Thursday, September 17, 2009

Good News: Jamie Leigh Jones' Rape Case against Cheney's Halliburton is Finally Going to Trial!!!

Jamie Leigh Jones (22), the Halliburton/KBR contractor who was gang raped by her Halliburton co-workers in Iraq and then imprisoned in a shipping container after she reported the attack to the company, is finally going to get her day in court.

Jones, a Houston, Texas woman, was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad. She said the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.
Jones was just 20-years old and in Iraq for just four days, when she was drugged and viciously gang-raped in 2005 by Halliburton/KBR co-workers, leaving her severely bruised and bleeding, with lacerations to her vagina and anus, her breast implants ruptured and her pectoral muscles torn. She required reconstructive surgery to repair her injuries, which left her breasts permanently disfigured and she will require additional operations.

When the effects of the date rape drug began to wear off, she found herself in her bunk, naked and in pain, finding one of her rapists, Halliburton firefighter, Charles Boartz sleeping at the bottom of her bed, unconcerned about suffering any consequences. When she asked him what happened, he admitted to having unprotected sex with her.

What happened next, illustrates how corporations and the government behave when they know they can operate outside the law and virtually get away with murder. Laws put in place primarily under the Bush administration, provided contractors in Iraq with immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law and by extension, U.S. law.

The Halliburton firefighters who raped her in the Baghdad Green Zone that day, realized the actions of their employer as well as their own actions, while working in Iraq, were completely outside the law. When they saw the pretty young Jones, they took what they wanted, unconstrained by criminal laws, which may have worked to curb their behavior. An examination by Army doctors showed multiple men raped her repeatedly, both vaginally and anally. Instead of offering assistance and medical treatment to the frightened Jones suffering from severe physical and emotional trauma, Halliburton/KBR only offered her threats and intimidation.

When her Halliburton/KBR employers learned of the rape, they went into damage control mode, essentially imprisoning Jones, placing her in a sparse shipping container, under armed guard, without medical treatment, food or water and did not allow her to leave, refusing her access to a phone.

Finally, after at least 24 hours without food or water, a guard let her use his cell phone and she was able to reach her father, “Dad, I’ve been raped. I don’t know what to do. I’m in this container, and I’m not able to leave,” said Jones. Her father was able to get help for his daughter and bring her home.

However, Halliburton/KBR failed to take any action against her attackers, and the Justice Department and military also failed to prosecute. Jones then tried to sue the company for failing to protect her. But thanks to an employment contract created during the tenure of former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney, Jones was forced into mandatory binding arbitration, a private forum where Halliburton hired the arbitrator, ensured all the proceedings were secret, and she had no right to appeal if she lost.

After 15 months in arbitration, Jones and her lawyer realized they were getting nowhere and went to court to fight the arbitration agreement in the hopes of bringing her case before a jury. Finally, this Tuesday, two years later, a federal court has sensibly agreed she can take her case to court. Let's hope that Jamie will finally receive the Justice she deserves!

5 comments:

Tamale Chica said...

Thanks for keeping this alive. Here's the ABC News report from 2007. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3977702&page=1

pcorn54 said...

But Dee! How can this be? This woman must be lying! (Got any photos of the injuries?) KBR contractors are fine upstanding PATRIOTIC American's over there out of love for country and nothing more.

Don't believe it? Some of the callers to overnight trucking radio who have been there insist that is what they are. The $100,000 tax free wages has nothing to do with it, nor does the fact they can run around with weapons on their hips (illegally) and feel like big men!

This includes on of my biggest fans who constantly makes threats against me about what he's going to do when he returns.

http://mexicotrucker.com/mexican-truck-issue-back-on-the-radar-again/comment-page-1#comment-1803

I don't hold out much hope for this young lady winning the case though. KBR in the past has proven to be bulletproof

Dee said...

Tamale and PCorn,

If Beck or Malkin or Limbaugh had ANY SENSE or HEART at all, they would be demanding Justice for Jamie Leigh. Yet, we don't hear a peep from them!

I hope for the best for Jamie Leigh! She deserves Justice!

Defensores de Democracia said...

What a horrible story !!

And what a sad story !!, and it is even sadder to think that there have been many more Rapes of Women, covered with the outmost Cowardice and Villainy. War turns Men into Brutes. War is Sadism, Brutality, Genocide, Racist Extermination and a lot of Lies.

I copied this page of yours and posted two links to your page and your Main Page. In PROPHESIZING.COM where I keep a diary of the Absurd Wars.

I tried to erase some paragraphs, in order not to abuse of your article and composition. But then I got depressed and saw that nothing could be erased.

This article of yours holds as a whole. The rape of a Woman is the Rape of Mankind, of all of us.

I hope that this is not another case of Corrupt Justice, of Coward and Bastard Justice, like we saw in the Case of the Coward Terrorists of Shenandoah Pennsylvania and the Brutal Sadistic Murder of Luis Ramirez in July 2008. Terrorists acquitted and absolved !!

Prophesizing.com

Vicente Duque

I Travel for JOOLS said...

This was a horrible crime and anybody involved in the crime or covering it up should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.


Fox reported it.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316518,00.html

Furthermore, her father contacted a Republican congressman when it happened who promptly took action and got her freed from that container.

Malkin reported it. " Though there are some inconsistencies with certain aspects of the case and the way it has been reported, absolutely nothing seems to contradict the key claim that she was savagely, brutally raped. Nothing contradicts the fact that she has not be able to find justice for 2 years. I think she’s a brave young woman, and hope that she can find both emotional and physical healing.

It is indeed good news she is finally getting her day in court.

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