Baron Dave Romm
Blackwater: Worse Than You Thought
By Baron Dave Romm
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Blackwater: Outsourcing Evil
How much do you know about Blackwater, the biggest "independent contractor" in Iraq? Web page for XE (with response to one of the charges below) US Training Center (with the same response) and the Wikipedia article on Blackwater Worldwide (allowing anyone to edit the entry... including the CIA...).
Mercenaries shatter our moral authority in Iraq
The dark truth about Blackwater Long article by PW Singer in salon.com Oct. 2, 2007 with links to related articles:
Outsourcing the war to private military contractors such as Blackwater has shattered the United States' moral authority and its ability to win wars like that in Iraq.
WASHINGTON -- On Sept. 16, 2007, a convoy of Blackwater contractors guarding State Department employees entered a crowded square near the Mansour district in Baghdad, Iraq. But versions of what caused the ensuing bloodshed diverge. Employees from the firm claim they were attacked by gunmen and responded within the rules of engagement, fighting their way out of the square after one of their vehicles was disabled. Iraqi police and witnesses instead report that the contractors opened fire first, shooting at a small car driven by a couple with their child that did not get out of the convoy's way as traffic slowed. At some point in the 20-minute gunfight, Iraqi police and army forces stationed in watchtowers above the square also began firing. Other Iraqi security forces and Blackwater quick-reaction forces soon reportedly joined the battle. There are also reports that one Blackwater employee may even have pointed his weapon at his fellow contractors, in an effort to get them to cease firing
Since then, the Iraqi and U.S. governments have launched separate investigations, likely ensuring that the differing versions of the story will never meet. The only thing agreed upon is the consequences: After a reported 20 Iraqi civilians were killed, including the couple and their child, who was subsequently burned to the mother's body after the car caught fire, the Iraqi government and populace exploded with anger.
Iraq contractors accused in shootings USA Today, Aug. 11, 2007:
There are now nearly as many private contractors in Iraq as there are U.S. soldiers -- and a large percentage of them are private security guards equipped with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bullet-proof trucks.
They operate with little or no supervision, accountable only to the firms employing them. And as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war, this private army has been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys.
Baron Dave Commentary: The US has used mercenaries and contractors before, but never in such large numbers. What the Bush administration did was hide the actual war from the American people. See below for economic ramifications. What was sold as a war to take out Saddam Hussein and spread democracy was conducted as a pirate raid far from any semblance of American values. National interests were not at stake, only the greed and the love of big boomy things.
The Iraq money pit
Briefing: The Iraq money pit, The Week 5/01/08 (selected exceprts):
The war in Iraq is costing the U.S. $12 billion a month, and no one can say when the spending will stop. What has all that money bought for the U.S.-and the Iraqis?
How much has the war cost so far?
About $600 billion since 2003, and the total is rising fast. Because of soaring fuel costs and the high price of repairing or replacing damaged equipment, the U.S. is spending about $12 billion a month this year, up from $4 billion a month in 2003. About $1.5 billion of the monthly total covers reconstruction, and perhaps an additional $4.5 billion flows to private contractors doing everything from serving food to guarding diplomats. The remainder covers fuel, ammunition, and equipment, as well as the cost of paying, feeding, housing, and providing medical care to more than 150,000 U.S. military personnel. The $600 billion figure does not include such costly consequences as higher oil prices, the interest on the billions borrowed to pay for the war (see below), and the burden of long-term care and benefits for Iraq war veterans.
So what's a more realistic figure?
Anywhere from $1 trillion to $5 trillion. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently said that the war's cost would amount to $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion by 2017.
Cost of War (Iraq and Afghanistan); an ever increasing counter.
Audit: 98% Of Iraq Contractors Failed To Comply With Fraud Regulations. This is a story I had originally linked from the Baltimore Sun, but the conservative news media let this story drop off their internet archives pretty quickly. From the Huffington Post 5/23/08:
WASHINGTON - An internal audit of some $8 billion paid to U.S. and Iraqi contractors found that nearly every transaction failed to comply with federal laws or regulations aimed at preventing fraud, in some cases lacking even basic invoices explaining how the money was spent.
