Last Friday’s presidential inauguration ceremony raised a few questions for me. Why was Alan Dachs, leader of one of the greatest corporate war profiteers of our time, publicly honored at Roth’s inauguration? Why is Dachs, board member of the Bechtel Group and president of this corporate Behemoth’s investment arm, still a member of Wesleyan’s Development Committee?
Bechtel, along with its more infamous cousin Halliburton, was awarded some of the largest no-bid U.S contracts in the early years of the reconstruction effort in Iraq. In the words of New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, “the Bechtel Group was able to demonstrate exactly what wars are good for” during this period. In a typical scenario, Bechtel claimed to have built a children’s hospital in Basra in 2006, while the Special Inspector General for Iraq reported to Congress that Bechtel had in fact been dropped from the hospital project after misreporting its progress and going $90 million over budget.
If you are not offended by Dachs’ presence on our campus yet, consider Bechtel’s worldwide involvement in water privatization, or its participation in some of the most notable nuclear mishaps in U.S. history, from California’s San Onofre reactor to the botched clean up of Three Mile Island.
Last Friday was the second time in less than half a year that Wesleyan publicly celebrated Dachs — he was also awarded an honorary degree at commencement last May. Dachs’ involvement in the Wesleyan community is an embarrassment. The trustees should dismiss Dachs, and all war profiteers from the Development Committee; they should not ask us to applaud him.
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