B. McPherson
For any of you who thought that Dick Cheney has faded into a quiet retirement, living in genteel poverty, think again. For one of the main players in the mega corporation, Halliburton, things are rosey indeed. Today they have announced that their profits for this quarter have exceeded expectations. Bloomberg is reporting that this is the 19th quarter that profits have exceeded predictions.

Halliburton is a many tentacled company. It is the world’s largest fracking corporation with world wide fracking expertise. It was one of the companies involved in the infamous BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, providing the cementing for the well. Head offices are in Houston Texas and Dubai.

While Halliburton is foremost an energy company, it was affiliated with KBR Inc., a subsidiary, which supplied services to the US military in Iraq. The cost for private sector, profit motivated, companies is astounding.

“The company was given $39.5 billion in Iraq-related contracts over the past decade, with many of the deals given without any bidding from competing firms, such as a $568-million contract renewal in 2010 to provide housing, meals, water and bathroom services to soldiers, a deal that led to a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged kickbacks, as reported by Bloomberg.” Reader Supported News

Halliburton Corporation is apparently non-discriminatory as to a county’s religion or political stance. According to Wikipedia “The Wall Street Journal reported in 2001 that a subsidiary of Halliburton Energy Services called Halliburton Products and Services Ltd. (HPS) opened an office in Tehran”

The former  VP for the USA was CEO of Halliburton at that time, but was not charged under the Trading with the enemy legislation. The Wikipedia article makes for very interesting, but discouraging reading.

B. McPherson

Dick Cheney, vice-president under the Bush administration received a new heart. Some would say that it is the first one for him. Cheney has had cardiac problems for many years and at age 71 has made it to the top of the list for a heart transplant.

There are many people on waiting lists for replacement human organs. The problems are twofold. A donated organ needs to be a close match to the recipient and there are more people needing replacement organs than donors. Obviously the donor of a heart is deceased.

In order to maintain the new organ, recipients must take immunosuppressant drugs for their lifetime. Sometimes, in spite of tissue matching the host body rejects the new organ.

The first human to human heart transplant was performed by South African Dr. Christiaan Barnard in 1967. The patient lived only 18 days after surgery. When cyclosporine was isolated in the 70s the picture for survival improved dramatically. With ongoing improvements in medications and technology, the transplant patient can expect to live another five or more years.

Cheney has been a most controversial character in the “War on Terror” defending the use of torture at Guantanamo offshore prison. Human Right Watch has called for the investigation of those who authorized and engaged in torture such as waterboarding.

“In 2005, Human Rights Watch’s Getting Away with Torture? presented substantial evidence warranting criminal investigations of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet, as well as Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, formerly the top US commander in Iraq, and Gen. Geoffrey Miller, former commander of the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”Human Rights Watch

Perhaps even more troubling is the relationship between the Halliburton corporation and Cheney.