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And, yes, I DO take it personally

Thursday, December 31, 2009

The CIA - oops, I mean Blackwater - dodges accountability... What a bunch o'crap...!

erik prince's cia cut-out organization never did have to worry about being held accountable...
Judge dismisses all charges in Blackwater shooting

A federal judge on Thursday threw out charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing 14 people in a 2007 shooting in downtown Baghdad.

and a happy new year to all...!!

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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Blackwater can run but it can't hide

what a bunch of sleazeballs...
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.

Blackwater’s strategy of buying off the government officials, which would have been illegal under American law, created a deep rift inside the company, according to the former executives. They said that Cofer Black, who was then the company’s vice chairman and a former top C.I.A. and State Department official, learned of the plan from another Blackwater manager while he was in Baghdad discussing compensation for families of the shooting victims with United States Embassy officials.

Alarmed about the secret payments, Mr. Black cut short his talks and left Iraq. Soon after returning to the United States, he confronted Erik Prince, the company’s chairman and founder, who did not dispute that there was a bribery plan, according to a former Blackwater executive familiar with the meeting. Mr. Black resigned the following year.

Stacy DeLuke, a spokeswoman for the company, now called Xe Services, dismissed the allegations as “baseless” and said the company would not comment about former employees. Mr. Black did not respond to telephone calls and e-mail messages seeking comment.

what's most interesting about this story is not the bribery itself but the fact that the company's vice chair, ace sleazeball cofer black, AFTER making his discovery and "confronting" erik prince, didn't take his knowledge public...

patético...

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Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Are Blackwater (a/k/a Xe Services LLC) and its founder Erik Prince going down...?

suggestion for the prosecutors... first, follow the money... second, make sure that when you do follow the money, you follow it UPSTREAM...
A former Blackwater [Xe Services LLC] employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

and while you're swimming upstream, be sure to check out cofer black...

Cofer Black, the company's current vice chairman, was director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center (CTC) at the time of the September 11 attacks in 2001. He was the United States Department of State coordinator for counterterrorism with the rank of ambassador at large from December 2002 to November 2004. After leaving public service, Black became chairman of the privately owned intelligence gathering company Total Intelligence Solutions, Inc., as well as vice chairman for Xe. Robert Richer was vice president of intelligence until January 2007, when he formed Total Intelligence Solutions. He was formerly the head of the CIA's Near East Division.[23][24] Black was senior advisor for counterterrorism and national security issues for the 2008 Presidential election bid of Mitt Romney.[25]


swell folks, eh...?

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Friday, May 23, 2008

No biggie... It's only 15 BILLION dollars...

ya know what...? $15B doesn't just DISAPPEAR... you can be damn sure, it's out there somewhere, spread around among the numbered offshore bank accounts of the elite, super-rich crooks who are fleecing us for every last dollar...
The Pentagon cannot account for nearly 15 billion dollars in payments for goods and services in Iraq, according to an internal audit which members of Congress blasted Friday as a "shocking" accountability failure.

Of 8.2 billion dollars in US taxpayer-funded defense contracts reviewed by the defense department's inspector general, the Pentagon could not properly account for more than 7.7 billion dollars.

The lack of accountability of the funds, intended for purchases of weapons, vehicles, construction equipment and security services, amounted to a 95 percent failure rate in basic accounting standards, according to the report.

"We estimated that the army made 1.4 billion dollars in commercial payments that lacked the minimum documentation for a valid payment, such as properly prepared receiving reports, invoices, and certified vouchers," deputy inspector general Mary Ugone told a Congressional committee Thursday.

"We also estimated that the army made an additional 6.3 billion dollars of commercial payments that met the 27 criteria for payments but did not comply with other statutory and regulatory requirements."

The Pentagon also was found to have given away another 1.8 billion in Iraqi assets "with absolutely no accountability," said Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"Investigators examined 53 payment vouchers and couldn't find even one that adequately explained where the money went."

categorizing this as a series of accounting and documentation errors is the height of naivete... i may have been born at night, but i wasn't born LAST night...

p.s. remember, this is only IRAQ we're talking about... how about AFGHANISTAN, where i am currently parked, typing this... how about somalia, homeland security, domestic defense contracts, etc., etc., etc... $15B is only the tip of an extraordinarily large iceberg...


Photobucket

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Sunday, May 11, 2008

The Nation's Jeremy Scahill reports on Blackwater

the rise of blackwater usa, the world's most powerful mercenary army...



from brasscheck tv...
Bush has his own private army.

It's called Blackwater.

The company was caught red handed murdering
Iraqi civilians in cold blood.

No problem according to the US State Department
(Condi Rice). Their contract to provide protection
to US "diplomats" in Iraq was just renewed.

