100 Filipino Workers Repatriated From Iraq

Are you a patriot? Are you proud of this?

More than 100 Filipino workers voluntarily left Iraq last week after Philippine officials began an investigation of possible labor trafficking by US-funded contractors and subcontractors. The Philippines imposed a ban on its citizens entering Iraq for work in 2004 for safety concerns although 10,000 to 20,000 Filipinos are estimated to be working in Iraq under US-funded military support and construction contracts despite the restriction. The Filipino workers that left Iraq were repatriated to Dubai and Kuwait on August 16 and were destined to return to the Philippines, according to the Philippine news network ABS-CBN. All are believed to have been employed by First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting, a company that has reaped up to $2 billion in US contracts to build the sprawling 102-acre embassy in the Green Zone and provide services to more than a dozen US military camps. A US Congressional hearing in July focusing on the contractor building the $592-million US embassy in Baghdad sparked the labor probe in the Philippines after witnesses testified that low-paid migrant workers in Kuwait were given boarding passes for Dubai and then flown directly to Baghdad.

Ya see, it ain't just prostitutes who get traded in the global economy. Don't ya just love free enterprise?

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Kuwaiti Court Acquits 2 Ex-Gitmo Inmates

Here's hoping the long ordeal of these two men is finally over.

A criminal court on Saturday acquitted two former Guantanamo Bay prisoners of joining al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Omar Rajab Amin and Abdullah Kamel al-Kundari denied any terror connections at the start of their trial. Their lawyers argued there was no evidence against them and the case was "political." Defense attorneys said the accused were in Afghanistan for charity work - not to fight.

Details of the ruling, which was announced by a court clerk, were not immediately available. The two men were not in court Saturday, but one of their lawyers, Thikra al-Majdali, said she expected them to be released from custody by tomorrow.

The prosecution can appeal the ruling, but it was not clear Saturday if it would do so.

Amin, 41, and al-Kundari, 32, were released from the U.S. detention camp in September after spending nearly five years there. They were detained by authorities for questioning upon their return to Kuwait.

I'm assuming here justice has been done and the men are indeed innocent. But they still lost nearly five years of their lives for nothing. Then faced political persecution for 5 months in Kuwait.

There'll probably be more stories like this to come.

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