Blackwater

[Ultra]

Meatpuppets:  In a blackwater swirling there is something that will never change.



Oh blackwater, keep on flowing

Mississippi moon won't you keep on shining on me.....

Keep on shining your light, gonna make everything, pretty momma gonna make everything all right,

Cause I ain't got no worries and I ain't in no hurry at all.



Blackwater: Hired Guns, Above the Law

Fantastic video featuring the author of the article.

Editor's Note: This is an edited transcript of the prepared testimony of Jeremy Scahill before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, September 21, 2007.

My name is Jeremy Scahill. I am an investigative reporter for The Nation magazine and the author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. I have spent the better part of the past several years researching the phenomenon of privatized warfare and the increasing involvement of the private sector in the support and waging of US wars. During the course of my investigations, I have interviewed scores of sources, filed many Freedom of Information Act requests, obtained government contracts and private company documents of firms operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. When asked, I have attempted to share the results of my investigations, including documents obtained through FOIA and other processes, with members of Congress and other journalists.

CONTINUED BELOW
I would like to thank this committee for the opportunity to be here today and for taking on this very serious issue. Over the past six days, we have all been following very closely the developments out of Baghdad in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of as many as 20 Iraqis by operatives working for the private military company Blackwater USA. The Iraqi government is alleging that among the dead are a small child and her parents and the prime minister has labeled Blackwater's conduct as "criminal" and spoke of "the killing of our citizens in cold blood." While details remain murky and subject to conflicting versions of what exactly happened, this situation cuts much deeper than this horrifying incident. The stakes are very high for the Bush administration because the company involved, Blackwater USA, is not just any company. It is the premiere firm protecting senior State Department officials in Iraq, including Ambassador Ryan Crocker. This company has been active in Iraq since the early days of the occupation when it was awarded an initial $27 million no-bid contract to guard Ambassador Paul Bremer. During its time in Iraq, Blackwater has regularly engaged in firefights and other deadly incidents. About 30 of its operatives have been killed in Iraq and these deaths are not included in the official American death toll.

While the company's operatives are indeed soldiers of fortune, their salaries are paid through hundreds of millions of dollars in US taxpayer funds allocated to Blackwater. What they do in Iraq is done in the name of the American people and yet there has been no effective oversight of Blackwater's activities and actions. And there has been absolutely no prosecution of its forces for any crimes committed against Iraqis. If indeed Iraqi civilians were killed by Blackwater USA last Sunday, as appears to be the case, culpability for these actions does not only lie with the individuals who committed the killings or with Blackwater as a company, but also with the entity that hired them and allowed them to operate heavily-armed inside Iraq--in this case, the US State Department.

While the headlines of the past week have been focused on the fatal shootings last Sunday, this was by no means an isolated incident. Nor is this is simply about a rogue company or rogue operators. This is about a system of unaccountable and out of control private forces that have turned Iraq into a wild west from the very beginning of the occupation, often with the stamp of legitimacy of the US government.

What happened Sunday is part of a deadly pattern, not just of Blackwater USA's conduct, but of the army of mercenaries that have descended on Iraq over the past four years. They have acted like cowboys, running Iraqis off the road, firing indiscriminately at vehicles and, in some cases, private forces have appeared on tape seemingly using Iraqis for target practice. They have shown little regard for Iraqi lives and have fueled the violence in that country, not just against the people of Iraq but also against the official soldiers of the United States military in the form of blowback and revenge attacks stemming from contractor misconduct. These private forces have operated in a climate where impunity and immunity have gone hand in hand.

Active duty soldiers who commit crimes or acts of misconduct are prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the court martial system. There have been scores of prosecutions of soldiers-- some 64 courts martial on murder-related charges in Iraq alone. That has not been the case with these private forces. Despite many reports--some from US military commanders--of private contractors firing indiscriminately at Iraqis and vehicles and killing civilians, not a single armed contractor has been charged with any crime. They have not been prosecuted under US civilian law; US military law and the Bush administration banned the Iraqi government from prosecuting them in Iraqi courts beginning with the passage of Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17 in 2004. The message this sends to the Iraqi people is that these hired guns are above any law.