Why?

The State Department claims it could not find
anyone else to do the job.

"We cannot operate without private security firms in Iraq,"
said Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for
management. "If the contractors were removed, we would have
to leave Iraq."

Bizarre, isn't it?

bizarre is an understatement...

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Friday, January 25, 2008

We're the United States... Obeying the law is for other people...

and we wonder why the rest of the world hates us...
US officials are dragooning Iraq into accepting immunity for US civilian contractors in new negotiations with the Iraqi government just months after a feud over a private defense contractor exploded into an international outcry.

The Bush administration insists that Baghdad give the US "broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials," a front page story in Friday's New York Times reports.

The Administration's proposed security agreement would replace the current United Nations mandate authorizing the US presence in Iraq, which is set to expire Dec. 31, 2008.

No other country working with the US military in Iraq is exempt from local laws.

hey... first of all, as colin powell said, we broke it and now it's OURS, so now we get to do what we want with it, right?... i mean, it's OUR country... in any case, we can't have OUR people subjected to the laws of some piss-ant little country we conquered... but, BECAUSE we can continue to keep up the charade that iraq is sovereign and is indeed foreign soil, OUR people don't have to obey u.s. laws there either... sick slick, eh...?

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Sunday, October 21, 2007

Want to know why we wage war? Follow the money - to Halliburton

and here ya have it...
Halliburton Co. continues to benefit from placing greater emphasis on its operations in the Eastern Hemisphere, where expanding business helped the company post a 19 percent rise in third-quarter earnings.

The Houston-based oilfield services company said Sunday its net income rose to $727 million, or 79 cents a share, in the July-September period from $611 million, or 58 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

The most-recent results included a favorable income tax benefit of $133 million, or 15 cents a share.

Third-quarter revenue rose 16 percent to $3.93 billion.

can you think of anything that could possibly be more euphemistic than "continues to benefit from placing greater emphasis on its operations in the Eastern Hemisphere, where expanding business helped the company post a 19 percent rise in third-quarter earnings"...? you've got to admit that it sounds one hell of a lot better than "continues to cash in on the war in iraq"...

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Blackwater: bringing it back home

what goes around, comes around...





Seven people were arrested Saturday at Blackwater Worldwide’s front entrance after protesters re-enacted the Sept. 16 shooting incident in Baghdad involving Blackwater in which 17 Iraqis died.

It was the first protest at the 10-year-old private military company’s headquarters, a reflection of its heightened profile since the Baghdad shootings stirred Iraqi anger and created a diplomatic crisis for Blackwater’s client, the U.S. State Department.

The protesters drove a small gray station wagon, covered with simulated bullet holes and smeared with red paint, onto Blackwater’s property. One lay back in the driver’s seat and five others got out and lay on the ground, as if they had been shot.

The scene was intended to mimic that in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, where an Iraqi doctor and her son died in a fusillade of gunfire as their car approached a Blackwater diplomatic convoy.

The protesters also smeared red handprints on two Blackwater signs.

let's not kid ourselves here... the united states has a long history of training its young people to kill, and then placing them in situations where that particular skill is required and often must be used... the employees of blackwater are no different from the soldiers the u.s. has deployed around the globe for generations... many, if not most, of blackwater's employees are, in fact, former military... they represent a vast number of americans - either current or former members of the armed forces, as well as an equally large number who are not, never have been, nor ever will be in the military - who support war as a common tool of foreign policy, rather than as an extraordinary measure to be used only when all else fails...

as a vietnam army veteran, i, too, am a product of our warrior society... along with my fellow citizens, i have been schooled in countless ways that our wars are necessary and just, and that those we are sent to fight are cruel and barbaric... is it any wonder that we have incidents like nisour square in baghdad, haditha, abu ghraib and my lai...? is it any wonder that those higher up the food chain aren't held accountable...? after all, they're only carrying on with our rich heritage of death and destruction...

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Saturday, October 20, 2007

"It still looks like a government -- . But pull back the curtains and there is nobody home."

naomi klein in today's la times...
[I]f any given job can't be outsourced, it can't be done.

This philosophy, so central to the Bush years, explains statistics like this one: In 2003, the U.S. government handed out 3,512 contracts to companies to perform domestic security functions, from bomb detection to data mining. In the 22-month period ending in August 2006, the Homeland Security Department had issued more than 115,000 security-related contracts.

If government is now an ATM, perhaps the war on terror is best understood not as a war but as a sprawling new economy, one based on continued disaster and instability. In this economy, the Bush team doesn't run the venture exactly; rather, it plays the role of deep-pocketed venture capitalist, always on the lookout for new security start-ups (overwhelmingly headed by former employees of the Pentagon and Homeland Security).

