catepillar's corporate ethics code (
http://www.cat.com/cda/layout?m=38044&x=7) particularly page 30 should create problems for the company's relationship with the idf.
collective punishment is a war crime--it is explicitly prohibited by the geneva convention. caterpillar knows and has known for many many years that the idf adapts the bulldozers that it purchases from caterpillar and that among the uses to which they are put is the flattening of houses of palestinians in reprisal for political actions undertaken by palestinian groups in the context of a long term and brutal conflict.
the flashpoint for this problem was the killing of rachel corrie by the idf a couple years ago. a nice caterpillar was the featured weapon.
the responses from caterpillar itself to repeated shreholder move to stop this sale is that policing end users is beyond caterpillar's purview.
so beneath the ethics, and beneath the claim at the opening of the ethics code that "this is the most important document caterpillar produces," you get typical milton friedman style thinking--a firm's responsibility to end users extends to warranty protection and so forth (presumably caterpillar would repair manufacturing defects in the machines the idf uses to bulldoze palestinian houses) and nothing else.
i was wondering why caterpillar had not been sued for this relationship with the idf and find themselves having to stand trial. us firms can be held accountable for abuses committed overseas in american courts: there is alot of precedent for this kind of action.
but.....whether it would fit under the same logic as the unocal case a few years ago is a problem because unocal had hired the burmese military as a "security force" which also happened to help keep labor costs low for the clients via forced labor and which developed innovative types of recreation like mass rape while on the job.
caterpillar simply sells to a client who uses some of the machines to commit war crimes.
so i dont know.
so much for business ethics.
yay capitalism.
on the other hand, there the list quoted in the op is problematic in its collapsing of different types of problems, with different registers of corporate ethical violations, together and then compounding it by using the top ten format. i say this because as nasty a business as collective punishment is, caterpillar only sells equipment to the idf, which seems to have some trouble with the idea that palestinians are human beings.
lockheed martin is in the conflict of interest/influence peddling game..kbr is among the more amazing of halliburton's many...um...questionable outfits engaging in...um...questionable activities....dyncorps is a mercenary outfit masequerading as a security firm in this brave new bushworld....
the point is that the others actually do things directly, while caterpillar is at a remove.
doesnt seem like the same kind of problem to me.