Blackwater // Current

Bush will NEVER be able to set foot outside the U.S.!

Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPANJUNKIEdotORG This is a short clip from the 2008 Miami Book Fair International talk.... more

DandelionSalad
added this

Jeremy Scahill on Bill Moyer's: Martial Law in the USA

This is an astounding interview. I almost don't beleive my ears, except I know already that what he says is true.

asherp
added this

Blackwater Busted?

By Jeremy Scahill After more than five years of rampant violence and misconduct carried out by the massive army of private... more

HolyCity2012
added this

Millions in fines for Blackwater

The State Department is preparing to slap a multi-million dollar fine on private military contractor Blackwater USA for shipping... more

bansheewail
added this

Iraq's Private Security Has Cost Over $6 Billion, US Auditors Say

WASHINGTON — No one knows for sure, but auditors think the U.S. has paid well over $6 billion to private security companies who've been guarding diplomats, troops, Iraqi officials and reconstruction workers in Iraq.

The money amounts to about 12 percent of the $50 billion Americans are paying for reconstruction in the country, said Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen.

The figure, included in a report being released by Bowen's office Thursday, is likely to be taken as the most authoritative accounting so far of what it has cost taxpayers to provide private security since 2003 in the violence-plagued nation.

It included bodyguards for diplomats and top commanders and guards for U.S. military bases, as well as for military supply convoys, contractors, subcontractors and others supporting the U.S. mission and military.

Also included were personal security details for high-ranking Iraqi officials, as well as security advice and planning costs.

Government agencies in Iraq were not required to keep track in one place of how much money was going to security. So Bowen's office spent three months going through records from the State Department, Defense Department U.S. Agency for International Development and other government sources to try to pull together the figure.

There are likely more contractors he has yet to count and so the $6 billion is almost certainly not the full picture, he said in an interview Wednesday.

The report accompanies Bowen's quarterly reconstruction report to Congress, which included the following other findings:
More than $125.7 billion has now been committed to rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure and government since U.S.-led forces toppled the government of Saddam Hussein five years ago.

Though all of that has not been spent, it includes $50.77 billion in money appropriated by the U.S., $57.96 billion in Iraqi funds and $17 billion pledged by other international donor, the bulk of it in the latter in loans and under $5.3 billion in grants.

_ Iraq's rule-of-law system remains broken, most evidenced by the fact that Iraqi judges continue to be assassinated across the country. In 2008, terrorists killed seven judges, compared to 11 killed in 2007 and bringing the number to more than 40 judges and family members since 2003.

_ A serious problem remains with corruption _ which Bowen has long called a "second insurgency" in Iraq for the challenge it poses. For instance, auditors noted that a local contractor asked to be released from his work on three schools in Baghdad's Sadr City this quarter because he and his family were threatened when he refused repeated requests from government officials that he pay them bribes.

_ The United States has allocated nearly $25 billion to support training and equipping new Iraqi security forces and the justice system and spent more than $10 billion on Iraq infrastructure.
WASHINGTON — No one knows for sure, but auditors think the U.S. has paid well over $6 billion to private security companies... more

synclaire
added this

0 responses

19 days ago

Blackwater Hired To Patrol Shipping Lanes In Pirate-Plagued Waters

Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms -- some with a reputation for being quick on the trigger in Iraq -- are... more

Apocalipstick
added this

0 responses

23 days ago

Is America Fascist?

By Sherwood Ross
October 20, 2008 “Information Clearinghouse“

If it hasn’t gone the way of Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, it’s sure teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens(New Orleans), tortures its enemies(Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire(Iran), flouts international treaties(UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on(FISA), and intimidates, its critics(No Fly). Americans that can clearly see the totalitarian machinations of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Hu Jintao in China are blind to the fascism threatening to envelop them as well.

Webster’s defines fascism as “a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism.” A comparison of 20th century fascist and communist regimes with President Bush’s USA indicates the machinery for a full-blown totalitarian takeover is now in place, even if no coup has occurred. As Naomi Wolf writes in “The End of America”(Chelsea Green)the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill’s Section 333 allows the president “to declare martial law and take charge of the National Guard troops without the permission of a governor when ‘public order’ has been lost…” and to “send the guard into our streets during a public health emergency, terrorist attack or ‘other condition.’”

The enabling crowbar was the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It gives the president authority to set up his own system for bringing alien combatants to trial while denying them protection of the Geneva Conventions. “The president and his lawyers now claim the authority to designate any American citizen he chooses as being an ‘enemy combatant,’” Wolf writes of power usurpation that characterized the post-World War One epoch in Europe and Asia.