[...]

It still looks like a government -- with impressive buildings, presidential news briefings, policy battles. But pull back the curtain and there is nobody home.

it's interesting to note, however, that the areas of government that are working day and night to increase and solidify executive power, remove our civil liberties, and trash the constitution, there always seems to be plenty of people at home...

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Sunday, October 07, 2007

Did anyone honestly think, for even the briefest of moments, that this WASN'T going to happen?


United States Embassy, Iraq
Iraq Embassy Cost Rises $144 Million Amid Project Delays
Planning, Workmanship Cited as Problems

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 7, 2007; Page A01

The massive U.S. embassy under construction in Baghdad could cost $144 million more than projected and will open months behind schedule because of poor planning, shoddy workmanship, internal disputes and last-minute changes sought by State Department officials, according to U.S. officials and a department document provided to Congress.

ok, let me ratchet my cynicism up yet another notch... i think this kind of cost overrun is deliberately orchestrated to keep the massive river of cash flowing... the common wisdom says it's due to incompetence but i no longer believe that... the iraq war, just like every other war that preceded it, generates unimaginable wealth for the right people, usually those who are strongest in their support for those who will make war the principal tool of our foreign policy... the amount of money consumed by the illegal iraq war is so vast as to be beyond comprehension, at least for us ordinary folks for whom a few grand is a small fortune... but, folks, it was PLANNED to make money, not to depose saddam, not to dispose of wmd, not to free the iraqi people and not to spread democracy to the middle east... just like the sub-prime mortgage debacle, it was initiated to make money, pure and simple, and in that it has been a stupendous success...

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Saturday, August 25, 2007

"How do you screw the taxpayer for millions?"

well, golly gee, rolling stone has the "screwing the taxpayers for millions for dummies" run-down... i must have missed this boat when it came in... i wuz probably at the airport...
The Great Iraq Swindle

How is it done? How do you screw the taxpayer for millions, get away with it and then ride off into the sunset with one middle finger extended, the other wrapped around a chilled martini?

[...]

Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam ­Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient. George W. Bush's war in the Mesopotamian desert was an experiment of sorts, a crude first take at his vision of a fully privatized American government. In Iraq the lines between essential government services and for-profit enterprises have been blurred to the point of absurdity -- to the point where wounded soldiers have to pay retail prices for fresh underwear, where modern-day chattel are imported from the Third World at slave wages to peel the potatoes we once assigned to grunts in KP, where private companies are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they fuck things up.

it's a long article detailing just exactly how the money makes its way out of our pockets and into the pockets of those who who make up the corporate war industry...

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Saturday, June 16, 2007

Privatizing our military

better add "support our mercenaries" to your "support our troops" ribbons...

as the wapo points out, our highly-paid, fast-growing, private armies are "surging" right along with those poor, under-paid grunts... no wonder bush doesn't go to any funerals for our soldiers who die in iraq... if he did, he'd have to go to the funerals of private contractors too and that might not look so good...

The U.S. military has never released complete statistics on contractor casualties or the number of attacks on privately guarded convoys. The military deleted casualty figures from reports issued by the Reconstruction Logistics Directorate of the Corps of Engineers, according to Victoria Wayne, who served as deputy director for logistics until 2006 and spent 2 1/2 years in Iraq.

Wayne described security contractors as "the unsung heroes of the war." She said she believed the military wanted to hide information showing that private guards were fighting and dying in large numbers because it would be perceived as bad news.

"It was like there was a major war being fought out there, but we were the only ones who knew about it," Wayne said.

and it continues to grow...
The security industry's enormous growth has been facilitated by the U.S. military, which uses the 20,000 to 30,000 contractors to offset chronic troop shortages. Armed contractors protect all convoys transporting reconstruction materiel, including vehicles, weapons and ammunition for the Iraqi army and police. They guard key U.S. military installations and provide personal security for at least three commanding generals, including Air Force Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Scott, who oversees U.S. military contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The military plans to outsource at least $1.5 billion in security operations this year, including the three largest security contracts in Iraq: a "theaterwide" contract to protect U.S. bases that is worth up to $480 million, according to Scott; a contract for up to $475 million to provide intelligence for the Army and personal security for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and a contract for up to $450 million to protect reconstruction convoys. The Army has also tested a plan to use private security on military convoys for the first time, a shift that would significantly increase the presence of armed contractors on Iraq's dangerous roads.

i find it deeply disturbing that the security of three commanding generals is being handled by private contractors... what kind of an impression does it leave on soldiers in the field to see their commanding general surrounded by private contractors...? an even better question is, what does it do to morale...?

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