by Kurt Nimmo
September-20-2007
from
Rense Website
As suspected, Blackwater thugs in Iraq were not
responding to "militants" when they killed Iraqi motorists a few days ago.
"A preliminary Iraqi report on a shooting
involving an American diplomatic motorcade said Tuesday that Blackwater
security guards were not ambushed, as the company reported, but instead
fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman's call to stop, killing
a couple and their infant," reports the New York Times.
"The report, by the Ministry of Interior,
was presented to the Iraqi cabinet and, though unverified, seemed to
contradict an account offered by Blackwater USA that the guards were
responding to gunfire by militants. The report said Blackwater
helicopters had also fired. The Ministry of Defense said 20 Iraqis had
been killed, a far higher number than had been reported before."
But of course. After all, Blackwater's slogan
is: "Providing a new generation of capability, skills, and people to solve
the spectrum of needs in the world of security," that is to say killing
people in lands invaded and occupied, even lands hit by natural disaster,
specifically New Orleans after Katrina.
Blackwater was formed by two former Navy Seals, one a,
"billionaire right-wing fundamentalist
Christian from a powerful Michigan Republican family. A major Republican
campaign contributor, he interned in the White House of President George
H.W. Bush and campaigned for Pat Buchanan in 1992. He founded the
mercenary firm Blackwater USA in 1997 with Gary Jackson, another former
Navy SEAL," according to an NNDB profile.
It is a good idea to link when writing about
Blackwater, as they like to sue their critics.
Back in 2006, Blackwater threatened to sue
journalist Mike Whitney.
"The shooting, which took place on Sunday,
has angered Iraqi officials and touched off a harsh debate about private
security companies, which operate outside Iraqi law, a privilege
extended to them by Americans officials while Iraq's government was
still under American administration," the New York Times continues.
"Blackwater, which guards all top American
officials here, had its work suspended, and Iraqi officials agreed to
rewrite the rules to make the companies accountable."
In other words, Blackwater's trigger-happy
thugs, politely called "security guards," are an embarrassment and will now
be asked to play by the "rules," although one might conclude that any such
"rules" in an invaded and occupied country where around a million people
have died is nothing short of a sick joke.
Blackwater, however, is not going anywhere. In fact, it is the way of the
future, as a "number of senior CIA and Pentagon officials have taken top
jobs at Blackwater, including firm vice chairman Cofer Black, who was the
Bush Administration's top counterterrorism official at the time of the 9/11
attacks," Ken Silverstein writes for Harpers. In other words, the bogus GWOT
is now privatized, a for-profit enterprise.
You may recall Cofer's infamous remark after the
nine eleven inside job that "the gloves came off," i.e., a lot of people
will die, as indeed over a million Iraqis and an undetermined number of
Afghans have died.
As it turns out, according to Silverstein's sources, Eric Prince,
Blackwater's founder, has a "green badge" at the CIA and "regularly,
probably once a month or so" meets "with senior people, especially in the
D.O.," that is to say the CIA's Directorate of Operations, now part of the
National Clandestine Service.
In addition, Blackwater has recruited Rob
Richer, the CIA's Associate Deputy Director of Operations, who is now
Blackwater's Vice President of Intelligence, and at the time of
Silverstein's writing was,
"aggressively recruiting Jose Rodriguez, the
CIA's current top spy as director of the National Clandestine Service.
Rodriguez has a number of former agency friends at Blackwater, most
notably Rick Prado, with whom he served in Latin America and who is now
Blackwater's Vice President of Special Programs."
A well-informed grade schooler can tell you what
the CIA did in Latin America.
As for the CIA's National Clandestine Service, we are told it will
concentrate on "overseas" intelligence gathering.
But then, as recently reported, the CIA,
"violated its charter for 25 years until
revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination
plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and
reforms in the 1970s, according to declassified documents," the National
Security Archive announced on June 21.
Of course, none of this is revelatory, even
news, as Seymour Hersh broke the story of CIA illegal domestic operations
with a front page story in the New York Times on December 22, 1974, writing
that,
"a check of the CIA's domestic files ordered
last year produced evidence of dozens of other illegal activities
beginning in the nineteen fifties, including break-ins, wiretapping, and
the surreptitious inspection of mail."
Of course, the CIA's charter is null and void.
"The CIA has assigned dozens of case
officers and analysts to work with FBI agents throughout the USA in the
most extensive deployment of intelligence officers on domestic soil in
the spy agency's history," USA Today reported back on November 7, 2004.
"Officials at both agencies say the
deployment, which pairs CIA officers with FBI agents in the bureau's
offices to assist with terror-related investigations, also represents
the CIA's broadest association with federal law enforcement since the
CIA was created after World War II," despite the fact the agency is
"prohibited by law from participating in intelligence-gathering
operations against U.S. citizens. It also has no law-enforcement
powers."
Even so,
"CIA analysts have conducted briefings for
local police to help identify potential terrorist threats," no doubt as
previously categorized by the CIA, resulting in the "family jewels"
embarrassment (see previous paragraph).
