CVAX ... When you care enough to steal the very best

Mark Landler and Edward Wong, covering Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s trip to the US, in the New York Times, Feb 14, With Edge, U.S. Greets China’s Heir Apparent, wrote,

“On the list of American concerns, Mr. Biden said, were China’s artificially depressed currency and conditions imposed by the Chinese that require foreign companies to turn over technology in return for doing business in China. He raised the issue of jailed Chinese dissidents and … Syria”

In Inflaming Trademark Dispute, Second City in China Halts Sales of the iPad, published in the NY Times, Feb. 14, 2012, Michael Wines wrote:

“The authorities in a second Chinese city have begun seizing iPads from local retailers in an escalating trademark dispute between Apple and Proview Technology. … The seizures follow a ruling in December in which a court in Shenzhen dismissed Apple’s contention that it owned the iPad name in China. … Proview has also made a filing with the General Administration of Customs in China putting Apple on notice that the company could seek to block the export of iPads, should Proview’s ownership claims be upheld. … the seizures and the filing are warnings by Proview of the havoc it could wreak unless Apple agrees to pay a large fee to settle the trademark fight. … Paradoxically, China’s intellectual property laws are so sweeping that they allow the government to ban the worldwide sale of any made-in-China product that is found to violate a Chinese patent, trademark or other protection.”

Remember back during the cold war, when Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev said “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.” ( various quotes by Kruschev).

And later when the American computer company DEC, in response to reverse engineering of VAX computers by Soviet computer scientists inscribed, in Russian,“CVAX, … When you care enough to steal the very best” on the CVAX microprocessors. (Links: TRAILING EDGE.com, CNET, FSU.edu.)

Suppose Khrushchev had called John Kennedy, on the occasion of John Glenn’s orbit in the Friendship 7, February 20, 1962,  here, or Leonid Brezhnev had called Richard Nixon, after Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins returned from the moon in Apollo 11, July 24, 1969, Apollo 11, or Mikhail Gorbachev had answered Ronald Reagan’s call to “tear down this wall,” and said

“Mister President, I have business proposition for you: Let us to build your consumer goods. We have factories with skilled laborers. Our workers are like children, so eager to please. (Ok, they are children.) We can more or less match your quality control. We can deliver on time. And we do this for pennies on the dollar – pennie!

“All we ask is you give us designs for the products, and computer software source code for computers and telecommunications de-wices we assemble. It will be great Soviet / American partnership.”

Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan would have said

“Give you our designs? Our software? That’s our intellectual property? Are you nuts? That would be crazy!”

Premiers Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev might have answered,

“But our labor costs are much lower than yours. We have workers in factories, happy workers in the ‘Worker’s Paradise.’ Why. workers in our factories in Siberia work 7 days a week. And for little more than food and water. Go on strike? Never! (If they did we would shoot them.) You won’t have to pay them union scale or retirement benefits.”

Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan would still have said

“Give you our designs? Our software? Our intellectual property? So you can use children and slave labor to build our consumer goods? That would destroy our middle class. That would be nuts.”

And they would have been right.

So how exactly are the Chinese communists different from the Soviet communists?

We wouldn’t outsource to the Soviet Union. Why are we outsourcing to China?

James Risen reports in the Times of July 18th (Electrical Risks at Iraq Bases Are Worse Than Said)  that

Shoddy electrical work by private contractors on United States military bases in Iraq is widespread and dangerous, causing more deaths and injuries from fires and shocks than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to internal Army documents.

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During just one six-month period — August 2006 through January 2007 — at least 283 electrical fires destroyed or damaged American military facilities in Iraq, including the military’s largest dining hall in the country, documents obtained by The New York Times show. Two soldiers died in an electrical fire at their base near Tikrit in 2006, the records note, while another was injured while jumping from a burning guard tower in May 2007.  Electrical problems were the most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq, according to an Army survey issued in February 2007. It noted “a safety threat theaterwide created by the poor-quality electrical fixtures procured and installed, sometimes incorrectly, thus resulting in a significant number of fires.”

Electrical problems were the most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq, according to an Army survey issued in February 2007. It noted “a safety threat theaterwide created by the poor-quality electrical fixtures procured and installed, sometimes incorrectly…”

Electrical problems were the most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq, according to an Army survey issued in February 2007. It noted “a safety threat theaterwide created by the poor-quality electrical fixtures procured and installed, sometimes incorrectly…”

The Army report said KBR, the Houston-based company that is responsible for providing basic services for American troops in Iraq, including housing, did its own study and found a “systemic problem” with electrical work.

But the Pentagon did little to address the issue until a Green Beret, Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth, was electrocuted in January while showering. His death, caused by poor electrical grounding, drew the attention of lawmakers and Pentagon leaders after his family pushed for answers. Congress and the Pentagon’s inspector general have begun investigations, and this month senior Army officials ordered electrical inspections of all buildings in Iraq maintained by KBR.

“We consider this to be a very serious issue,” Chris Isleib, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday in an e-mail message, while declining to comment on the findings in the Army documents.

Heather Browne, a KBR spokeswoman, would not comment about a company safety study or the reports of electrical fires or shocks, but she said KBR had found no evidence of a link between its work and the electrocutions. She added, “KBR’s commitment to the safety of all employees and those the company serves remains unwavering.”

Read the rest of Mr. Risen’s post here: Electrical Risks at Iraq Bases Are Worse Than Said.

Of course, this calls KBR’s competence and integrity into question; more disturbingly, it calls into question the Department of Defense’s ability to to correct errors, particularly in connection with politically well-connected contractors – even when its soldiers and civilians are at risk.

Finally – the odd inconsistency of using local Iraqi contractors, who can scarcely be thought responsible to comply with American building codes, unless given training by KBR – while the State Department and other government agencies don’t generally hire Iraqis as interpreters within the Green Zone – because of their uncertainty about trusting Iraqis, Arabic speakers from other countries are recruited. Does this not raise the question of whether KBR’s mendacity – and the Pentagon’s indifference and passivity – created opportunities for sabotage?

Tags: KBR, sabotage, Iraq, outsourcing, emergency housing

The Disaster Accountability Project Blog reports that an investigation has been called for into allegations that the Corps of Engineers and contractors knowingly installed defective pumps in New Orleans.

In September of 2007 the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) ordered

Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, to conduct an investigation into the allegation that defective pumping equipment was delivered and installed at the three new gated closure structures in New Orleans. These are the main pumps protecting the city of New Orleans in the event of a major hurricane or flood. OSC said in its letter to Gates that they concluded the allegations made by this whistleblower had a substantial likelihood of validity and that these pumps are “inherently flawed” due to poor design and have still not been properly tested.

Also, the OSC went on to state this same pumping equipment had previously malfunctioned under favorable contractor testing conditions and was subsequently shown to be defective, yet was knowingly installed by the Corps of Engineers.

In addition, the OSC went on further to state the whistleblower, a veteran Corps engineer who was the Team Leader of Pumping Systems Installation for New Orleans, alleged USACE employees and MWI (the pump manufacturer) circumvented contract requirements in an effort to complete the task, all at the expense of public safety. It was reported that key safeguards were circumvented and “there is an erroneous assumption that…hydraulic pumps are fully operational, and hence, the risk to the public remains high,” in the words of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

New Orleans Pumps Still Questionable at The Disaster Accountability Project Blog.

Image by Alex Brandon of the Associated Press on DayLife.Com