Private Military Contractors - Data Dump

[Ed Jewett]

Lovely idea for an emoticon, or a thread logo, or perhaps something else. Who knows a good graphic arist?

Maybe we should also do a "send-up" of the same idea and sell it as a patch or bumper sticker to raise more money for DPF's second anniversary.

Meanwhile:

Martial Law Is Their Business – and Business Sure Is Swell - "Hardin may well be the first of many economically devastated communities to be given a lifeline by the burgeoning military-homeland security-prison-industrial complex"

http://www.prisonplanet.com/martial-law-is...e-is-swell.html

Investigation Could Sink American Police Force: Montana Attorney General orders secretive paramilitary group to turn over all its records

http://www.prisonplanet.com/investigation-...lice-force.html


Blackwater Claims APF Illegally Using Logos, Material
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, October 1, 2009

A caller to the Alex Jones Show today said that he called Blackwater, who told him that American Police Force were illegally using their material and logos and that they were considering taking legal action against the paramilitary organization currently conducting law enforcement duties in Hardin, Montana.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/blackwater-cla...s-material.html


APF Refuses To Divulge Parent Company Amidst Blackwater Accusation

Exposed: American Police Force Is A Blackwater Front Group

APF web page admits it runs Blackwater-controlled U.S. Training Center, proving that the two organizations are one and the same

http://www.prisonplanet.com/exposed-americ...ront-group.html


Hardin jail lands contract: From American Police Force

http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2009/09...ajaihhgjhjc.txt


Group sues to validate Montana gun law

http://www.marbut.com/Complaint.html

[Ed Jewett]

Nearly 30 minutes of Peter Dale Scott in a video interview discussing the Hardin, Montana privatization of police, the source of the double-headed eagle logo, the G20 Pittsburgh protests and LRAD, COG, and more.

"... and I just don't see any opposition to it..."

http://revolutionarypolitics.com/?p=2671

[Peter Presland]

Nearly 30 minutes of Peter Dale Scott in a video interview discussing the Hardin, Montana privatization of police, the source of the double-headed eagle logo, the G20 Pittsburgh protests and LRAD, COG, and more.

"... and I just don't see any opposition to it..."

http://revolutionarypolitics.com/?p=2671

Also: "... cumulatively, these Deep events [ JFK, MLK, Iran Contra, 9-11 etc) are having a far greater influence on shaping our world than Congress and the whole of public politics combined...." That's paraphrased from memory but about right.

Thanks Ed. Good interviews and well worth tuning into - though Jason Bermas is a bit too full of himself for my taste

"

[Ed Jewett]

Yes, I would think interviewing technique ought be to let someone as well-versed and authoritative as Scott have most of the air-time but perhaps Bermas felt the need to overly lead and inform an audience that likely hasn't yet gotten to know of Scott's works or the depth (pardon the pun) of his research. Many of that audience know there are 'Spanish galleons' down in the murky depths but, if I had in front of me the man who has brought back the gold bars from the sunken galleons of history, I'd ask well-designed leading questions and shut up.

[Ed Jewett]

With a tip of the cap to Snuffysmith:

David Isenberg, an adviser to the Straus Military Reform Project, has written an important new report about the use of contractors "to circumvent ... public skepticism about the United States' self-appointed role as global policeman." The report addresses issues that Americans clearly prefer not to think about, but need to. Indeed, there are many in and out of government who would prefer that we not think about these issues.

The report, "Private Military Contractors and U.S. Grand Strategy," is written for the International Peace Research Institute (also identified as PRIO) in Oslo, Norway.

David has long studied the executive branch's use of contractors to perform services once considered the exclusive role of the federal government. He is the author of "Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq" (Praeger, 2008). He addresses issues far beyond just the dollar cost of these contractors; they go to the heart of the question of America's role in the world, and what it should and should not be. It is an important report.

The full report can be found at http://www.prio.no/Research-and-Publicatio...n/?oid=49870671,
and the executive summary appears below.

THE DEBATE OVER WHETHER and how to utilize private military and security contractors generates much heat but not much light. In many case the level of discourse resembles children's name calling, i.e., "You're a mercenary." "No I'm not." Such rhetoric is silly and distracting and prevents people from facing underlying realities which are rarely dealt with publicly.

The truth is that the United States is by far the world's largest consumer of such services. While contractors have worked with the government since the country's founding their role has grown as Washington has reduced the size of the U.S. military in the post-Cold War era, and as those forces have become strained by the demands of U.S. grand strategy. This did not happen by accident. Decades ago the government made a deliberate decision to both privatize and outsource military functions and activities that had traditionally been done in the public sector. One can argue for and against such contractors but what nobody wants to discuss is that the U.S. government's huge and growing reliance on private contractors constitutes an attempt to circumvent or evade public skepticism about the United States' self-appointed role as global policeman. The U.S. government has assumed the role of guarantor of global stability at a time when the American public is unwilling to provide the resources necessary to support this strategy. Private contractors fill the gap between geopolitical goals and public means The low visibility and presumed low cost of private contractors appeals to those who favor a global U.S. military presence, but fear that such a strategy cannot command public support. And by using contractors the United States also shift responsibility and blame for its actions. As the United States relies more heavily upon military contractors to support its role as world hegemon, it reinforces the tendency to approach global crises in a unilateral, as opposed to multilateral manner, further ensuring that the burdens will be carried disproportionately by U.S. taxpayers. U.S. use of PMCs is inevitable until people grasp the key point, which is that that contracting is both part of war and part of maintaining a global military hegemonic presence.



