by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Halliburton, for whom George W. Bush hijacked the US military to wage war and perp capital crimes against the people of Iraq, may be and should be subject to severe penalties, perhaps death, as a result of the 'personhood' granted them recently by the US 'Supreme' Court. If Halliburton is a 'person', then Halliburton must be charged with multitudinous crimes, tried, found guilty and 'put to death' but not before it is literally 'fined' out of existence for the monetary damages it has inflicted upon the world environment.

The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.

The lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig last week.

The accident has led to one of the largest ever oil spills in U.S. water and the loss of 11 lives. On Wednesday federal investigators said the disaster is now releasing 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf, up from original estimates of 1,000 barrels a day.

U.S. regulators don't mandate use of the remote-control device on offshore rigs, and the Deepwater Horizon, hired by oil giant BP PLC, didn't have one. With the remote control, a crew can attempt to trigger an underwater valve that shuts down the well even if the oil rig itself is damaged or evacuated.

The efficacy of the devices is unclear. Major offshore oil-well blowouts are rare, and it remained unclear Wednesday evening whether acoustic switches have ever been put to the test in a real-world accident. When wells do surge out of control, the primary shut-off systems almost always work. Remote control systems such as the acoustic switch, which have been tested in simulations, are intended as a last resort.

--Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device

Halliburton's latest outrage lies just offshore in the Gulf of Mexico where due to indifference and/or incompetence, an oil spill threatens marine life throughout the gulf, the southern coast of the United States from Florida to Brownsville, TX, and the eastern coast of Mexico.

As a 'corporate person' Halliburton should by tried for crimes that when 'real' people commit them are charged, tried and when found guilty locked up or, in cases of murder, executed!

The US 'adventure' in Iraq was inspired and urged by Dick Cheney whose 'Energy Task Force' met to 'carve up the oil fields of the middle east'. As this 'war of aggression' had nothing whatsoever to do with 911, the attack violates US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 which requires the death penalty.

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > §2441. War crimes (a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

The 'corporate person' Halliburton conspired to seize Iraq oil fields. The 'corporate person' Halliburton and Halliburton in the 'person' of Dick Cheney urged and/or advised the sitting President of the U.S. States, George W. Bush, to order the attack and invasion; therefore: Halliburton must be charged with murder for each Iraqi death at the hands of US soldier.

The 'corporate person' --Halliburton --resides in Texas where 'persons' convicted of murder are given the 'lethal needle'. For the many deaths resulting from Halliburton, now a person residing physically in Texas, I demand that the corporate person Halliburton be arrested, charged, tried and when found guilty of mass murder and war crimes in Iraq by given the 'lethal needle'.

That means the corporation cease and desist all corporate operations immediately upon being found guilty. That means that Halliburton cease to exist as a legal and/or business entity in any form whatsoever. It means that culpable decision makers be imprisoned on Texas death row until they can be executed for murder.Those those having guilty knowledge and benefiting most by the capital crimes committed by Halliburton are to be charged as co-conspirators, charged appropriately and tried.

Now --about conspiracies. Don't even think about telling me that they do not exist. Secondly, if you don't think they exist, I suggest you visit Findlaw or the Cornell University Law Library online. You will find hundreds if not thousands of cases of 'conspiracy' case law. Conspiracies exist!

Dare we hope that the idiots on the high court outsmarted themselves? Dare we suppose that the right wing criminals in charge are fallen into their own trap? Dare we suspect that the gang of fascists, liars and criminals who have seized power in the United States have outsmarted themselves?

Last year, Halliburton was implicated for its cementing work prior to a massive blowout off the coast of Australia, where a rig caught on fire and spewed hundreds of thousands of gallons into the sea for ten weeks.

In that incident, workers apparently failed to properly pump cement into the well, according to Elmer Danenberger, former head of regulatory affairs for the US Minerals Management Service, who testified to an Australian commission probing that accident.

Giant oil-services provider Halliburton may be a primary suspect in the investigation into the oil rig explosion that has devastated the Gulf Coast, the Wall Street Journall reports.

Though the investigation into the explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon site is still in its early stages, drilling experts agree that blame probably lies with flaws in the "cementing" process -- that is, plugging holes in the pipeline seal by pumping cement into it from the rig. Halliburton was in charge of cementing for Deepwater Horizon.

"The initial likely cause of gas coming to the surface had something to do with the cement," said Robert MacKenzie, managing director of energy and natural resources at FBR Capital Markets and a former cementing engineer in the oil industry.

The problem could have been a faulty cement plug at the bottom of the well, he said. Another possibility would be that cement between the pipe and well walls didn't harden properly and allowed gas to pass through it.

The possibility of Halliburton's culpability was first reported Monday by HuffPost's Marcus Baram.

According to a lawsuit filed in federal court by Natalie Roshto, whose husband Shane, a deck floor hand, was thrown overboard by the force of the explosion and whose body has not yet been located, Halliburton is culpable for its actions prior to the incident.

--Halliburton May Be Culprit In Oil Rig Explosion

The war against the people of Iraq was fought for the benefit of Dick Cheney's Halliburton, the world's second largest oil field services corporation. Subsidiary KBR was given no bid contracts.

