smirk's Blackwater story in Iraq

[donsu]

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/162


Bush's "Private Military Contractors" Fight and Die Unchecked in Iraq: The Blackwater Story


The Bush Administration is employing private armies to fight in Iraq. These "private military contractors," that is, mercenaries, are often ex-U.S. special forces soldiers with additional paramilitary training operating below the radar. Their legal status in Iraq falls under neither civilian nor military jurisdiction, and they earn far more money than American troops.

This may sound crazy, but it's all true. Not all "contractors" are civilian truck drivers or mechanics.

The five Americans killed in the helicopter incident last week were employed by the largest military contractor company and war-profiteer, Blackwater, just like the contractors killed and mutilated on the Fallujah bridge in 2004. In his movie "Iraq for Sale," Robert Greenwald exposes the shady dealings between Blackwater and the government. The company was founded by Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and heir to a billion-dollar fortune, and who also happens to be an ultra-Christian Republican campaign donor. Blackwater is still operating under a $300 million State Department no-bid contract to guard administrator L. Paul Bremer in Iraq, among other contracts.

The problem is that there is zero transparency with such private companies since their actions, costs, and casualties are not reported like military information is. Often their work takes place under multiple layers of sub-contracting. According to Jeremy Scahill of the Nation Institute, there are about 100,000 contractors in Iraq, of which 48,000 work as private soldiers. The Myrtle Beach Sun-News reported on 12/26/06 that as of last October, a whopping 646 U.S.-financed contractors had been killed in Iraq, a relatively high percentage of troop deaths. Further, every private contractor is insured by the U.S. taxpayers because of two WWII-era laws.

-snip-

It turns out that the Fallujah incident itself also has some question marks behind it. On 9/29/06 the Raleigh News & Observer reported that congressional testimony regarding the incident revealed that the Army had not actually authorized Blackwater to guard convoys or carry weapons. "One unsolved mystery at the hearing," the newspaper notes, "was whether Blackwater . . . was ultimately working for U.S. taxpayers when its contractors were killed." The families of the Fallujah victims are currently suing Blackwater for wrongful death.

With tens of thousands of completely unregulated American mercenaries at his disposal, George Bush commands a considerably larger military presence in Iraq than most people realize. It is important to remember that each of these people are American citizens - at least one of the recent helicopter casualties was fresh out of the Marines. However, there are serious problems with subcontracting national defense to private corporations under secretive conditions with no oversight.
-snip-
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and there is this:


Bush's mercenaries thrive in Iraq

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/175406


As U.S. President George W. Bush took the podium to deliver his State of the Union address last Tuesday, five American families received news that has become all too common: Their loved ones had been killed in Iraq.

But in this case, the slain were neither "civilians," as the news reports proclaimed, nor were they U.S. soldiers. They were highly trained mercenaries deployed to Iraq by a secretive private military company based in North Carolina – Blackwater USA.

-snip-

Now, Blackwater is back in the news, providing a reminder of just how privatized the war has become.

Last Tuesday, one of the company's helicopters was brought down in one of Baghdad's most violent areas.

The men who were killed were providing diplomatic security under Blackwater's $300-million State Department contract, which dates to 2003 and the company's initial no-bid contract to guard administrator Paul Bremer in Iraq.

Current U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who is also protected by Blackwater, said he had gone to the morgue to view the men's bodies, asserting the circumstances of their deaths were unclear because of "the fog of war."

-snip-

The president called on Congress to authorize an increase of about 92,000 active-duty troops over the next five years.

He then slipped in a mention of a major initiative that would represent a significant development in the U.S. disaster response/reconstruction/war machine: a Civilian Reserve Corps.

"Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the armed forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them," Bush declared.

This is precisely what the administration already has done, largely behind the backs of the American people and with little congressional input, with its revolution in military affairs.

Bush and his political allies are using taxpayer dollars to run an outsourcing laboratory. Iraq is its Frankenstein monster. Already, private contractors constitute the second-largest "force" in Iraq.

-snip-

Further privatizing America's war machine – or inventing new back doors for military expansion with fancy names like the Civilian Reserve Corps – would represent a devastating blow to the future of American democracy.
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we americans just love being snookered

[jwirr]

1. Anyone got the stats on how much tax money is used for this and

how many of these "armies" are used throughout the world. We should have some idea where the military budget is going. Helliburtin? We had a better military when it was responsible for the whole package.

[SanCristobal]

2. Civilian Reserve not mercenaries, it's an occupation government

to be kept on standby until we need it. Read this: http://proceedings.ndia.org/6100/russell.pdf, its the State Dept. draft proposal on creating the Civilian Reserve. It clearly is an occupation government modeled on the Coalition Provisional Authority and the problems that institution faced.

The mercenary force already exists, Bush doesn't need to create it. He does, apparently, need to create an occupation government waiting in the wings for the next war. Keep in mind that Bush won't be in office by the time the Civilian Reserve is instituted, he is just leaving the tools in place for whenever his next ideological ally is elected.