Halliburton Stops Pretending It's Patriotic

Halliburton, with the help of Dick Cheney, has done a great job of exploiting the U.S. and Iraq. Progressives and liberals have been speaking out against them for a long time with little or no results. Meanwhile, Halliburton continued to bilk American taxpayers, and now they are getting out while the getting's good and taking their war profits with them. And guess where they are going:

Halliburton moving headquarters to Dubai

Halliburton Co., the energy services giant and controversial defense contractor, said Sunday it is opening a new corporate headquarters in Dubai in the Middle East.

The change from Houston to the United Arab Emirates by the world's second largest oil-field services provider was announced by Chief Executive Dave Lesar at an energy conference in neighboring Bahrain.

[...]Halliburton has been dogged by criticism that it overbilled taxpayers in a multibillion contract to feed and house U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Last month, federal investigators alleged Halliburton was responsible for $2.7 billion of the $10 billion in contractor waste and overcharging in Iraq. The company has denied any wrongdoing.

The company's business dealings in Nigeria also are being investigated by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commissions. The company has said it is cooperating in the investigations.

The planned move surprised longtime critic Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He called for congressional hearings on the move, saying, "I want to understand the ramifications for U.S. taxpayers and national security."

Halliburton is probably leaving because the Democrats control Congress now, and they are worried about investigations into their shady business practices and war profiteering. Oh, and then there is the "patriotic" tax evasion:

One Washington corporate lobbyist said: "I think it ensures that there will be some interesting oversight hearings," since Democrats have been unhappy with Halliburton's no-bid contracts and what they believe is its poor performance.

The lobbyist, who requested anonymity so he would not jeopardize relationships with his clients, said the move raises several questions, among them how much did Halliburton receive in incentives to move to Dubai and what does it do to the company's tax structure.

"If there's a huge tax shift, then it's taking money from U.S. taxpayers while they're taking no-bid contracts," the lobbyist said.

Sure they'll take our money, but why should they have to pay taxes to the country that they have been profiting from?

Can you imagine the outrage if this company had been run by a Democrat instead of Cheney? Limbaugh and Hannity would be having a field day with this story, but because of the IOKIYAR (It's OK If You Are Republican) double-standard, they'll be hypocritically quiet about this.

This story is just one more sickening thing we on the left were right about, but nobody listens to us no matter how often our warnings turn out to be correct.

Here are some more links with more info on this topic if you are interested:

BREAKING - Halliburton moving headquarters to Dubai!

[...]For a company that gets such a significant portion of its income from the US government, this is quite a stunning move, to say the least. Unless it means that they expect that this revenue stream will end soon - or that there is so little oil left in the USA that this is no longer where business will be? Or that it is suddenly becoming safer to stay away from US law enforcement authorities?

The real reason Halliburton's moving to Dubai

In one of my first diaries on Dailykos, I wrote about how Halliburton was skirting the laws of the United States by having its "affiliate" in Dubai act as a "launderer" of business products and money so that it could sell illegal items to illegal countries[...]