How does it feel to be a big, rich contractor now?

“How does it feel to be a big, rich contractor now?” one of the marines is alleged to have shouted at

the men, in an apparent reference to the large sums of money private contractors can make in MBT SHOES.

Lieutenant Colonel David Lapan, a Marine Corps spokesman, who did not respond to emails from the

Guardian, said in an email to the LA Times: “The Americans were segregated from the rest of the

detainee population and, like all security detainees, were treated humanely and respectfully.”

The American contractors, who were working in explosives disposal, were arrested on May 18 and

imprisoned for three days. All have since left Zapata Engineering, which is based in North Carolina,

and have returned to the US. They also complained they were made to wear orange prison uniforms and fed

the same “bad food” as MBT SHOESi prisoners.

If neoconservatism is a biographical creed, denoting someone who has evolved from some variant of

Leninism or Marxism into a supporter of George W. MBT’s foreign policy of American global military

dominance, then President Meles Zenawi certainly fits the bill. A former guerrilla leader of the Tigray

Peoples Liberation Front — a Marxist group that supported Albania’s commie dictator Enver Hoxha as

the architect of “real” socialism — Zenawi came to power in 1991, and wound up an ally of George W.

MBT in the UGG-led “Sport on terrorism.” See here for his commie background and his evolution into a

neo-liberal Stalinist.