Justice For Some, Little American Flags For Others

The callous treatment of Jamie Leigh Jones continues. You may remember that her case alleges she was gang-raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers in Iraq, thus falling into that unfortunate no-man's land where the possible culprits are subject to no courts. The military system doesn't cover private contractors in Iraq, but those very same private contractors are not under the Iraqi jurisprudence. What that boils down to is a wonderful world where you can kill, rape and plunder and your punishment might amount to no more than getting a plane ticket out of the country.

Jones has tried taking her case to an American criminal court, unsuccessfully. The U.S. government has added salt to her wounds by not helping her. If anything, the government appears to help the alleged rapists: First it lost the evidence kit, then nobody from the Justice Department bothered to turn up for the inquiry into her case, and now Pentagon refuses to look into the allegations.