Do we all remember the Cheney Energy Task Force? That was at the beginning of the regime, when The Bush Grindhouse became an Energy Jamboree, so evil were the wheeling-and-dealing, so many hands were stained with the payola, that they went to court to suppress having any of the information of the meetings see the light of day

A few years later, we got a glimpse'

Papers Detail Industry's Role in Cheney's Energy Report

In all, about 300 groups and individuals met with staff members of the energy task force, including a handful who saw Cheney himself, according to the list, which was compiled in the summer of 2001. For six years, those names have been a closely guarded secret, thanks to a fierce legal battle waged by the White House. Some names have leaked out over the years, but most have remained hidden because of a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that agreed that the administration's internal deliberations ought to be shielded from outside scrutiny.

--Cheney, Baby Cheney

Among many reasons to smash up the biggest corporations and deny them 'personhood' is this: urged by then V.P. Dick Cheney, Congress granted Halliburton a BIG LOOP HOLE excluding Halliburton from the Clean Water Drinking Act. So ---now HALLIBURTON can pollute the environment at will.

Yet, in 2005, at the urging of Vice President Dick Cheney, Congress created the so-called "Halliburton loophole" to the Clean Water Drinking Act (CWDA) to prevent the US Environmental Protection Agency from regulating this process, despite its demonstrated contamination of drinking water. (In 2001, Cheney's "energy task force" had touted the benefits of hydrofracking, while redacting references to human health hazards associated with hydrofracking; Halliburton, which was previously led by Cheney, reportedly earns $1.5 billion a year from its energy operations, which relies substantially on its hydrofracking business.)[4]

--Halliburton, Polluting the Environment, and the "Halliburton loophole"

Congress, simply, placed Halliburton above the law. But --hypocritically --SCOTUS says 'corporations' are people and have the right of free speech. But should real persons pollute the waters as Halliburton is given leave to do, the 'real person' would be arrested and prosecuted! These exceptions have created and given official blessings to an unacceptable and utterly repugnant 'two-tiered' system of justice in which the business community may ravage the environment, cheat its customers, purchase the services of the government and the MIC for the purposes of looting foreign nations, seizing their natural resources, torturing their citizenry for daring to oppose our corporate aggressions!

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded last week was not outfitted with a safety device that might have prevented the massive oil spill now nearing the US Gulf Coast. The device, known as an acoustic switch, is a last-resort protection against underwater spills, and is required by regulators in Norway and Brazil. Unfortunately, the US has no such regulation for oil wells operating off of its shores.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journall, an acoustic switch is a remote control device that a crew can use in an attempt to trigger an underwater valve that shuts down a well that’s damaged. The switch is meant as a last resort, as the primary shut-off systems almost always work on wells when they are out of control. It can be triggered from a lifeboat if an oil platform has to be evacuated.

According to the Journall, U.S regulators did consider requiring the acoustic switch on offshore wells, but drilling companies resisted because of its cost, and questions about its effectiveness. To be fair, the switches have never been tested in real-world situations, only simulations. US regulators also maintain they are prone to causing unnecessary shutdowns.

Still, while US regulators and some oil producers have doubts about the acoustic switch, a spokesperson for Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority told the Journall the switches have a good track record in the North Sea. In addition to mandates in Norway and Brazil, some oil producers, including Royal Dutch Shell PLC and France’s Total SA, sometimes use the device even when it’s not required, the Journall said.

Industry critics cite the lack of the device as a sign US drilling policy has been too lax, and say it shows the oil industry has too much say in what regulations are adopted here.

A spokesperson for the US Minerals Management Service told the Journall that the agency ultimately decided against requiring acoustic switches because it determined most rigs already had back-up systems of some kind.

BP, which leases the Deepwater Horizon rig from TransOcean Ltd, has had no success using such back-up systems to stem the oil leaking from that well. As a result, the well is now spilling as much as 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill is moving closer to shore, and could hit the coast tomorrow. An environmental disaster of epic proportions may be in the offing.

--Could Additional Safety Device Have Prevented Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill?

This is utterly and without exception unacceptable in a 'free' society, a 'Democracy' as were were once told America was. Now --even the crassest liars seem embarrassed when they try to tell us that the United States is 'free', that it is a 'Democracy' (literally: of the people), that the government is subject, as are all of us, to the 'rule of law'! How hollow those words seem now!

As Speer said of Hitler's Third Reich, we must now say of the US government that it is built upon 'meaningless platitudes'!

At the end of a revolution in which real 'real people' require power and assert the 'sovereignty' that was stolen from them, it would be irresponsible of the provisional tribunal to let stand an idiotic decision of an incompetent, criminal court. At the end of a real revolution, the slate is wiped clean and no precedents written or influenced by Antonin Scalia, Roberts, Alito et al remain. Sadly, there are no guarantees. Things will surely get worse, decisions more absurd, the economy more inequitable (if that's possible), futures even bleaker! That and more will happen before anything is or can be done. The entrenched power not only has all the money (or at least 99.99999999 percent of it) and all the guns. Kent State proved that --yes --civilians daring to exert their rightful power over 'their' government will be fired upon and killed. It is the price that the few have paid for the freedoms of the many.

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by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy Death to 'Corporate Comrade' Halliburton, via The Existentialist Cowboy