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PRIVATISING THE MILITARY \ n January, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced its plan to utilise corporately employed soldiers, including 80 "sponsored reserves" who will train with the Territorial Army and operate beside regular soldiers in both peacetime and war. Britain's first private soldiers will be provided by a private consor- tium headed by Halliburton, a huge US-based transnational corporation whose tentacles into UK services, both civilian and military, have already reached sizeable propor- tions in areas from nuclear installa- tion to transport infrastructure. The soldiers will owe allegiance only to their employer. Based in Dallas, Texas, Halliburton commands a 100,000-strong —_ with everything from catering to laundry; Jt workforce across 120 countries. Its opera- * a contract to increase the security of l tions and those of its subsidiary, Brown & 150 US em sisi Root Services, have corporate fingers in a * contracts for myriad major oil The staggering variety of strategically vital __ pipelines across the planet; prob global pies from oil pipelines to defence, *a management contract at the atomic nor from road building to embassy security, physics laboratory at Cern in Switzerland; AID from servicing armies and nuclear sub- * a contract to service Britain's nuclear Re marines to dismantling Russia's ballistic submarine fleet; 99.2 missiles. * contracts for RAF aircraft maintenance sym The appointment of Dick Cheney (now __and to provide air tankers to the RAF; sum US Vice President) as Chairman and CEO * contract to design, build, finance and Cc of Halliburton in 1995 moved operations _ operate a 21-km section of the Al motor- firm up several gears and dramatically way between Alconbury and Peterborough mor increased the corporation's penetration of — and a 52-km section of the A417/419 link- diag world markets with gains such as: ing the M4 and M5 near Gloucester; rator * contracts to service the US Army in * contract to carry out a multi-modal Bi Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Hungary __ study responsible for designing along- _—_ defi Afei. term strategy for orbital transport round London. In a press release trumpeting its military triumphs in Britain, Halliburton stated that "by outsourc- ing to private industry...Britain's MoD has been a bellwether for mili- tary trends". As any lexicon will tell you, "bell- wether" means "a male sheep that leads the herd". It is transnationals like Halliburton that are now whistling the sheepdog. (Source: Squall magazine, UK, 25 June 2001, www.squall.co.uk.yes/ ind2.html. Also see "The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire" feature article in NEXUS 8/02.) AFRICAN AIDS DIAGNOSIS QUESTIONED Ihe AIDS crisis in Africa may be mis- understood, because an AIDS diagno- sis is seldom verified with actual tests. The conditions accepted as forming the problem of AIDS in the West bear little or no resemblance to that which is called AIDS in Africa. Recent findings say that approximately 99.2% of Africans don't have classic AIDS symptoms, including 97% of those pre- sumed to be HIV-positive. Contrary to the Western practice of con- firming an AIDS diagnosis with two or more laboratory tests, in Africa AIDS is liagnosed in most instances without labo- ratory tests. Based on the World Health Organization efinition for African AIDS cases, many Africans are pronounced as AIDS victims if they show the following signs and symp- toms: prolonged fever or a persistent cough for more than one month; 10% weight loss in two months; and chronic iarrhoea. These problems are not neces- sarily rare in many African countries. Most African people die from symptoms that arise from known and treatable infec- tious diseases like malaria, pneumonia or iarrhoea as a result of poor hygiene and malnutrition. Societal illnesses are thus being listed as AIDS—a disease for which the victim is more likely to be blamed—instead of being faced as products of the socio- economic realities of the region. (Source: Toward Freedom, August 2000; via Project Censored, Sonoma State University, CA, USA, www.projectcensored.org) with everything from catering to laundry; * a contract to increase the security of 150 US embassies. * contracts for myriad major oil pipelines across the planet; * a management contract at the atomic physics laboratory at Cern in Switzerland; * a contract to service Britain's nuclear submarine fleet; * contracts for RAF aircraft maintenance and to provide air tankers to the RAF; * contract to design, build, finance and operate a 21-km section of the Al motor- way between Alconbury and Peterborough and a 52-km section of the A417/419 link- ing the M4 and M5 near Gloucester; * contract to carry out a multi-modal study responsible for designing a long- THE FOLLOwIWG PROGRAMME IS MEANINGFUL, RELEVANT AND ZONTAINS SUBSTAMCE, we APOLOGISE FOR, AN? OFFENCE CAVSED. 6 = NEXUS PRIVATISING THE MILITARY sant www.nexusmagazine.com AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2001