Because I am living on a pension, I can't afford Harper's

every month, or even often. Fortunately, a friend gets it. Unfortunately, he is 4 years behind in his reading so I get my copies by and large 4 years late.

I got April 2009 this week and there on page 5 to the Right (what else) of the Letters page, are two books being advertised. "The Man Who Sold the World", with a nice artistically painted 50's magazine ad of Ronnie Ray-gun promoting some cigarette, with his cold unsmiling eyes over his cynical smile. The subtitle is "Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America". "Finally, a fact filled, eminently readable book that punctures the hot air balloon that has buoyed the Reagan Presidency for far too long." Peter Biskind (about whom I know nothing at all) Odds are I'll be able to pick it up used cheaply.

Same publisher immediately below, "Halliburton's Army: How a Well Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War". Kirkus Review, not a hot bed of political though of any stripe since it is entirely a review of books published in the US regardless of topic, calls it "A sordid tale of politics and profiteering."

I really don't think I can stomach this one. I view Halliburton and the US use of mercenaries in warfare as a huge collapse of the nation's moral centre and of its democratic institutions. The Army makes mistakes and indulges in cover-ups, but it at least has some limits, and has a functional central command answerable to the Joint Chiefs and the President.

Halliburton is unanswerable to anyone except its various Vice Presidents in charge of its multitude of segments. There is no way to know what their people are up to, and who they are killing or water-boarding or rending, sorry, renditioning to some nice country like Syria. There is no way to hold them accountable for the sub-standard work which, to take my personal hobby horse, electrocuted real soldiers in the unsafely built showers in Iraq for which KBR were responsible in number of instances and for which they had to return the amounts they were caught overcharging.

I overuse the word Travesty, but with Reagan and Cheney and Friends, how can I use any other words except perhaps Scandalous, Criminal Enterprise and Criminally Negligent and The Shame of the Nation.

The fact that nobody cares about Halliburton, that there isn't a Senate Sub Committee taking them apart and a Department of Justice prosecuting and putting the company's officers in jail is a very good reason for the rest of the World to turn its back on the United States, and to turn toward someone else like Vladimir Putin as more dependable and, conceivably though not likely, more moral. Oh, wait, they are!

Rob