A shocking blow to our way of life was discovered last year. That was when Bunnatine Greenhouse was fired from her job as the procurement officer for the Army Corp of Engineers. While the government tries to rationalize their decision by calling it “poor performance”, Mrs. Greenhouse’s employee files tell a different tale.
Greenhouse was continuously commended for doing an excellent job in her tenure with the corp. So if the was the case then what made the government decide her performance was substandard all of the sudden? The only thing that changed was Greenhouse testifying to a Senate committee about the suspicious contracts Halliburton had been rewarded for reconstruction in Iraq.
This incident is a serious blow to any one who works for the U.S. government that wants to make right on some wrongs. Greenhouse was not out self promoting, she was out trying to get a serious problem corrected. Of course when the vice-President is the former CEO of Halliburton, that is just not acceptable.
Now Greenhouse is out taking her story to the people and letting them know what happened:
Bunnatine Greenhouse describes leadership as “taking the responsibility to do what is right and make a difference,” so she seemed to fit right in with local leaders and activists in Battle Creek.
Greenhouse, a former senior contracting official of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, made headlines when she testified against Halliburton — one of the world’s largest providers of oil and gas services — alleging specific instances of fraud, waste and other irregularities by Halliburton in regard to its operations in Iraq.
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“I was dismissed from my job because I did my job too well,” Greenhouse said. “I am now fighting the most important fight of my career and I am fighting for the people. Please know that Battle Creek’s support gives me the strength to go on fighting.”
Nixon’s downfall as a person called “deepthroat”, a man wanting to make known some illegal activities going on inside our government. The Bush administration does not want to make the same mistake. That is to say they do not want to be caught. The illegal activates are fine and dandy by them.
When the NSA story got reported in December, the administrations first reaction was to silence whistleblowers. Well they have already been trying this and it is not working. We have laws in place to make sure our government is opened. That helps to protect our democracy. We even have a great piece of legislation called the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that was co-sponsored in the 60’s by a junior congressman – Donald Rumsfeld. Interesting that the same person who co-sponsored such a vital piece of legislation is not one of the people who helped decide the fate of Mrs. Greenhouse.