If you're a Halliburton stockholder, you'll be happy to know the value is up – it was under $10/share in November, 2002; today it's just over $40. It seems to me if we could make it a crime for companies contracted for wartime goods & services to make more than, say, a 1% profit on those contracts this whole tent show might pack right up. I wonder what they charge us to FedEx a body from Baghdad back stateside – $5K? $10K? $50K? Whatever it is, the margin must be pretty good for the stock to have quadrupled.
So I channeled my anger over war profiteering into a bumper sticker of dissent.
But now, if you really want to see people honoring the Chicago Seven school of activism, take a look at this Code Pink protester, Desiree Farooz. This was earlier today just as the Secretary of State walked in to testify to the House Foreign Relations Committee that Iran is "perhaps the single greatest challenge to US national security." (Sound familiar?)
This photo is simply iconic (credit Charles Dharapak, AP).
Here, a little later, is White House Press Secretary Dana "Venti Cappuccino" Perino responding to a question about an innocent Canadian whom the US kidnapped and shipped to Syria to be tortured. He was held for a year until Canada was able to get him released. Perino couldn't comment on this particular war crime because – although it was perpetrated 5 years ago – she hadn't seen Secretary Rice's brief, shrugging, mistakes-were-made blow-off of the topic during today's hearing. In place of addressing that question, though, Perino went out of her way to say she thinks, based on "a picture" she saw, that today's Code Pink protest was "despicable." That's a word that means something ought to be despised. Indeed, for shame!
Even at $40/share*, Halliburton stock is probably still a good bet (NYSE: HAL).
*Advertised Halliburton share price does not include the value of your soul.
