Friday, August 03, 2007

Take Grits' survey: What should happen when military contractors bribe US soldiers?

I mentioned this week I've been thinking about the consequences of corporate bribery, particularly regarding two cases of alleged military corruption involving soldiers who lived in central Texas. Prosecutors have pursued cases against the servicemen, but are shielding the companies involved from public scrutiny, in one instance even after the soldier's conviction. After adding a somewhat startling update to this post, I decided to create a short, six-question survey on corporate bribery to solicit readers' opinions on the topic.

Click Here to take survey. For each question pick all that apply and/or leave a comment if none of the options sum up your opinion. Let me know what you think and I'll publish the results when we have a critical mass of respondents. (Oh, and just hit the back button twice to get back to Grits when you're done.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks G. This is a useful tool. Have you thought about doing the same sort of survey regarding Texas Corrections? Wonder if Rick, Madden, Whimire and Chuy would even give a Sh*!?, I'd bet the TDCJ and TYC blogophiles would help the sample reach critical mass pretty quick though. :)

Anonymous said...

You may need to expand the scope eventually.

from:
Sibel Edmonds case

FBI, Congress: Sibel Edmonds case 'unclassified'
by lukery

Former FBI translator and whistleblower Sibel Edmonds is the most gagged woman in US history. Attorney General John Ashcroft twice invoked the rarely used States Secrets Privilege in her case under the guise of classified secrets and protecting national security.

snip

Even with Congress, one important thing that I have tried to emphasize - and unfortunately the mainstream media is not there really as far as these real issues are concerned... When I went to Congress, I didn't know which Congressmen, Congresswomen, Senators to go to! Because part of my case dealt with our representatives, (and this was based on some counter-intelligence operations) were getting cash bribery from foreign governments. And when I internally started reporting this, and it was not getting anywhere, this great agent that I worked with... said:

"Well, let's say you go to Congress. How are you going to determine who is clean to go to?"

And to me that was really sobering, because he told me:

Just based on Turkish counter-intelligence operations, you know of FOUR corrupt congressional people. Take a look at this room (of translators), we have the Chinese Department, we have, you know, the Arabic, including Saudi Arabia and everything. How many (other corrupt Congressfolk) do you think they have come across?

[snip]

When the two Senators, Senator Leahy and Senator Grassley, one Democrat and one Republican, they heard this information, the FBI discussed the entire case with them during an unclassified meeting - meaning the staff members present during that meeting, none - or most - of them didn't have clearances. So the FBI had decided in the beginning that this was not classified. What happened later? 3 months later? when the Attorney General says 'Oops, this is really going to hurt us' - meaning those who were guilty - 'so we're going to decide to classify it'

http://lukery.dailykos.com/

Anonymous said...

During WWII, Senator Harry S Truman wanted them hanged. Waging war for personal profit is still an international war crime.

JT Barrie said...

The trouble is that if someone outside government law enforcement - already corrupted to the hilt with the drug war - discovers information about bribery and reports it to the media they will refuse to report it at all. They might put it in the opinion page - if you have documentation. Getting documentation involves government documents and what criminal keeps records of their crimes - other than Nixon? Often catching these sleazeballs involves the kind of money only criminals have to burn - like government officials and corporations that profit from wars.
With our lapdog media "looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck" doesn't apply - unless the duck has a sign posted on it saying "duck".