Readers of the “Killing Train” have no doubt stared long and hard at the picture of the razed Palestinian home that shamefully graces the top of this blog. It therefore seems only appropriate that my inaugural entry be news on the company that provides Israel with the machinery it uses to pulverize Palestinian homes, farmland and lives. A United Nations advisor sent a letter to Caterpillar, the bulldozer-maker based in Peoria, Illinois, saying that sales of its bulldozers to Israel are tantamount to complicity in Israeli human rights abuses against the Palestinians.
Caterpillar, which sold $24.4 billion worth of bulldozers and other heavy machinery last year, seems unphased. CEO James Owens didn’t bother to respond to the letter, but in a letter to the parents of Rachel Corrie, the ISM activist killed by a Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza, he said his company does not have “the practical ability – or the legal right – to determine how our products are used after they are sold.”
Perhaps the company just knows that it will protected by the Bush administration. The administration chose Owens as one of 12 corporate executives who will sit on the newly created Manufacturing Council, an advisory board that, according to Commerce Secretary Don Evans, will provide “manufacturers with a permanent seat at the policy table.”
