Posted on 05/18/2005 10:14:38 AM PDT by Dog Gone
About 250 people protesting Halliburton's involvement in Iraq marched, danced and screamed today around the downtown hotel where the Houston company's annual meeting was being held.
Police said 15 protesters were arrested, including seven who dressed in business attire, snuck into the Four Seasons hotel and chained themselves to each other to block entry to the meeting. Charges against the protesters including evading arrest, trespassing, assaulting officers and injuring a police horse.
Houston police said at a news conference this morning that during the demonstration, one officer was punched in the face, another was kicked, and another was kicked, punched and pushed to the ground, but no one was seriously injured.
Protesters outside, however, said it was police who used unreasonable force. Nursing her foot with an ice pack, Cynthia Daly said a mounted officer outside the hotel ran over her foot with his horse.
"They ran over my foot. They did not need to do that," she said.
Halliburton, through a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has thousands of employees and contractors working in Iraq, rebuilding the country's oil industry. So far, 63 of those employees and contractors have been killed in violent attacks in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan.
This morning's annual meeting was a predictable target for anti-war protesters, who've turned out for past Halliburton meetings. Police said this year's crowd was a little smaller than last year's but more aggressive.
Keith Koski, a 46-year-old Houston resident dressed as Vice President Dick Cheney, a former Halliburton chief, said it's a matter of conscience.
"I think it's a shame we have to be here this year, but we'll keep coming back as long as Halliburton is illegally profiteering from the war in the Iraq," he said.
Halliburton's response was measured.
"Halliburton supports the rights of protesters," Halliburton said in a news release. "Even if they don't have the facts right, they have a right to speak up."
At least 30 mounted Houston police officers and dozens more on foot worked to control the crowd of mostly young people, who shouted anti-war and anti-Halliburton chants and threw an occasional bottle.
The protesters brought with them a variety of homemade noisemakers, including a trash can fitted with stereo speakers that pumped techno sounds at ear-splitting levels.
The roughest confrontation came as clusters of the protesters ignored the orders of officers to stay off the streets and behind blockades, swarming some of the police horses.
The horses performed as trained, by circling with their back feet, sometimes knocking protesters out of the way with their haunches.
Some protesters engaged in shouting matches with the officers, shouting, "Shame on you! "
The only other construction firm big enough to handle Irag was Bechtel and they were too busy swiss-cheesing the Boston Big Dig.
Hmmmm, to the protesters:
Get a freakin' job, get a freakin' clue...or both!
I'd like to see video of that.
How about that?:Horse steps on horse's a$$?
It's so easy for the simple minded left to pick what they think are easy targets. Everything American is bad. Big business is bad. Anything military is bad. They have the intellectual depth of an empty saucer.
They also apparently have nothing to do.
Yep, they realized that Halliburton spelled backwards is Satan's War Mongering Enterprises, Inc. Dumb a$$es.
"Halliburton supports the rights of protesters," Halliburton said in a news release. "Even if they don't have the facts right, they have a right to speak up."What a polite way of saying: "It's ok; they're just dumb."
A judge could consider this a very serious crime. It might actually get some jail time.
Assaulting a police officer? Probation.
Damn! You stole my thunder!
Halliburton's doing A LOT more there than construction - including such mundane things as running cafeteria services.
And when it comes to construction, why isn't the Army Corp of Engineers doing that?
"The appearance of impropriety" is a concept that seems a bit too abstract for the diminished mental capacities of modern day America. Maybe we should all start wearing shirts that say "sucker" on the back.
I'm just wondering how Bill Clinton would have rationalized awarding the reconstruction to Tyson Foods.
Tell them to visit me next time. I will run over their head !!
I will do something that will REALLY piss off the liberals. Will send Halliburton my resume.
Houston area ping lists.
Hehehehe
This deserves a Napolean Dynomite soundbite "IDIOT!"
HOT Dog, does your horse gang like stories like this?
The funny thing is, that the protestors who are not Trust Fund Kids would gladly take a well-paying job at Halliburton, if they would have them.
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