Quotes of the Morning: The Disease of Conceit

“Troops and civilians at a U.S. military base in Iraq were exposed to contaminated water last year and employees for the responsible contractor, Halliburton, couldn’t get their company to inform camp residents, according to interviews and internal company documents.
Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, disputes the allegations about water problems at Camp Junction City, in Ramadi, even though they were made by its own employees and documented in company e-mails.”
-Associated Press, January 22, 2005

“Um.. ew. I’m sure though that, even though a little contaminated, the water was probably safer than making the troops use other available sources. I mean, according to health organizations the rivers are disgusting. When you think of the fact that plumbing isn’t working in large swaths of the country, well, the rivers (which many Iraqi’s are being forced to use water from for both drinking and sewage removal) are tending to get a little nasty.”
-Skippy

“The first memo on the problem — written by Carter to Halliburton officials on March 24, 2005 — was an ‘incident report’ from tests Carter performed the previous day.
‘It is my opinion that the water source is without question contaminated with numerous micro-organisms, including Coliform bacteria,’ Carter wrote. ‘There is little doubt that raw sewage is routinely dumped upstream of intake much less than the required 2 mile distance.
‘Therefore, it is my conclusion that chlorination of our water tanks while certainly beneficial is not sufficient protection from parasitic exposure.’”
-Associated Press, January 22, 2005

“’The level of contamination was roughly 2x the normal contamination of untreated water from the Euphrates River,’ Granger wrote in one of several documents. The Associated Press obtained the documents from Senate Democrats who are holding a public inquiry into the allegations Monday.”
-Associated Press, January 22, 2005

“I would like to restate for the record… ew. Apparently a number of soldier received some pretty bad diarrhea from the contaminates. One quick question though. Why is it that only Senate Democrats holding an inquiry? The company was allowing our troops to use water with poo in it. Shouldn’t the support-our-troops Republicans be outraged over this? I mean, even if it is Halliburton?”
-Skippy

“There's a whole lot of people suffering tonight from the disease of conceit
Whole lot of people struggling tonight from the disease of conceit
Comes right down the highway straight down the line
Rips into your senses through your body and your mind
Nothing about it that's sweet
The disease of conceit.”
-Bob Dylan, “Disease of Conceit”