The Right Choice

By Andrew Hagen

President Obama has made the right decision in not releasing photographs of Osama bin Laden after being shot through the eye and chest.  There is no reason to doubt bin Laden’s demise given the international reaction, especially that of both Pakistan and Afghanistan.  For the people that claim they don’t believe bin Laden is actually dead, or that it’s all a lie, there is very little that can be done for them since they would most likely claim the photos were altered anyway.

Photographs, just like burying bin Laden on land, would be nothing more than yet another rallying cry added to the many that the US has already provided Al-Qaida and others.  Why should we do this? Why should we release a gory, violent photograph into the already phantasmagoric ether that is the American media?  There would be absolutely no purpose served.

We have already shown ourselves to not be much better than Muslims that celebrate at American deaths.  I understand the need for catharsis, but there is a way to handle it with dignity.  Not even Jon Stewart handled it well, which I found to be disappointing.

Obama was right to observe Muslim traditions and give bin Laden a Muslim burial.  I know that there are plenty of people and talking heads out there that disagree and would have liked to stick bin Laden’s head on the spire at the top of the Empire State Building, but that is why they are no better than the idiots that drag UN workers and others through the streets of the Afghanistan, or behead journalists, or stone women.  Part of being better is acting better and not sinking to the level of those that are attacking you.

Ultimately, whether or not we killed bin Laden doesn’t change the fact that we have borrowed over a trillion dollars to do it.  Is that worth it? 

I’m not saying I have the answer to this question, but with everyone up in arms over our national debt right now, I think that it would be wise to reflect on the amount of money we have spent on the “war on terror” and what the opportunity cost was.  Every dollar we spent on invading and occupying Afghanistan could have been spent on a school, bridge, road, canal, power grid, high-speed rail, or some other project that could benefit the United States and help maintain it’s standing as an advanced country.

Bush not only kept the financing of both Iraq and Afghanistan off the books, but he borrowed every dollar spent.  So on top of the opportunity cost of money spend with little to no return, we are also paying interest.  In my mind, it’s all a damn shame.

Bin Laden’s plan from the outset was to lure the US into Afghanistan in order to bankrupt the United States.  Clinton didn’t take the bait in the 1990’s when our embassies were bombed.  He lobbed a couple of cruise missiles at him and left him alone.  Everyone says Clinton was weak in his response here, but in hindsight it might have been more prudent.  Then Bin Laden upped the ante and hijacked our planes and flew them into the symbol of American capitalism, killing a few thousand Americans in the process.  As a result, our history ignorant president took us into the “graveyard of empires” where we have been ever since.

Britain, the empire upon which the sun never set, couldn’t control Afghanistan.  The USSR, which was right next door, couldn’t occupy it.  What makes us think we can control it from half way around the world?  We assassinated the one person we held responsible and in the meantime managed to improve no relations with any countries over there whatsoever.

Hopefully, Obama gets us the hell out of the Middle East as quickly as possible.  We can make a much larger difference with our money both at home and in more specific and targeted interventions.  Tribes that have been battling with each other for thousands of years are not going to stop because we say so.  It’s just not the way of the world.

The really hard question to ask ourselves is this: if invading Afghanistan leads to the decline and fall of the United States, was the invasion and hunt for bin Laden in order to avenge September 11^th worth it?  I know that for those that were there or lost loved ones on that day this may be too personal of a question to really answer.   If I step back, and look at it objectively though, I think I would argue that it wasn’t worth it.  If we fall into ruin as a consequence of our wars in the Middle East, then bin Laden is actually getting the last laugh after all.  Even with two bullets in him at the bottom of the ocean.  And to me, that is not something worth celebrating.

Exit - Stage Left

By Martin Schatz

My friends and co-writers Eric and Andrew agree that the importance given to the death of Osama Bin Laden has been greatly overstated.  From a strictly strategic view, I can understand their points.  Eric cautions that the death of Al Qaeda's (AQ) inspirational leader will lead to retaliatory strikes on U.S. and other Western targets.  This is certainly correct.  Andrew points out that Bin Laden was no longer the strategic leader behind AQ, and had not been for some time.  Also true.  Both are embarrassed by the displays of triumph in New York and Washington D.C. after the news broke.  On this point I am more willing to forgive the people celebrating in the streets.