US contractors in Iraq reportedly have their own motto: "What happens here today, stays here today." That should be chilling to everyone who believes in transparency and accountability of US operations and taxpayer funded activities-- not to mention the human rights of the Iraqis who have fallen victim to these incidents and have been robbed of any semblance of justice.

The Iraqi government says it has evidence of seven deadly incidents involving Blackwater. It is essential that the Congress request information on these incidents from the Iraqi authorities. What we do know is that in just the past nine months, Blackwater forces have been involved with several fatal actions. Last Christmas Eve, as Katy mentioned, an off-duty Blackwater contractor allegedly killed a bodyguard for the Iraqi Vice President. Blackwater whisked that individual out of the country. Iraqi officials labeled the killing a "murder" and have questioned privately as to why there has apparently been no consequences for that individual. Blackwater says it fired the individual and is cooperating with the US Justice Department. To my knowledge no charges have yet been brought in that case.

This past May, Blackwater operatives engaged in a gun battle in Baghdad, lasting an hour, that drew in both US military and Iraqi forces, in which at least four Iraqis are said to have died. The very next day in almost the same neighborhood, the company's operatives reportedly shot and killed an Iraqi driver near the Interior Ministry. In the ensuing chaos, the Blackwater guards reportedly refused to give their names or details of the incident to Iraqi officials, sparking a tense standoff between American and Iraqi forces, both of which were armed with assault rifles.

The actions of this one company, perhaps more than any other private actor in the occupation, have consistently resulted in escalated tension and more death and destruction in Iraq--from the siege of Fallujah, sparked by the ambush of its men there in March of 2004, to Blackwater forces shooting at Iraqis in Najaf with one Blackwater operative filmed on tape saying it was like a "turkey shoot" to the deadly events of the past week.

Colonel Thomas Hammes, the US military official once overseeing the creation of a new Iraqi military, has described driving around Iraq with Iraqis and encountering Blackwater operatives. "[They] were running me off the road. We were threatened and intimidated," Hammes said. But, he added, "they were doing their job, exactly what they were paid to do in the way they were paid to do it, and they were making enemies on every single pass out of town." Hammes concluded the contractors were " hurting our counterinsurgency effort."

Brigadier General Karl Horst, deputy commander of the 3rd Infantry Division said of private security contractors, "These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force.... They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all over the place." Horst tracked contractor conduct for a two month period in Baghdad and documented at least a dozen shootings of Iraqi civilians by contractors, resulting in six Iraqi deaths and the wounding of three others. That is just one General in one area of Iraq in just 60 days.

The conduct of these private forces sends a clear message to the Iraqi people: American lives are worth infinitely more than theirs, even if their only crime is driving their vehicle in the wrong place at the wrong time. One could say that Blackwater has been very successful at fulfilling its mission--to keep alive senior US officials. But at what price?

It is long past due for the actions of Blackwater USA and the other private military firms operating in Iraq--actions carried out in the names of the American people and with US tax dollars--to be carefully and thoroughly investigated by the US Congress. For the Iraqi people, this is a matter of life, and far too often, death. In the bigger picture, this body should seriously question whether the linking of corporate profits to war making is in the best interests of this nation and the world. I would humbly submit that the chairs of relevant committees in both the House and Senate use their power of subpoena to compel the heads of the major war contracting companies operating on the US payroll in Iraq to appear publicly before the American people and answer for the actions of their forces. I am prepared to answer any questions.



What can I say?

This is exactly what one should expect from an unleashed government.

[Ultra]

No More Mercenaries

MUNICH – Private armies have a very sinister reputation in Europe. Memories still linger of Germany's post WWI army veterans, the`Stahlhelm,' and Nazi Brownshirts, who battled Communists street toughs here in Munich and Berlin. Europeans remember Italy's fascist Blackshirts and, most recently, Serb neo-fascist gangs like Arkan's `Tigers' and the `White Eagles' who committed some of the worst atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Germany also remains haunted by folk memory of the hordes of blood-crazed mercenaries who turned much of this nation into a wasteland during the savage 30 Year's War. The name of the great mercenary captain, Wallenstein, still resounds, and of those most feared mercenaries of all, the ferocious Swiss, who once terrorized Europe. Wrote Machiavelli: `where there is gold and blood, there are the Swiss.' The Vatican's Swiss Guard is a faint reminder of the `furia Helvetica.'

