From Code Pink -- Halliburton Sexual Assault

War is hell for everyone involved. For women, this hell can be especially deep. Recruiters don't tell those who enlist that 30% of military women will be sexually assaulted while serving. Women who work as contract employees in Iraq face similar dangers.

Jamie Leigh Jones, a former Halliburton/KBR employee in Iraq, recently testified at a Congressional hearing that she was drugged and brutally gang-raped by her co-workers in 2005. Three years later, KBR and the military have failed to punish the perpetrators or provide redress for Jamie Leigh.

We met Jamie Leigh in Washington and we were moved by her courage-under tremendous pressure-to speak out publicly and start an organization, The Jamie Leigh Foundation, to help other women. Since Jamie Leigh spoke out, 38 U.S. women, all contract employees in Iraq, have come forward to report crimes of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. Halliburton/KBR has failed to protect the safety of its contract employees, and, in fact, has fostered an environment wherein sexual violence is accepted. Moreover, the company requires employees to sign a private arbitration agreement, forcing them to give up their right to sue the company or have a trial by jury.

"Halliburton is trying to force this into a secret proceeding, which will do nothing to prevent continued abuses of this nature," Jamie Leigh told Congress. "The United States government has to provide people with their day in court when they have been raped and assaulted by other American citizens."

Due to Halliburton/KBR's pattern of fraudulent and abusive behavior, including fostering a work environment conducive to violence against its own employees, we call upon Mr. Robert Kittel, Suspension and Debarment Official of the U.S. Army Legal Services Agency, to debar Halliburton/KBR from future contracts in Iraq.

1. Click here to read Medea Benjamin's letter to Mr. Kittel and

2. Click here to send your own letter using our sample email.

3. Please also sign our petition in support of the Jamie Leigh Act of 2008, which mandates that companies report criminal violations and provide this information to new employees.

For more information, please read the recent New York Times article, "Limbo for U.S. Women Reporting Iraq Assaults" and see www.jamiesfoundation.org.

Thank you for helping us hold abusive companies accountable and provide justice to courageous women like Jamie Leigh.

Valentine's day

Yesterday was a great Valentine's day. I looked forward to it for two weeks and I wasn't disappointed. First we woke up at 6:30 AM (gawd) and baked our usual v-day cookies. Then that evening we went out to eat steak at Ruth's Chris steakhouse. Which was yummy. Last, we went to see another Bollywood movie, Jodhaa Akbar. I had been looking forward to this movie ever since they started showing the previews for it three months ago.

Essentially, Jodhaa Akbar is a love story between the Muslim Mughal Emperor and his Hindi wife in 16th century India. It stars Aishwarya Rai (Bachchan), who I think is terribly beautiful. The movie was widely anticipated, and we didn't get good seats because the theater was so full. The film showed at Grand Cinema, which has taken over the Hindi movie niche from the closed Siegen movie theater. Steve and I have started to go see the Bollywood movies. This is my third one (excluding the more American ones, like those by Mira Nair or Bend it Like Beckham). It was a trip being in the movie theater with so many people of another culture. The people sitting next to us were very nice and would take a minute to explain various parts of the movie to us. Since I don't know anything about Indian history, some parts were hard to follow, so I'm sure I missed out on some important details. The movie was long. Something like 3 and a half hours, with an intermission (all the Bollywood movies are longer than U.S. movies and they all have intermissions).

Surfing around the net to learn more about the context of the film, I learned it was being protested by some people in Rajput for its historical inaccuracies.


More later.

Hillary and Barack

I am still torn between Hillary and Barack and I have only a handful of days before I must decide. I suspect that when I get to the poll, it will be a gut reaction which one I choose. I think Hillary has more experience, especially legislative experience, which is needed to get work done, but Barack represents something fresh and new, a new generation of politics, which appeals to me greatly.

I don't like the way that Hillary and Barack have gone for each others' jugular during their campaigns. I think the bile spewed between the two has diminished the process and reduces it to politics as usual rather than "something new," which we desperately need. I hope that, by the time the election comes, democrats are not too bitter about winning or losing so that they become disaffected and don't vote. I'm especially concerned that all the black voters who feel energized and enfrachised for the first time will get turned off of voting in the presidential election if Barack loses. I have a feeling that most of the middle-class white female Hillary backers understand the need for a regime change and would back Obama should he win. I'm not sure what the roots are of this belief other than intuition or perhaps some subtle form of racism that I haven't interrogated in myself yet.

I have tried to avoid the gender/race debates in assessing Clinton and Obama. Instead, I've tried to pay attention to their stands on the issues. Obviously, I think playing gender and race against each other is so dangerous. On the other hand, it's been unavoidable. It's the frame that so many people use. Even Salon frames the the race in these terms, primarily because the candidates themselves are "playing" their race and gender "cards" (a phrase I've always thought to be perverse). NOW's cries of "betrayal" by Sen. Kennedy's endorsement of Obama reeks of that frame. To cast endorsing Obama as a betrayal of women is typical of the racism of second wave feminism's identity politics. As are arguments about which trumps which, race or sex. And we all seem to be slipping into these arguments.

Feminist philospher Nancy Fraser has written a response to NOW, which was sent out on the SWIP list (and I think it was published in the NYT, but I'm not sure). It's a response that I find quite compelling:

Hillary or Barack?
Two Views of Feminism
by Nancy Fraser

I was distressed to read that the President of NY State N.O.W. excoriated Ted Kennedy for "betraying women" by endorsing Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton (NYT, 2/1/08). But I was not entirely surprised. That view reflects what has by now become the mainstream self-understanding of American feminism as a political interest group. To the extent that feminists understand themselves in this way, as defending women's policy interests within the existing framework of
politics-as-usual, they have found an excellent standard-bearer in Hillary Clinton. But that is not the only way to understand feminism. Not so long ago, many of us saw ourselves as participants in a transformative social movement, which aspired to remake the political landscape. Intent more on changing the rules of the game than on playing it as it lays, we mobilized energies from below to stretch the bounds of what was politically thinkable. Expanding public space and invigorating public debate, our movement projected, not a laundry list of demands, but the inspiriting vision of a non-hierarchical society that nurtured both human connections and individual freedom. Some feminists continue to cleave to that self-understanding. For us, Barack Obama represents a better vehicle for feminist aspirations than Hillary Clinton. The democratizing energies now converging on him promise to create the terrain on which our sort of feminism can once again flourish. Drawing its momentum from activist forces, and inspiring the latter in turn, the Obama compaign offers feminists, and other progressive forces, that rarest of political opportunities: the chance to help build and shape a major realignment of American politics. That is a prospect worthy of the best and the highest in American feminism.

Nancy Fraser
Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Philosophy and Politics
New School for Social Research

And it is indeed how I feel about Obama (-feel- being the operative word here rather than think). But I can't help -thinking- that so much work needs to be done in Washington. That we need a seasoned political hand for the cleanup effort.

My last devilish thought for the day on this subject is this: How much of my reluctance to choose is a product of my white liberal guilt?

Something to reflect on.