There’s an interesting follow-on to the story of Tami Silicio, the contract worker in Kuwait who was fired for taking the picture of homeward-bound military dead, which appeared in the Seattle Times.
The picture got into the Times’ hands because Silicio sent a copy to her friend Amy Katz. Katz sent it to the Times; and then the Times published it after getting Silicio’s permission.
It turns out that Silicio and Katz also worked as contract workers for a Halliburton subsidiary in Kosovo in 1999. And they are the two who sued Halliburton — and Dick Cheney in his capacity as CEO — for sexual harassment and also for the firm’s policy of having separate toilets for Americans and for locals — something that garnered a bit of attention during the 2000 election.
Right-wing talk radio seems to be making something of this, arguing that it discredits the two in the whole matter of the photograph. But it seems equally plausibly to credit them — at least in my mind. Though I suspect that no more defense contracting work is in line for either.
