Remember that Jane's Addiction song, "Ted, Just Admit It"? Perry Farrell, clearly in a drug-induced haze, murmurs, "Everybody's so full of shit." Well, he was right, and today's Hypocrite of the Day (and now enters the Hypocrite Hall of Fame) is Halliburton, who it seems is doing business with the Iranian Government. Sleeping with the enemy? Cheney's been spooning Iran, the whole time prattling on about evil and terrorism and all manner of bad things.
In fact, U.S. law does ban virtually all commerce with the rogue nations, but there's a loophole that G.E., Conoco-Phillips and Halliburton have exploited: The law does not apply to any foreign or offshore subsidiary so long as it is run by non-Americans.
“These three companies, as far as we were concerned, appear to have violated the spirit of the law,” says Thompson. “In the case of Halliburton, as an example, they have an offshore subsidiary in the Cayman Islands. That subsidiary is doing business with Iran.”
That subsidiary, Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd., is wholly owned by the U.S.-based Halliburton and is registered in a building in the capital of the Cayman Islands – a building owned by the local Calidonian Bank. Halliburton and other companies set up in this Caribbean Island, because of tax and secrecy laws that are corporate friendly.
Halliburton is the company that Vice President Dick Cheney used to run. He was CEO in 1995 to 2000, during which time Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran. Today, it sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian Government.
12:50:45 AM
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