Small numbers of mercenaries have been used in many modern wars, from Vietnam to Central America. The most famed modern mercenary force is France's tough Foreign Legion.

The rise of powerful mercenary armies within the United States, and their use in Iraq and Afghanistan, is an entirely new, deeply disturbing development.

Last weekend, mercenaries from the US firm `Blackwater' gunned down 11 Iraqi civilians during an attack on a convoy they were guarding. Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, ordered Balckwater's thousands of swaggering mercenaries expelled from Iraq. But his order was quickly countermanded by US occupation authorities.

There are 180,000 to 200,000 US-paid mercenaries in Iraq – or `private contractors' as Washington and the US media delicately call them. They actually outnumber the 169,000 US troops there. Britain pays for another 20,000. At least half are armed fighters, the rest support personnel and technicians. Without them, the US and Britain could not maintain their occupation of Iraq.

These private enterprise fighters, like the Renaissance's Italian condotierri, German landsknecht, and Swiss pikemen, are lawless, answering to no authority but their employers. Democrats in the US Congress are rightly demanding these trigger-happy Rambos to be at least brought under American military law.

The US State Department now has its own little army in Iraq and Afghanistan of about 3,000 Blackwater gunmen who protect American officials and their local collaborators. Some reports say State has spent $678 million alone with Blackwater since 2003.

Afghanistan's US-installed leader, Hamid Karzai, is surrounded at all times by 200 American bodyguards, his own people not being trusted to protect their president. Iraq's US-installed leaders are similarly guarded by US mercenaries.

Nearly all Washington's contracts for mercenaries are awarded without competitive bidding to firms close to the Republican Party. Blackwater's owners are major contributors. Their 7,000- acre base in the southern United States is likely the world's largest non-government military operation and a menacing creation straight out of the famous film, `Seven Days in May.'

This unprecedented use of mercenaries has masked the depths of US involvement in Iraq and clearly shows how little the occupying forces can rely on the locals, whom they supposedly `liberated.' It has also allowed the US to sustain an imperial war that could never have been waged with conscripted American soldiers, as Vietnam clearly showed.

Vice President Dick Cheney took Vietnam's lesson to heart by championing use of mercenaries for nasty foreign wars. But democracies should have no business unleashing armies of hired gunmen on the world.

Worse, these private armies hardwired to the Republican Party's far right are a grave and intolerable danger to the American Republic. Congress should outlaw them absolutely. The great Roman Republic held mandatory military service by all citizens was the basis of democracy, while professional armies were a grave menace.

How ironic that colonial America, which rose up in arms in response to the British crown's use of brutal German mercenaries, is today resorting to the same tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan. Europe wants no more of private armies. Americans have yet to learn this painful lesson.

[MG]

For some reason I cannot explain, I received an e-mail overnight reporting this post to the administrators. The fact that the poster IS the primary administrator made this all the more interesting.  And so, I was forced to rush right over here and help stir the shitstorm that Ultra has created.

Allow me to begin by disabusing any and all that I am a closet admirer of Utlra. I am not. In fact, in my 61 years of experience, he is one of the most abrasive, abusive and infuriating personalities I have ever encountered. If he chanced to some day burst into flames and I was nearby, I would have to think a bit before helping to extinguish the blaze.

That being said, I think it is critical to rational discussion to separate the messenger from the message. In America today, we immediately react to any public comments by assigning our own personal belief system to the speaker. For instance, I think Rush Limburger is a coward, a liar, a cheat, a criminal and not altogether worthy of my respect. So, anything that comes out of his fat mouth, I immediately discount as so much freshly deposited meadow muffins. This saves me from having to actually listen to this obnoxious asshole or read any transcripts of his drivel. This saves me a great deal of time in my daily life for more important pursuits, like identifying pictures of naked women on the internet and such.   

With this preamble, I now progress to the heart of my diatribe. I agree 100% with the two articles posted by Ultra. The use of mercanaries who are unaccountable to ANY civilian or military authority is criminally stupid AND constitutes a profligate waste of taxpayer dollars. These morons are paid approximately $900 PER DAY for their escapades. There are presently well in excess of 100,000 "contractors" of various types working in Iraq. Do the math. The taxpayers are getting hosed like never before.