People are people and it is not realistic to expect that everyone should be sombre and reflective in the wake of this kind of news.  Bin Laden was the face of the worst attack on our country since Pearl Harbor, and in terms of destroying our sense of security, it was even greater.  Thousands were killed in the center of our most important city, and it was done in a way that struck at the very core of our identity.  The images of men and women joining hands and jumping from the burning upper floors of the towers is very clear to me today.  Even as someone who is fundamentally opposed to our continued occupation across large stretches of the Middle East, my first thoughts upon hearing the news was "We got that son of a bitch."

I can't stand WSJ columnist Bret Stephens and think he's a war-mongering, jingoistic and smarmy prick, but I found myself agreeing with him in his letter today.  I quote:

"...you can trace the decline of [President Bush's] presidency from the moment he said that "I don't really care [where Bin Laden is].  It's not that important.

Wrong.  It was of the essence.  Americans didn't merely want to be secured against another attack - an achievement experienced only in the absence of fresh outrages and appreciated only in hindsight.  Americans wanted vengeance.  It's what they had wanted after Pearl Harbor, too: what took the Marines up Mt. Suribachi, the Rangers up Point du Hoc.  Revenge is a glue that holds a fractious nation together in the service of a great and arduous cause."

The argument goes that justice is greater than vengeance, and perhaps that is true.  Certainly it is desirable in a perfect world.  However, with Guantanamo Bay still operating and the idea of open and civilian trials a lost cause due to the capitulation of Mayor Bloomberg and others, do we really think that capturing Bin Laden alive would have led to a trial where justice could even be served?  From all accounts that I have read, Bin Laden fought back and "taking him alive" was not possible.  Sometimes vengeance will have to suffice where justice is not viable.

So now what?

Handled appropriately, this may be the excuse to redefine our Middle Eastern policy.  As CNN correspondent, Fareed Zakari correctly noted, this mission shows that "we do not need to occupy vast tracts of Afghanistan in perpetuity to keep Al Qaeda at bay."  If we are smart, we can use this to emphasize a strategy that emphasizes counter-terrorism instead of nation-building.  President Bush's strategy of nation-building is larger, more visible, and far more likely to incite nationalism and patriotism within the occupied country.  It is impossible to not be seen as an occupying and imperialistic force, especially when our presence spans a decade (and going). 

As Eric correctly points out, this is a phenomenon that we in the U.S. are completely sheltered from.  Wars are something that take place "over there" on some distant battlefield in some exotic country that most of us have never been to.  Our geographical isolation has sheltered and protected us from the cruel realities of what war means, and that has led to a very blase attitude towards military action.  Consider that the U.S. has engaged in over 200 military interventions since World War II.  Whether you call it a war or not, war-like actions feel the same to those who are on the receiving end.  

It is long past time to rethink our strategy.  A global war on "terror" is ludicrous and baldly impossible.  How does one wage war on a tactic?  That is like saying that we are declaring war on flanking maneuvers.  Guerrilla tactics are and always will be the strategy used by a group that is over-matched.  In our own history, look at the success of Francis "Swamp Fox" Marion against the larger and better-equipped British forces.

We need to stop creating new terrorists and stop making ourselves a target for those that exist.  How do we do this?  We could start by refusing to cast the lone dissenting vote that vetoes any action or judgement against Israel in the United Nations.  We could drop the vitriolic rhetoric against any so-called "evil-doers."  We could stop invading sovereign nations and occupying them for years while the civilians are starved and killed in "collateral damage." 

Unfortunately, we will be targets for a long time.  I am picturing my family murdered by a foreign army and trying to decide if I could ever forgive.  The answer is a resounding "No," and we can't expect others to feel differently.  This is where the counter-terrorism strategy comes in.  While Eric will strongly disagree with this, we will need to monitor and act in areas where training camps and terrorist plots are hatched.  These should be purely military strikes against specified targets, and NOT an excuse to set up a new government that is more "friendly" to western business interests.  By dramatically reducing our presence in the Middle East and Northern Africa, we can avoid much of the hate and hostility that comes from seeing foreign troops every time you step outside of your ruined hut. 

