warning was the fact that industry profits from war by producing expensive weapons systems, which need to be constantly replenished during war. What this article points out (and which I don’t think even Eisenhower contemplated) is that now we have corporations directly involved in the war itself.

As this story illustrates, when it comes down to making life-and-death decisions involving corporate employees’ lives, the profit motive is very much a part of the process.

What emerges is a picture of greedy corporate captains not only sending out undersupplied and undertrained troops to die, but also sending low-level employees out with little or no protection to keep the money flowing.

Jon Peterson

Pasadena