In a country where we cannot afford 32 billion to provide health insurance to our children, we CAN afford 20 billion PER MONTH, EACH AND EVERY MONTH,  AD INFINITUM for combat operations. THAT, gentle reader, is just fucking nuts!   

Shoot first and ask questions later is a policy of such stupendous absurdity as to beggar the intellect of anyone with an IQ greater than zero.

So, that's my take. And it is based not on my personal opinion of Ultra but upon the content of the ideas set forth in the articles posted.  Rather than being censored in any way, they should be tattoed on the chest of every American and shouted from the rooftops until we wake the fuck up to the ongoing trainwreck that our present government has burdened us with.

We know return you to your regular programming.

PS: Don't call me. I'll call you.   

[Ultra]

Great post!!!

[Otto Puzzell]

M who?

Welcome back, Amigo!

[MG]

OK, you guys. You're gonna be sorry!   

I was concerned that my diatribe might offend some folks, what with the occasional use fo the F-Word and all, but really, how can anyone NOT be mightily pissed off at how the citizens and treasury of our country have been abused by the Bush Maladministration and its wacky ideas that come straight out of Fantasyland?  I drive by cars daily with old "So Glad I Voted For Bush" bumper stickers on them and wonder how anyone can be so STUPID as to leave such crap out there to confirm their lack of intellect to their fellow drivers on the road.  My car bears a LARGE banner that I affixed myself that spans the entire rear hatch from side to side and reads: SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!  IMPEACH BUSH*CHENEY!.

Anyhoo, it is nice to be welcomed back into the fold, And as your reward, I wish to share with you this article that bears on the Blackwater mess. I well recall my tour of duty in Vietnam, during which I was apalled at the dismissive, dehumanizing attitude the American soldiers had towards their Vietnamese "allies."  This even extends to our treatment of their women. Yeah, I had a Saigon Sister while I was there, but I treated her with dignity and respect and she often expressed surprise at my attitude, which was so different from that of her former consorts. And I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I married her and brought her home to the US. She was a qualtiy woman and the only fly in the ointment is I am almost certain my wife would have registered a strong objection.     But I digress.

Here, at long last, is the article I wish to share with you for your consideration and possible comment:


Scapegoating Blackwater

US Soldiers Commit War Crimes at One-Ninth the Price


by Ted Rall

Private security companies in Iraq have come under political attack after mercenaries for Blackwater USA fired upon unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square, killing 17 and wounding 24. Angry Iraqis, including collaborationist officials of the U.S.-backed occupation regime, have complained that swaggering rent-a-soldiers operate with callous disregard for the safety of Iraqis. A 27-year-old ex-paratrooper for Blackwater even stands accused of–but faces no possibility of prison time for-shooting, while in a drunken frenzy, a man who was guarding Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi.

A media pile-on has ensued.

Condi Rice, whose State Department is a major Blackwater client, ordered cameras mounted on vehicles in the company's convoys. The House of Representatives, normally so divided it can't agree that torture is bad or that sick kids need doctors, came together as one–389 to 30–to pass a bill that would subject mercenaries to criminal prosecution when they blow away foreigners in a war zone. Now the presidential contenders are weighing in.

"We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors," said Barack Obama. "To add insult to injury, these contractors are charging taxpayers up to nine times more to do the same jobs as soldiers, a disparity that damages troop morale."

Obama may be onto something. Why pay for employed by private corporations, when you can get the same cowboy antics at one-ninth the price?

Pundits and politicians are scapegoating Blackwater and other private security firms to help sell the continuation of the Iraq War. Some mercenaries shoot at anything that moves. They endanger locals with crazy practices like speeding down jammed highways on the wrong side. (Memo to Secy. Gates: Ban screenings of "Ronin.") Rein in these Rambo wannabes or fire them, the argument goes, and Iraqi commuters will warm to their friendly public-sector replacements in the United States Armed Forces. A thousand roses will bloom. Soon we'll be awash in that staple of postwar gratitude, Iraqi war brides.

But it isn't just Blackwater. Official U.S. soldiers are no less stupid or vicious or trigger-happy than their private counterparts.