Unlike in Iraq, the stated goals of Afghanistan have largely remained the same since the beginning.  Capture or kill Osama Bin Laden and cripple Al Qaeda.  With the death of Bin Laden, and the numbers of Al Qaeda in the country rumored to be under a hundred members, we may finally have the opportunity to declare victory and go home.  If Bin Laden's death provides us that opportunity, then it is every bit the big deal that it is being made out to be. 

Ding Dong Osama's Dead...

So this guy Osama Bin Laden is dead.

This is not going to be an article addressing the theories out there that say that he very well might not be dead because frankly, it isn't important and it isn't important for a variety of reasons.

The death of this man, yes he was a man, just a man not some super villain from a comic book is less than a stepping stone in our ridiculous and pointless "War on Terror." The Al Qaeda network, and it is a vast and developed network, has been operating without strategic input from Bin Laden for a very long time. His passing will likely only do one thing, help inspire new jihadi and extremists based on what will inevitably be his cult of martyrdom.

The only way this could have been avoided besides taking Mcfly's DeLorien back to the 80's and defusing all the careless, wild west harm we caused there would be to have apprehended Bin Laden and then participated in a legal and internationally supported world court hearing.

This is now quite impossible. Paradise open your virgin filled gates for one of your MVPs!



The unrestrained and completely ignorant joy of the Americans frolicking in the streets upon receiving the news of Bin Laden's demise is at best tacky and in reality morally reprehensible.
As Andrew pointed out in "Mission Accomplished", watching these people screaming and hollering put a frown on my face. I had memories of both the bodies of special forces soldiers in Somalia being drug through the streets to raucous applause and jubilant celebration and also the desecration of the bodies of the four U.S. contractors, all former military, in Fallujah. Frankly, I'm convinced that if Bin Laden's body had been available, it would have been hung like a pinata for the enjoyment of the mob.

That kind of behavior goes directly against the sort of Judeo-Christian morals and beliefs so many Americans claim to hold sacred. It's also widely accepted philosophically as immoral. It's stated clearly in Plato's Republic:

“a degree of meanness and womanishness(italics totally my own) in making an enemy of the dead body when the real enemy has flown away and left only his fighting gear behind him”. (book V, 469d).

The shouting and screaming of people that in all likelihood have had no direct connection with the last nearly ten years of war and blood and sorrow or the devastation delivered on 9/11 was an ugly thing to see. It painted a picture of Americans that I would prefer we did not perpetuate in the future. War is not sports and a man being killed, even and enemy is not a "touch down" or a "slam dunk". Behaving in similar ways to these opposing events is unacceptable despite what the horrific and jackal like media want us to think.




As stated above, Osama Bin Laden has been nothing but a figure head and a man on the run for a very long time. What this means is that strategic and tactical operations with Al Qaeda simply will not miss a beat. If nothing else, the death of Bin Laden, as opposed to a trial, will likely result in the galvanization of those forces perhaps even bridging gaps with other extremist groups and allowing for a more aligned movement against Euro-American interests and people in the Middle East and abroad.
It's also possible that this "victory" for us in our ghost war on a concept could be the next step in turning this into a war between civilizations. Euro-America vs. Islam. Islam is not simply a religion, it is a civilization, and like it or not this civilization does not mesh well with ours. This does not mean war is inevitable, but it means that it is likely if ambitious attempts are not made to stop the use of force (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) and turn to real political discourse based on sustainable and long term coalescence. The west needs to stop trying to westernize everyone and simply take care of ourselves while respecting yet maintaining a certain amount of distance from cultures that simply will not mix with our own.

Killing a man that had become a hood ornament changes nothing militarily but it could cause other people to take notice and change socially or politically, perhaps not in ways we might want.





When will America learn that one cannot fight a war against a concept?
Keep in mind, I'm not talking about the military or the politicians. The military is both and institution and a tool, and the individuals in it are cogs in a machine. That's all. The people on capitol hill know very well that we have not been in Iraq or Afghanistan because of terrorism. It's a well known, though often undiscussed fact, that our invasion of Iraq drastically increased the threat of terrorism and the proliferation of dangerous weapons-making technologies to rogue agencies and undesirable states.
We did that and Bush went forward with his war even after being told explicitly that it was a bad idea.

