CRUELTY IS THE POINT, PROFIT IS THE MOTIVE, AND DECENCY IS NON-EXISTENT
Just months after leaving Donald Trump’s side, John Kelly is now cashing in on family separation policies by joining the Caliburn board of directors, a private company that runs the country’s largest and most profitable facility for unaccompanied migrant children. There are levels of vile and repulsive behavior pushing the privatization of America in Washington, DC, but Kelly’s new move makes him the leader of the pack of wolves that will do just about anything to make a buck, even if it means abusing children and scarring them for years to come.
John Kelly, framer of the Trump administration’s unconstitutional migrant child separation policy, gets another retirement check after crafting a law that will subsequently boost his influence and personal net worth; a law which means something completely different for migrants. A law for those seeking entry in America that leads to degradation and official discrimination; a law that is another oppressor and challenges one’s right to be treated as a human being.
Donald Trump seems to have a fetish for generals. He could never bring himself to voice even the smallest criticism of Michael Flynn, even after Flynn betrayed his country. Now, his administration awards huge contracts to those one might hope would have more integrity, particularly when it comes to valuing the lives of innocent children. These are men who have no guilt about eroding the rights of children for the purpose of making a profit. Besides Kelly, the Caliburn board includes other former high-ranking military personnel, including retired General Anthony C. Zinni, Admiral James G. Stavridis and Rear Admiral Kathleen Martin — former officers who were trained to uphold justice and the humanitarian values of their country, but have come to hold few qualms about holding children in the most unsanitary and unsafe conditions. They may have once been officers, but men who bargain to abuse some of the world’s poorest and violent-plagued children are certainly not gentlemen.
Cruelty is defined as being a “callous indifference to or pleasure in causing pain and suffering.” Perhaps Urban Dictionary, which operates under the motto “Define Your World” may list it alongside the word which seems so naturally synonymous with “Caliburn” that more proper labeling would not do it justice. After all, this modern dictionary is the place where “Every single word there is written by someone with a point of view.” This particular point of view involves a company which profits from “cruelty.” How else would you describe a for-profit company which bargains to place traumatized children who’ve fled the violence and poverty in their home countries, and then restrains them in white tents and metal trailers? Caliburn International Corporation, with a “callous indifference,” is causing a considerable amount of pain to kids who are afraid and do not really understand where they are and why they must be separated from their parents.
Caliburn International Corporation does not care about children or compassion; it cares about money. Unpardonably, the United States federal government, including the Department of Defense and Department of State, are no strangers to Caliburn. In its role as a military contractor, the United States paid the company over $1 billion since January 2014 to provide security, life support, training, and other basic operations at Balad Air Base in Iraq. According to present and past employees, high-level security officials traded military security for corruption and a racial system that mirrored South African apartheid. Accusations further included misuse of money, rigged security inspections, procurement schemes, smuggling, theft, and a prostitution ring. Now, its abilities are used to institutionalize migrants too young or too afraid to speak for themselves, whose supervision is not governed by child welfare regulations designed to protect youth from harm.
While the mothers and fathers of the children are purposely stuffed into contaminated facilities, their children are being peddled for profits to be had by contractors on the President’s best friends list. Neither the Peddler nor the Profiteers display any emotions, other than evil and their infuriating kind of apathy. Consider how delighted they appear to be, sprinting down the road to riches and earning almost $800 a day per child. Locking children up for money keeps spreading the butter on John Kelly’s bread. Americans are consistently told about immigrant children being such a substantial financial “burden.” The real “burden” to Americans are the President’s children, who are costing taxpayers more than 12 million dollars a month for protection from the Secret Service.
These immigrant kids, however, see their futures in each day, fueled by obscenities afforded by the new owners of America’s new modern-day plantations; and so do we in the quarterly earnings of the corporations who charge $50 per sheet for those foil blankets the administration has become so infamous for. It seems unlikely that the children will see their futures in the faces of their mothers. They do not know where they are. What they are looking at, right now, are the menacing faces of the guards they cannot escape.
At times, we only pretend to prefer justice in our country because we simply want to live with the illusion of a nation devoted to truth. Perhaps it is easier than acknowledging that we’ve failed to speak up against those who govern while privatized prisons openly diminish the hopes of those who come seeking it.
Twitter: @khalilahsabra