In 2003 U.S. troops manning a checkpoint in Karbala repeatedly fired a 25-millimeter cannon at a Toyota containing 13 people trying to flee the fighting. At least seven people, including five children age five or under, were killed. "You just f—ing killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough," a captain radioed to his platoon leader moments later. Checkpoint shootings of innocent civilians became a daily occurrence, due to rules of engagement that placed more value upon the lives of American troops than those of the Iraqis they were supposedly there to liberate.

Often the "checkpoints" were invisible to Iraqi motorists. American soldiers would hide in buildings near an intersection and fire "warning shots" at the engine blocks of approaching vehicles. Assuming that they were being ambushed by bandits, Iraqi drivers would floor the accelerator. Soldiers then treated them as potential suicide bombers, turning them into Swiss cheese. "Many U.S. officials describe...the military's standard practice of firing at onrushing cars from their checkpoints in Iraq," reports The Washington Post.

"We fired warning shots at everyone," said one soldier. "They would speed up to come at us, and we would shoot them. You couldn't tell who was in the car from where we were. We found that out later. We would just look in and see they were dead and could see there were women inside."

That's what happened to Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari. After obtaining the release of a journalist from insurgents who had held her hostage for one month, Calipari accompanied her to a checkpoint near the Baghdad airport. U.S. soldiers opened fire. The warning shot missed the engine block. Calipari died; the reporter was wounded. Though their Iraqi driver insists that he was driving their Toyota Corolla (memo to travelers to Iraq: consider a Honda) under 25 miles per hour, the Pentagon said he was "speeding."

A lot of professional U.S. soldiers have screamed their contempt for Iraqis since the beginning of the war. "For almost a year," reported the East Bay Express in 2005, "American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been taking photographs of dead bodies, many of them horribly mutilated or blown to pieces, and sending them to [a pornographic website]. American soldiers have been using the pictures of disfigured Iraqi corpses as currency to buy pornography."

If you've just eaten, stop reading now.

The Express describes the photos: "A man in a leather coat who apparently tried to run a military checkpoint lies slumped in the driver's seat of a car, his head obliterated by gunfire, the flaps of skin from his neck blooming open like rose petals. Six men in beige fatigues, identified as U.S. Marines, laugh and smile for the camera while pointing at a burned, charcoal-black corpse lying at their feet."

There's more.

A person who posted a picture of a corpse lying in a pool of his own brains and entrails wrote, 'What every Iraqi should look like.' One person posted three photographs of corpses lying in the street and titled his collection 'DIE HAJI [a racist slur for Iraqis used by U.S. soldiers] DIE.'"

Google the Express story. It gets even uglier.

Blackwater's hired goons are exempt from prosecution. So, apparently, are real soldiers. Atrocity after atrocity goes unpunished or rewarded with a slap on the wrist.

Specialist Jorge Sandoval, 22, was acquitted of murdering two Iraqis, one on April 27, the other on May 11 near Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad. However, a military court-martial found him guilty of planting detonation wire on the first victim to make him look like an insurgent. If he was innocent, why did he try to cover up the shooting?

Specialist James Barker, 23, of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, admitted that he held down a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in 2005 while another soldier raped her, then shot her several times in her Mahmudiya home. He dowsed her with kerosene and set her on fire. According to CNN, "he was not sure if he penetrated the girl, because he was having trouble getting an erection." He and five fellow soldiers also murdered her parents and her 7-year-old sister. Thanks to a plea bargain, said The New York Times, "he could be released on parole in 20 years."

The same crime committed in the U.S. would earn life in prison, or the death penalty.

A Marine Staff Sergeant charged in the massacre of 24 people in Haditha, The New York Times reports, will not face murder charges because investigating civilian deaths isn't a military priority. "Prosecuting the Haditha case has posed special challenges because the killings were not comprehensively investigated when they first occurred," says the Times. "Months later, when details came to light, there were no bodies to examine and no Iraqi witnesses to test."

The 2005 Express piece contains this tragicomic gem: "[Disrespect for Iraqi deaths] could become an international public-relations catastrophe." Internationally, the "war porn" scandal was merely one of a string of stories that confirmed our reputation as brutal neocolonialists. Here in the United States, however, "supporting the troops" means turning a blind eye to their actions–or blaming them on private contractors.

Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.

[trobinett]

Yea, but I'll still love ya in the morning.