The WAR ON TERROR is nothing more than a propaganda tool in the WAR FOR THE MINDS OF AMERICANS. That's it. Slogans and chants work well when one wants to control a group and indoctrinate people. WAR ON TERROR is everywhere and has been for nearly ten years. The idea isn't even new. Our politicians borrowed it from Ronald "Rivers of blood" Reagan and it yet again has worked it's magic.
Under the guise of this War of Terror we have supported both tacitly and financially horrific atrocities and crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen not to mention Chechnya, the Sudan and Pakistan. We have bombed civilians, terrorized various peoples and have caused unimaginable havoc all in the name of a WAR ON TERROR which in reality has been a war for control and global positioning. It is shameful. This has been a war for your mind, your thoughts and your civil liberties. We have lost.




Obama is a slick character.
He is an intelligent man, and he surely knows that finally taking out the beleaguered and sick Bin Laden really accomplishes very little. However, one thing it does accomplish is making President Obama look good.
He didn't fly onto an aircraft carrier or hang glide into a sports stadium, he gave what he knew would be the correct, straight forward speech. Many people have commented on how "impressed" they were with Obama's speech. Why should anyone be impressed or surprised? The man won the 2008 Marketing campaign of the year award in regards to his election campaign. This guy is a promotional genius and he took this opportunity to score some much needed popularity points with the masses. Fine. Well done. But praising him for making the right moves and pulling off yet another slick under the radar self promotion is like praising me for having my flat clean and my bar well stocked when I finally get those two identical twins, Fumiko and Mayuko, over to my place on a Saturday night. Players know the game and make no mistake, Obama is a player.




I have a confused and diffuse history. I've lived all over the world and for the first 22 years of my life the military was front and center for me. I was aware of international terrorism in a very real way when I was seven years old and my parents told us "don't dress like Americans" when we would go out for dinner in Frankfurt. My father rarely took the same way home or to the office because as we all were taught, that was basic counterintelligence stuff. We had regular bomb drills. Occasionally people got kidnapped. It was normal.
When I walked into my living room in 2001 and saw planes crashing into the twin towers I was the only person I knew at that time that was not surprised. Nor was I touting an "I told you so" type of arrogance because I hadn't told anyone anything. The fact is that it all seemed standard to me. Tragic yet standard. I wasn't surprised by these attacks because the reality, often ignored by Americans, is that we have enemies and we attack them too. We hurt them. This is a fight and when two elements battle, there are losses. I can't even claim being totally unconnected from these attacks as I had a family member in the Pentagon that day. He survived and oddly, I found his reaction to be much the same as mine.
It was simply the next step. Someone had brought the violence to us for a change.

As uncomfortable as that is, we should all prepare for more of it. It's unlikely that our government will cease it's aggression and imperialistic tendencies abroad and there is no reason to assume that factions of the peoples affected by our actions will not bring the fight to us yet again. Be prepared. Nothing is free.

Mission Accomplished?

By Andrew Hagen

Needless to say, when my friend relayed the text she got from her brother to everyone at the dinner table last night that Osama bin Laden was dead, I was more then a little skeptical.  My girlfriend astutely turned on the television and lo and behold there it was.  Ten years after September 11^th, we finally killed bin Laden. Much like my reactions to the attack on September 11^th, my reactions ranged at this news.  Initially I was happy, but then as I later lay in bed and thought about it, I decided that it wasn’t that great of a day.

I disagree with many of the talking heads on television telling me that I will always remember this day for the rest of my life.  May 1, 2011 is not like September 11^th, 2001.  I can tell you the day of Pearl Harbor, Columbine, and the Oklahoma City bombing, but I can’t tell you V-Day (sometime in June I think) or the day that Timothy McVeigh was found guilty or the day that he was executed.  The day that sets the wheels in the machinery of retaliation is generally more significant than the day the gears grind to a halt.

In this case though, killing bin Laden has ultimately changed nothing.  We are still in Afghanistan.  Bin Laden was no longer the sole brain behind Al Qaeda.  He was a figurehead that has symbolic value but changes nothing in our operations.  Am I glad he is dead? Absolutely.  And I doubt that there are 72 virgins waiting for him.  But was May 1 a monumental day? No.

Let me quickly offer a disclaimer.  I am speaking as someone who was not directly affected by any of the events listed above.  For those that were in New York on September 11 or had friends and relatives perish in the towers’ collapse, they will without a doubt remember May 1, just as the friends and families of the victims of Columbine or the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City will remember all the pertinent days regarding their experience.  I do not mean to diminish what the day means for these people, only put it into perspective in the overall historical context.