Of the money paid during a five-year period _ from 2001 through 2006 _ $7.8 billion in payments skirted billing rules with some violations egregious enough to invite potential fraud, warned the Defense Department's inspector general.
AP: Military Contractor Oversight Too Lax CBS News 10/7/09: "Defense Auditors Uncover at Least $6B in Questionable Expenses Claimed by Government Contractors"
Baron Dave Commentary: I don't want to spend too much time on the money spent except to make a two points that get lost in many reports:
1: Mercenaries are paid considerably more than the US soldiers they replace. When the report above says, "$4.5 billion flows to private contractors doing everything from serving food to guarding diplomats", that's taxpayer dollars being spent on people we have little or not control over. As the later stories show, the actual amount of money spent on mercenaries is much more than admitted. What used to be the province of the military is simply another government handout. Billions of dollars are spent on corporate welfare instead of spending it on our troops.
All those Tea Party morons who claim to want smaller government seem to forget that it's Republicans and conservative Democrats who are wasting the most money. Conservatives just don't know how to add and subtract.
2: 4.5 billion is only the amount the Bush administration admitted to as of May 2008. How much more spending is on a different budget line or simply off the books is less well known. We know the Bush adminsistration was corrupt and incompetent, and they digracefully hired their corrupt and incompetent friends. Blackwater and other mercenaries cost the US taxpayers a lot of money for an unaccountable and often criminal mercenary force.
The wasteful and corrupt Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld warmongers had to lie to get us into war, and they had to lie about the costs to ram appropriations through a gullible Congress controlled by frightened politicians. Obama is at least trying to be up front about the costs, though he inherited the budget structure. Fortunately, liberals can do the math.
Going Rogue... er, Criminal Behaviour
What happens to private contractors who kill Iraqis? Maybe nothing. "Blackwater USA employees are accused of killing several civilians, but there might not be anyone with the authority to prosecute them. " Salon.com report from 9/18/09, in a continuing story that barely makes Fox or CNN.
Blackwater Operating in Iraq Illegally, Alleges Lawsuit. Mother Jones, 6/11/09:
Blackwater (renamed "Xe") has been kicked out of Iraq. Baghdad has revoked its operating license, and the State Department cancelled its long-standing private security contract earlier this year, replacing it with competitors DynCorp and Triple Canopy. But ridding Mesopotamia of Erik Prince and his hired guns is apparently not that simple. According to a lawsuit (PDF) filed Wednesday in the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, Blackwater continues to operate in Iraq under the mantle of Greystone Ltd., one of an array of smaller sub-companies under the Blackwater/Xe umbrella. (Dan Schulman and I wrote an in-depth piece about Greystone and its practice of hiring Third-World mercenaries for duty in Iraq in the March/April 2008 issue of Mother Jones.)
The contract in question is with a State Department-funded group called the International Republican Institute (IRI). Nominally nonpartisan, it claims to be promoting good governance and the rule of law in Iraq. In reality, the organization's leadership is heavily populated with Republicans, including Senator John McCain, who serves as chairman of the board. Bill Sizemore of HamptonRoads.com reports that, between 2005 and 2007, the IRI paid Blackwater $17 million annually for security services, almost a quarter of the group's $75-million annual budget.
Baron Dave Commentary: Anarchists, libertarians, mercenaries or pirates? Certainly not anyone conducting a war according to the US Constitution.
But we knew Bush's cronies were evil
US: U.S. probes Blackwater weapons shipments. A story originally in the News and Observer (North Carolina) from 9/11/07 has also fallen off the conservative news radar, but archived here:
The investigation into Blackwater's weapons is noteworthy because Congress and the Iraqi government have criticized the company and accused it of acting with impunity. One of its contractors, for example, shot and killed an Iraqi vice president's security guard on Christmas Eve in Baghdad. Blackwater sent the man back to the United States and fired him. He has not been charged in the U.S. or Iraq.