A different link to the full report is http://www.prio.no/sptrans/-1720057691/Ise...rt%201-2009.pdf

[Magda Hassan]

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...#post12624

[Ed Jewett]

Blackwater Said to Pursue Bribes to Iraqi Officials After Murder of 17 Civilians

November 11th, 2009 Via: New York Times:
Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.
Blackwater approved the cash payments in December 2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about reckless practices by the security company’s employees. American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that the shootings were unjustified, top Iraqi officials were calling for Blackwater’s ouster from the country, and company officials feared that Blackwater might be refused an operating license it would need to retain its contracts with the State Department and private clients, worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Four former executives said in interviews that Gary Jackson, who was then Blackwater’s president, had approved the bribes and that the money was sent from Amman, Jordan, where the company maintains an operations hub, to a top manager in Iraq. The executives, though, said they did not know whether the cash was delivered to Iraqi officials or the identities of the potential recipients.

http://cryptogon.com/?p=12065

[David Guyatt]

Disgraceful, but Blackwater are far too powerful in Washington - let alone Baghdad (or elsewhere for that matter) - to have anything serious happen to them over this.

Oh what a lovely war!

[Ed Jewett]

Scahill: Obama may be afraid of Blackwater


By David Edwards and Daniel Tencer
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 -- 3:30 pm

Despite news reports that the security contractor formerly known as Blackwater has seen its contracts dry up and its influence wane, the company continues to do brisk business in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and the Obama administration may be too afraid of the firm to do anything about it, says investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill. "You know who's guarding Hillary Clinton in Afghanistan right now? Blackwater," Scahill told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Tuesday night. "You know who guards members of Congress? Blackwater. They have half a billion dollars in contracts in Afghanistan right now. CIA, State Department, Defense Department. Why is President Obama keeping these guys on the payroll? There has never been a company in recent history that made the case that corporations are corrupt, evil organizations [better] than Blackwater."
Scahill was on The Rachel Maddow Show discussing the New York Times' revelation that senior Blackwater executives allegedly arranged for bribes of up to $1 million for Iraqi politicians in a bid to retain its contracts and silence criticism of the company in the wake of the Nissour Square massacre in 2007, in which 17 Iraqi civilians died after Blackwater guards opened fire.
Though the Times report stated that it's unknown if the approved bribes ever reached their targets -- Iraqi politicians -- Scahill drew a connection between the alleged bribes and the fact that, after the Nissour Sqaure massacre, the Iraqi government first decided to bar Blackwater from operating in the country, and then reversed its position.
"You had the Iraqi government saying Blackwater was banned from that country, then suddenly doing an about face, and Blackwater remains in Iraq to this day," Scahill said.

That sentiment was echoed by Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent, who also suggested a link between the alleged bribes and Blackwater's continued presence in Iraq. "Now we have some inkling of why the Iraqis allowed the firm to stay," Ackerman blogged.
Scahill suggested that the security firm's deep and continued involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars means the company could potentially embarrass any administration with the things it can reveal.
"Another way of looking at this is Blackwater knows where a lot of bodies are buried," Scahill told Maddow. "These are guys who worked on the CIA assassination program, the drone bombing campaign, and regarding all of the senior officals, they know a heck of a lot about what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those are not guys that you want on the other side of the fence if you're running Washington."
Scahill dismissed as "nonsense" the idea that Blackwater continues to have contracts because its services can't be carried out by regular military forces.
This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Nov. 10, 2009.


{The video is an embedded Flash of Rachel Maddow's reporting on the story of the bribery plan noting the Times' citing four Blackwater executive soruces and her interview of Scahill }


Download video via RawReplay.com


Among the comments:

fred Scahill is going to wind up face down in a ditch with a few slugs in the back of his head, or, equivalently, a footnote to a light-aircraft accident.
schmice It will no doubt be ruled a suicide.
Barack Obama has small children. He loves his wife.... There will be no meaningful reform during his adminstration(s). The CIA, MIC, and Corporatist Oligarghs have informed him in no uncertain terms that he will not survive any meaningful threat to their power. For more information see JFK, RFK, and MLK.
miggy The notion that a newly-elected president is taken to a back room and "talked to" by state security and/or shadow government operatives is attractive. In fact, it's part of popular culture:
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"I walked into El Presidente’s office two days after he was elected and congratulated him… I said “Mr. President, in here I got a couple hundred million dollars for you and your family, if you play the game – you know, be kind to my friends who run the oil companies, treat your Uncle Sam good.” Then I stepped closer, reached my right hand into the other pocket, bent down next to his face, and whispered, “In here I got a gun and a bullet with your name on it – in case you decide to keep your campaign promises.” I stepped back, sat down, and recited a little list for him, of presidents who were assassinated or overthrown because they defied their Uncle Sam: from Diem to Torrijos – you know the routine. He got the message." – John Perkins, quoting an anonymous source in his new book, “The Secret History of the American Empire – Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption”.
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"No matter what promises you make on the campaign trail, blah blah blah, when you win (the U.S. Presidency), you go into this smoky room with the 12 industrialist, capitalist scumfucks that got you in there, and this little screen comes down...and its a shot of the JFK assassination from an angle you've never seen before, which looks suspiciously like the grassy knoll, and then the screen comes up and the lights go on, and they ask the new president "any questions?" – Comedian Bill Hicks
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http://rawstory.com/2009/11/scahill-obam...lackwater/

[Magda Hassan]

Who isn't afraid of Blackwater? Of course he would be afraid. And they know where the bodies are buried and Obama does not want any zombies in Washington. As for who is looking after Hilary in Afghanistan I am sure she is in good hands. I think there is zero chance of her meeting an unexpected end. I am sure she is the preferred 'leader' but for now Obama is doing just fine. But if he doesn't she certainly will.