The fact that it took us ten years to get bin Laden takes away from the impact.  Al Qaeda has spread throughout the Middle East.  We are now occupying Iraq as well as conducting military maneuvers in Libya. The big news would be if this was also the end of our engagement in Afghanistan.  That would be much more significant.

I do think President Obama handled this situation well, though.  He gave a good speech that gave credit appropriately to our military, and recognized the significance of the event, but was not smug or boastful about the situation.  He addressed the Muslim world directly and once again said that the US is not at war with Islam, even though there are some of us that still don’t understand that.  And that was it.  I find it even more amusing now that Obama chuckled to himself at the Correspondent’s Dinner a day before when Seth Meyer made a joke about never catching Osama.

It’s also easy to imagine how Obama’s predecessor may have handled the situation by jumping into yet another fighter jet and flying to some random location with a banner declaring “We Got Him!”  It is clear that Obama’s priority is Afghanistan and this is a political win for him that he handled gracefully and adeptly.  Of course, certain “news” outlets will make sure that credit is given to their political party, but that is the way of the world that we come to live in.

Returning to my discomfort with the event, I realized somewhere around 2:37 AM what it was that made me uncomfortable with the whole situation, why it was awkward to see people cheering and partying as if a war had ended.  We were celebrating a person’s death (who without a doubt had it coming) in a way that seemed very familiar to the way that we see footage of people in the Middle East celebrating deaths of Americans (who are innocent).  The presence of innocence and guilt on the person(s) killed, however, still don’t seem to justify either celebratory response.  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who felt this way and David Sirota makes the case much more eloquently than myself.

I am happy that I got to experience the news of bin Laden’s death in the way that I did – during dinner, with people that are important to me in a reflective, relieved, and balanced perspective.  There were no chants of “USA!” in my living room, but rather amazement, and muted relief with the occasional brief discussion.  Hopefully, bin Laden’s death signals the beginning of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan where we continue to lose innocent lives (both American and Muslim).  To me, that would be something worth celebrating.

The Decepticons

Governments lie to the people. Some lie more than others but they all lie. Politicians and the institutions they infest are, regardless of what they might have once thought to become, career liars. If one is willing to divorce ones self from the pervasive propaganda, aggressive manipulation of reality and the almost child like pumping of slogans (Freedom Fries-sigh) and slinging of mutually humiliating insults, then it's nothing more than a trip to the local library (yes, they do still exist) or a twenty minute search on Google to unearth all the evidence needed to establish a very damning timeline in regards to America's track record in the practice of spinning fabulous untruths and force feeding them to the unaware and overly patriotic public.

The Decepticons
Anyone that has ever read comics, seen the cartoon, or suffered through the (horrible) movies is all set: The analogy is too obvious to miss.

The Autobots were this totally peace loving, beer drinking group of hip car and truck enthusiasts that really just wanted to coalesce with all the other life formers on planet earth. The leader of the group was a truck driver and little else says salt of the earth like big rigs and moving freight cross country. Sure, there were some showoffs but who doesn't have a friend that is more into Lamborghinis than your fixer-upper you have on blocks in the front yard? It was still all good and the point was good times and keeping things sustainable.



There's trouble in paradise though, even in a universe where sentient robots from a place called Cybertron exist. Decepticons. This is a group comprised of duplicitous, two faced, warmongering imperialists bent on one thing: World domination and the enslavement/eradication of humanity. They are known for there ability to "transform" into military vehicles and weapons and also possess massive air-power.

This sounds oddly familiar.




The politicians on Capitol hill, although not sentient robots from another planet (that we know of),share a lot in common with their red eyed antagonistic brothers the Decepticons. Lying and the pervasive abuse of truth is one such shared characteristic.

Now, a note on lying. If someone is a bit overweight and I stroll up and ask them "Hey, what did you eat for lunch?" and they say "A salad." when in reality they had a pizza, some chili fries, an XXL milkshake and a small stray dog they found sleeping under their car- I can understand that. It's a lie but it's a lie that hurts nobody but themselves (and a homeless animal). This is slightly different than say that one time when...

