Bush's secret army: Blackwater fights outside the law, takes direction from radical christian right

[Ian David]

Meet the American mercenaries of Blackwater, who fight outside of the law and take direction from the radical Christian right

By JEREMY SCAHILL
March 21, 2007 4:02:04 PM


In September 2000, just months before its members would form the core of the Bush White House, the Project for a New American Century released a report called Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. In laying out PNAC’s vision for overhauling the US war machine, the report recognized that “the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.” A year to the month later, the 9/11 attacks would provide that catalyst: an unprecedented justification
to forge ahead with this radical agenda molded by a small cadre of neoconservative operatives who had just taken official power.



The often-overlooked subplot of the wars of the post-9/11 period is the outsourcing and privatization they have entailed. From the moment the Bush team took power, the Pentagon was stacked with ideologues like Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Stephen Cambone, and with former corporate executives — many from large weapons manufacturers — like Under Secretary of Defense Pete Aldridge (Aerospace Corporation), Army Secretary Thomas White (Enron), Navy Secretary Gordon England (General Dynamics), and Air Force Secretary James Roche (Northrop Grumman). The new civilian leadership at the Pentagon came into power with two major goals: regime change in strategic nations and the enactment of the most sweeping privatization and outsourcing operation in US military history — a revolution in military affairs. After 9/11 this campaign became unstoppable.

The swift defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan emboldened Rumsfeld and the administration as they began planning for the centerpiece of the neoconservative crusade: Iraq. From the moment the US troop buildup began in advance of the invasion, the Pentagon made private contractors an integral part of the operations. Even as the US gave the public appearance of attempting diplomacy, behind closed doors Halliburton was being prepped for its largest operation in history. When US tanks rolled into Baghdad in March 2003, they brought with them the largest army of private contractors ever deployed in a war. By the end of Rumsfeld’s tenure, there were an estimated 100,000 private contractors on the ground in Iraq — an almost one-to-one ratio to active-duty US soldiers. To the great satisfaction of the war industry, before Rumsfeld stepped down, he took the extraordinary step of classifying private contractors as an official part of the US war machine. In the Pentagon’s 2006 Quadrennial Review, Rumsfeld outlined what he called a “roadmap for change” at the DoD , which he said had started in 2001. It defined the “Department’s Total Force” as “its active and reserve military components, its civil servants, and its contractors — constitut its warfighting capability and capacity. Members of the Total Force serve in thousands of locations around the world, performing a vast array of duties to accomplish critical missions.”

Coming as it did in the midst of an open-ended, loosely defined global war, this formal designation represented a radical rebuke of the ominous warnings laid out by President Eisenhower in his farewell address to the nation decades earlier during which he envisioned the “grave implications” of the rise of “the military-industrial complex.” In 1961, Eisenhower declared, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” What has unfolded in the ensuing years and particularly under the Bush administration is nothing less than the very scenario Eisenhower darkly prophesied.

[Old and In the Way]

1. We will truly regret the folly of outsourcing our military to private contractors.

When the money's gone, what will be their motivation to stay? When someone offers a higher salary, what will stop them from turning on us?When they do atrocities in our name. who will be responsible?

It's all about privitizing the profits and publicizing the risks. These people are playing us for the suckers that we are.

[LiberalFighter]

4. Could we get Congress to pass a law that puts a bounty on Blackwater and other mercenaries?

[zeemike]

2. Yep it is exactly what Ike warned us about

Too bad we do not have Generals like him now that would blow the whistle on this illegal private army.

[w4rma]

6. We do. The Republican leadership fired them. (nt)

[bonito]

3. This should be on the greatest page.

:kick:

[bemildred]

5. Who will defend the legitimate government from these criminals

once the US Army is completely destroyed in Iraq? When will the Neocons "cross the Rubicon", use the mercenaries to take control of Washington DC? Who will fight them when they do?

[AikidoSoul]

11. We share the same fantasy -- and variations of it

Many of these people are very highly paid -- unlike our military. Their allegence is to that money and to the monied -- not to our country.

This is something to be extremely wary of.

[bemildred]

13. Yes, thank you, but it is not fantasy.

History is littered with such occurrences, and there is no reason at all to think things are different now, or these people are different, or this country is different.

[seafan]

7. Is there a link to this? Thanks. n/t

[Ian David]

8. Oops. sorry

http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid36046.aspx

[Ian David]

9. Link

http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid36046.aspx

[soothsayer]

10. And their in-house counsel is...Ken Starr! They're making how much

a day in gov't contracts? I recently heard the figure somewhere and it was astonishing.

[AikidoSoul]

12. I would like to see the criteria for being part of this private army

Civilian / private army

Civilan / private loyaties

Not a good combination