Two sources familiar with the investigation said that prosecutors are looking at whether Blackwater lacked permits for dozens of automatic weapons used at its training grounds in Moyock. The investigation is also looking into whether Blackwater was shipping weapons, night-vision scopes, armor, gun kits and other military goods to Iraq without the required permits.
U.S. law demands close attention to who ships weapons -- and to whom they are shipped. The weapons-smuggling investigation was mentioned in a letter sent Tuesday to State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard by Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who for years has been investigating wrongdoing by private contractors in Iraq.
And more recently, Xe faces bribery inquiry and fines for arms shipments, archive of NYTimes 11/19/09, last paragraph:
Prosecutors in North Carolina have reportedly investigated whether some of the weapons shipped to Iraq were sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has long fought Turkey in the hope of gaining an independent Kurdistan. Turkey considers the group a terrorist organization, and Turkish officials reportedly complained to the United States about American weapons seized from the group, prompting an investigation into whether the weapons originated with Blackwater.
Baron Dave Commentary: Taxpayer money went to supply arms to terrorists. Shades of Dick Cheney's Halliburton, who illegally dealt with US enemies in the 90s. Republicans are always soft on crime... when it's theirs. More recently, Republicans shamed themselves and their party when, as 30 GOP Senators voted against Al Franken's legislation to rein in defense contractor's treatment of rape as reported on Oct. 7, 2009
And the latest outrage is hardly shocking: Blackwater was a CIA plot
Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy Vanity Fair January 2010:
Erik Prince, recently outed as a participant in a C.I.A. assassination program, has gained notoriety as head of the military-contracting juggernaut Blackwater, a company dogged by a grand-jury investigation, bribery accusations, and the voluntary-manslaughter trial of five ex-employees, set for next month. Lashing back at his critics, the wealthy former navy seal takes the author inside his operation in the U.S. and Afghanistan, revealing the role he's been playing in America's war on terror.
"I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.'s disposal for some very risky missions," says Erik Prince as he surveys his heavily fortified, 7,000-acre compound in rural Moyock, North Carolina. "But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus." Prince-the founder of Blackwater, the world's most notorious private military contractor-is royally steamed. He wants to vent. And he wants you to hear him vent.
Erik Prince has an image problem -- the kind that's impervious to a Madison Avenue makeover. The 40-year-old heir to a Michigan auto-parts fortune, and a former navy seal, he has had the distinction of being vilified recently both in life and in art. In Washington, Prince has become a scapegoat for some of the Bush administration's misadventures in Iraq -- though Blackwater's own deeds have also come in for withering criticism. Congressmen and lawyers, human-rights groups and pundits, have described Prince as a war profiteer, one who has assembled a rogue fighting force capable of toppling governments. His employees have been repeatedly accused of using excessive, even deadly force in Iraq; many Iraqis, in fact, have died during encounters with Blackwater. And in November, as a North Carolina grand jury was considering a raft of charges against the company, as a half-dozen civil suits were brewing in Virginia, and as five former Blackwater staffers were preparing for trial for their roles in the deaths of 17 Iraqis, The New York Times reported in a page-one story that Prince's firm, in the aftermath of the tragedy, had sought to bribe Iraqi officials for their compliance, charges which Prince calls "lies ... undocumented, unsubstantiated [and] anonymous." (So infamous is the Blackwater brand that even the Taliban have floated far-fetched conspiracy theories, accusing the company of engaging in suicide bombings in Pakistan.)
..
Erik Prince can be a difficult man to wrap your mind around -- an amalgam of contradictory caricatures. He has been branded a "Christian supremacist" who sanctions the murder of Iraqi civilians, yet he has built mosques at his overseas bases and supports a Muslim orphanage in Afghanistan. He and his family have long backed conservative causes, funded right-wing political candidates, and befriended evangelicals, but he calls himself a libertarian and is a practicing Roman Catholic. Sometimes considered arrogant and reclusive -- Howard Hughes without the O.C.D. -- he nonetheless enters competitions that combine mountain-biking, beach running, ocean kayaking, and rappelling.