-In August 1941 when President Franklin Roosevelt lied to the American people about the German attack on the USS Greer to get the United States into WW2. Or that other time....

-In 1964 when President Lydon Johnson told everyone that 1. There was "complete and incontrovertible evidence" that the North Vietnamese had attacked the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. The fantasy war making didn't end there however as Johnsons administration claimned that the Maddox was on a "routine patrol" (read:spying) in the Gulf and that the alleged attack was "delibrate and unprovoked." Johnson then according to reports cackled wildly and rubbed his hands together realizing he had duped the US people into another war in a country far away that nobody wanted. Oh but then there was that other time when....

-Secretary of Defense Rumsfield said on September 27th, 2002 that he had "bulletproof" evidence that Saddam Hussein was closely allied with Osama bin Laden.

By 2004 the Decepticons had achieved everything they wanted and Rumsfeld no longer even felt compelled to lie, he didn't feel that he even needed the protection of a lie, that is how complete their victory was. He then told the Council on Foreign Relations that "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two (Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein)." It wasn't only Rumsfeld that lied with impunity but also the "well-respected" Colin Powell who had claimed up and down that before the war Bin Laden was "in partnership" with Iraq and that there was a "sinister nexus between Iraq and Al-Qaeda" but then, he too after the evil Decepticons had achieved their goals of stripping normal Americans of a variety of civil rights, invading a sovereign nation based on smoke and mirrors and then irreparably damaging America's credibility abroad he then said that "I have not seen a smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection..." These examples above are but a very small amount of the concrete evidence damning our leaders, agencies and military of various crimes against humanity.

Still to this day none of these "prestigious leaders" have ever paid in any way for some of the most heinous lies you can tell your own people. Lying about economic realities is loathsome and hurtful to the average citizen, but lying your way into a war of aggression in which many of the middle and lower classes will surely die is absolutely disgusting, and is a crime.

The most satisfying thing about the Tranformers was that the peace loving Autobots always came back from the edge of defeat and kicked some Decepticon ass. How long will it take for average suffering Americans to realize that the system is broken. The people in power are the principle enemy and voting for the lesser of two evils will not save you. Drastic change requires drastic action.

Autobots- Transform.

Or else...




Read more from Eric on his blog GAIJINASS

Released Documents Reveal Shaky Evidence

By Martin Schatz

Approximately 700 new classified documents were released by WikiLeaks this Monday, and were promptly condemned by the administration.  The most damning statements, running from 2002-2009 show that the evidence against the majority of remaining prisoners would not stand up in either a federal court or even a military tribunal. 

The opposition states that conclusions about these prisoners had been made upon review of a task force that was established later than the date that many of these documents were created.  The final report of this task force was made last year, where it concluded that 48 of the then-196 detainees should be kept indefinitely.  While remaining prisoners were listed as a "high risk" to the United States and its allies, the documents also show that a high number of the already released or transferred prisoners were also labelled as a "high risk" before their detention at Guantanomo Bay ended.  Many were released without charges being brought against them.

According to The Hill, this is "a key impediment in transferring prisoners out of the facility and moving them through the justice system."

One would think that a lack of evidence justifying the continued holding of said prisoners would be a key impediment...to the continued holding of said prisoners. 

Secret Files Reveal Shaky Evidence against Detainees
Obama Administration Condemns Wiki-Leaks Release re: Gitmo

The Continued Maintenance of Citizens United vs. the FEC

By Martin Schatz

The Obama administration is proposing new rules that would require companies making bids on government contracts to make visible their campaign contributions to candidates, parties and organizations.  This means that war profiters, such as Halliburton, XE (formerly Blackwater), and General Electric would have to show who and what they gave campaign dollars too.  The proposal is one of the efforts that left-leaning lawmakers have responded with in response to the 2010 Supreme Court decision that determined that corporations are actually citizens.


While it would seem that a proposal attempting to provide greater transparency and accountability to a system gone horribly wrong would be embraced by all concerned parties, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell feels differently.


[The proposed rules are] "an effort to silence or intimidate political adversaries' speech through the government contracting system."


Fear not, Mitch.  XE and Halliburton do not fear us lowly peons. 


Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, questioned why this would apply to government contractors instead of labor unions.  Fair enough, and agreed.  More transparency is better, regardless of which party's sacred cows are on the chopping block.