Thus, Congress has empowered Bush just as Germany’s Reichstag empowered Hitler, Wolf writes, recalling Hitler’s boast, “Democracy will be overthrown with the tools of democracy.” Hitler’s Interior Minister issued Clause 2 that gave police the power to hold people in custody indefinitely and without a court order, powers the U.S. Congress today has conferred upon “The Decider” in the White House. Mussolini’s used the less grandiose “Il Duce” or “The Leader.”

According to Michael Ratner, director of the Center For Constitutional Rights, New York, “the president can…designate people enemy combatants and detain them for whatever reason he wants…there are no charges and prisoners have no lawyers, no family visits, no court reviews, no rights to anything, and no right to release until the mythical end to the ‘war on terror.’”

continued at above linkBy Sherwood Ross October 20, 2008 “Information Clearinghouse“ If it hasn’t gone the way of Mussolini’s... more

DandelionSalad
added this

12 responses

29 days ago

Iraqi Insurgents Using Blackwater Machine Guns

Incident Was Kept Secret and Raises More Questions About the Firm's Iraq Operations. An M4 machine gun sent to Iraq by the... more

SushiBandit
added this

0 responses

1 month ago

5,000 Executed in Katrina Aftermath Says McKinney

Blackwater was using the same tactics they used in Iraq on black looters.

caseygane
added this

2 responses

1 month ago

McKinney claims 5,000 Kartina victims executed

I call-on McKinney to provide evidence of this atrocity. Until evidence or sworn testimony is provided, I'm putting this... more

RyanLYoungblood
added this

0 responses

1 month ago

Illinois Zoning Board OKs Blackwater Firing Range

The Jo Daviess County courtroom had plenty of breathing room on Wednesday, Aug. 27, but Martin Hippie promised he could change... more

goldenways
added this

0 responses

3 months ago

Private contractors hold 1 in 4 US intel jobs

The number of government employees at U.S. intelligence agencies is classified, but Ronald Sanders, the national intelligence... more

leoniDb
added this

0 responses

3 months ago

House Oversight Chair Henry Waxman Calls for Cancellation of Blackwater’s Contract in Iraq

In an exclusive interview with Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill, Congressman Henry Waxman, chair of the powerful House... more

lecoke
added this

1 response

3 months ago

US Troops in Iraq talk about Halliburton & KBR

This is a clip from the documentary "Buying Iraq". It reveals the frighting truths of private contractors such as... more

PollyWop
added this

0 responses

3 months ago

Dept. of Justice prelude Blackwater indictment

Almost a year after a Baghdad shooting that left 17 civilians dead, federal prosecutors are taking action against the six Blackwater Worldwide security guards many deem responsible.

The US Justice Department sent target letters to the guards being investigated, The Washington Post reported Saturday. Although not identified by name, the guards were described as US military personnel.

Target letters often are a prelude to indictment, but allow the suspects to defend themselves by telling the court their own version of events. A federal grand jury has already heard the testimony of dozens of witnesses, including US and Blackwater officials and Iraqis.

The US attorney's office, the Justice Department and the FBI all declined to comment in the Post's article.

A spokesman for Blackwater said the company believes the guards fired in defense and added that it is closely watching the investigation.

"If it is determined that an individual acted improperly, Blackwater would support holding that person accountable," Tyrell said in a statement. "But at this stage, without being able to review evidence collected in an ongoing investigation, we will not prejudge the actions of any individual. The company is cooperating fully with ongoing investigations and believes that accountability is important."

The shooting has become a source of anger in Congress as no one has been held accountable for the Iraqi deaths. The incident only added to the general dissatisfaction many Washington politicians feel towards private security contractors in Iraq.

The shootings began when a Blackwater convoy, which was responding to a Baghdad car bombing, entered the Nisoor Square traffic circle, the Associated Press reported.

Blackwater says the convoy was ambushed by insurgents, touching off a firefight. Iraqi witnesses, however, described an unprovoked attack in which security guards fired indiscriminately, killing motorists, bystanders and children in the square.

Soon after the incident, it appeared that the probe led by the FBI was ignoring evidence that would hold the guards at fault. The agency was further criticized for allowing Blackwater to guard the investigation into its actions, a bias the FBI eventually acknowledged by dropping the contractor as its security escort "to avoid even the appearance of any conflict."

Iraqi leaders have asked repeatedly in negotiations over renewed US/Iraq security pacts that the all security contractors be subject to Iraqi law, a request that the US military continues to deny.

Almost a year after a Baghdad shooting that left 17 civilians dead, federal prosecutors are taking action against the six... more