Baron Dave's commentary: You could almost smell this coming. Yet more shamelss crimes committed in America's name covered up by shadowy figures hiding behind national security. It's time to hold these people accountable.
Vikings vs. Arizona
An evening contest, too late for inclusion here. Feel free to write your own snarky comment on the game and send it off to Marty.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Tom Petruno: Fearing pay cuts as the new normal (latimes.com)
What if, for years to come, there are masses of qualified people willing to do what you do -- but for much less?
Froma Harrop: The Politization of Crime (creators.com)
It's over for Mike Huckabee. His presidential hopes will not survive revelations that as governor of Arkansas he had commuted the long prison term of the now-dead Maurice Clemmons, suspected of gruesomely murdering four police officers in Lakewood, Wash.
Susan Estrich: What I Don't Know About Afghanistan (creators.com)
People keep asking me whether I agree with the president's troop surge in Afghanistan. I am a lawyer. I know what to do with a hard question: Answer another one that is so similar that even the person asking may not notice you've changed it. So I answer that I absolutely support the president on this one, that I absolutely approve of the process and the decision and the way he's handling his responsibility as commander in chief.
Geoff Boucher: Black Eyed Peas see a future with spectacles (latimes.com)
The pop group plans a 100-city world tour with a splashy show. U2 provides part of its inspiration.
Tracy E. Gilchrist: Meredith Baxter's New Family Ties (advocate.com)
One of America's best-known TV moms comes out of the closet as a real-life lesbian.
"The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery: A review by Sheila Ashdown
What [the novel] lacks in drama, it more than makes up for by exploring the subtle moments that give our lives meaning: the delight that accompanies an unexpected friendship, a lovingly prepared meal, or a fine work of film or literature. We all have these moments, and Barbery has captured them and infused them with resonance.
Mary Ann Gwinn: Richard Price, a master of dialogue, talks about his own life and work (The Seattle Times)
Those of us who are disciples of Richard Price share the conviction that he is one of America's greatest living novelists. There aren't nearly enough of us, but we are a fervent bunch.
"Too Much Happiness" by Alice Munro: A review by Ellen Urbani
The advent of a much-heralded literary comeback is upon us; week after week, in a nearly endless parade of mastery, new work is being trotted out but such luminaries as Philip Roth, A.S. Byatt, Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers, Lorrie Moore, Thomas Pynchon and even Vladimir Nabokov. Even so, Alice Munro's 13th story collection, 'Too Much Happiness,' will surely be one of the most venerated and widely reviewed of the bunch.
JOHN H. MCWHORTER: Thus Spake Zora (city-journal.org)
Zora Neale Hurston's writing challenged black people as well as white.
Bruce Greenwood: 20 Questions (popmatters.com)
Q: What do you want to say to the leader of your country?
A: Pay the teachers. A lot. Then double the number. Then double the teachers.
SADY DOYLE: Girls Just Wanna Have Fangs (prospect.org)
The unwarranted backlash against fans of the world's most popular vampire-romance series.
JAMES COLLINS: What Would Jane [Austen] Do? (wsj.com)
How a 19th-century spinster serves as a moral compass in today's world.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
Tareq and Michaela's Most Excellent White House Adventure
Another Party Crashing Person at the State Dinner?
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?' Edition
The two people without invitations that crashed President Obama's first White House state dinner, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, polo-playing socialites from northern Virginia, are now offering to talk to broadcast networks about it - providing they're well paid. The Virginia couple was looking for a payment in the mid-six figures range - about half a million dollars...
Are you interested enough in what they have to say about their exploit to watch an interview of them?
Meanwhile, two senators, Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) and Jon Kyl (R- Arizona), have called for criminal charges be brought against the couple...
Do you feel that the party crashing couple should be prosecuted?
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Link from RJ
20 Wonderful Words
Hi there
A possible link for you, perhaps? Thanks for taking a look
Tip from Kip
Jack Rose
Jack Rose died Saturday:
Remembering Jack Rose
Rose was a terrific guitar player. Fans of John Fahey, Sandy Bull, & Leo Kottke will like Rose's style of playing.
Kip
Thanks, Kip!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
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