Lest you think Blackwater is something only
Iraqis need worry about, consider the fact the for-profit private army is
currently training police in Illinois.
"Surrounded by pristine farmland, down a
series of bumpy rural roads, 'Blackwater North' took over an existing
80-acre shooting range" near Mount Carroll. "On the day ABC7 visited,
officers from several departments including Chicago and Rockford were in
a tactical hostage exercise."
Det. Steve Stoball of the Freeport Police
Department said there "are new techniques that the criminals are using so we
have to be updated with our techniques. Coming out to Blackwater, these guys
have seen it all," including "firing on innocent civilians," as Amnesty
International notes. Blackwater, of course, has competition, as other
"security" corporations, including DynCorp, Zapata, and Custer Battles, also
engaged in random mass murder "in efforts to clear roads."
Be afraid, very afraid, that these people are
now training local cops, already employing "pain compliance" on students
asking one-worlders the wrong questions.
All of this is quite natural, considering.
"In many ways, Blackwater represents the
life's work of the neoconservative core that has guided the Bush
Administration since it first took power in 2000," writes
Jeremy Scahill.
"We're talking about a company that was
founded by a man named Erik Prince, who comes from a family that was one
of the top bank rollers of, not only the 'Republican revolution' of the
1990s that brought Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America to power,
but also the rise of what we now know as the religious right or the
Christian conservative movement. Erik Prince's family helped James
Dobson found Focus on the Family. Erik Prince's family gave the seed
money for Gary Bauer to found the Family Research Council.
Erik Prince himself is a major bank roller
of President Bush, his allies, and the Christian conservative movement
in this country. Someone who is deeply linked to the Christian right,
and to the current Administration, has turned around and started what
has become the world's most powerful private mercenary army. These guys
are like neo-Crusaders. To have them on the government payroll to the
tune of $750 million, operating in a Muslim country, should be
frightening to everyone who understands that."
Frightening, indeed, although wholly
predictable, as the "Christian right," i.e., the Muslim-hating Christian
Zionists, are now in control of the horizontal and vertical when it comes
down to U.S. foreign policy-and are now training local police departments.
But it should be even more frightful for Americans, usually oblivious to the
mass murder of Iraqis.
"When Hurricane Katrina hit, Blackwater
started a domestic operations division of its company, and it began
seeking greater contracting opportunities domestically inside of the
United States. At one point, the federal government was paying
Blackwater about $240,000 a day for Hurricane Katrina. The company was
billing the government $950 per day, per Blackwater man deployed in the
hurricane zone. They had about 600 guys stretched from Texas all the way
through the Gulf region," Scahill continues.
Now Blackwater's been in negotiations with
several state governments in the United States. Blackwater met recently with
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger about doing disaster response in
California. They're opening up a new private military base in San Diego.
Another one is in Mount Carroll, Illinois. They have applied for operating
licenses in every coastal U.S. state. This is the expansion of a privatized
army.
Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, speaks boldly about
Blackwater being the FedEx of the national security apparatus. They're
manufacturing surveillance blimps and trying to market them to the
Department of Homeland Security to use to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border.
Meanwhile, Blackwater and its executives continue to pour money into these
Christian conservative causes, conservative politicians' campaign coffers.
This is really the embodiment of everything that
President Eisenhower warned against in his
farewell address, when he talked about the dangers of unchecked
power of the private sector, and the rise of the military-industrial
complex.
Again, be afraid, very afraid, especially if you live in a coastal state hit
by a hurricane. In Iraq, Blackwater "initiated the shooting when a car did
not heed a police officer and moved into an intersection."
Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman for Iraq's puppet
government, said the,
"traffic policeman was trying to open the
road for them. It was a crowded square. But one small car did not stop.
It was moving very slowly. They shot against the couple and their child.
They started shooting randomly," the New York Times continues.
As noted above by Amnesty International,
shooting up cars seems to be the preferred method of traffic control in
Iraq, that is when a "security" corporation, i.e., mercenaries, is in
control.
"Among the rank and file of security
contractors, Blackwater guards are regularly ridiculed as cowboys who
are relentlessly and pointlessly aggressive, carry excessive weaponry
and do not appear to have top-of-the-line training," the New York Times
notes.
"Passing Blackwater convoys sometimes
intimidates even Westerners, who fear coming under attack if they make a
wrong move."
And now Blackwater is passing this less than
"top-of-the-line training" on to local police here in the United States.
Incidentally, the characterization of Blackwater as "thugs" above in the
first paragraph is my opinion, based on the facts that follow. It is not
slander. Last time I checked, opinion was protected by the First Amendment
of the Constitution.
Of course, that may have changed since the last time I checked, as our
decider and commander guy considers the Constitution "just a goddamned piece
of paper" and has vested himself with all manner of dictatorial power
contrary to what that "goddamned piece of paper" states, not that it matters
as the average American cannot be bothered, what with Britney running around
in her underwear.