Checkbook Imperialism: The Blackwater Fiasco
Please, please, I tell myself, leave Orwell out of it. Find some other, fresher way to explain why “Operation Iraqi Freedom” is dependent upon killer mercenaries. Or why the “democratically elected government” of “liberated” Iraq does not explicitly have the legal power to expel Blackwater USA from its land or hold any of the 50,000 private contractor troops that the U.S. government has brought to Iraq accountable for their deadly actions.
Were there even the faintest trace of Iraqi independence rising from the ashes of this failed American imperialist venture, Blackwater would have to fold its tents and go, if only in the interest of keeping up appearances. After all, the Iraqi Interior Ministry claimed that the Blackwater thugs guarding a U.S. State Department convoy through the streets of Baghdad fired “randomly at citizens” in a crowded square on Sunday, killing 11 people and wounding 13 others. So the Iraqi government has ordered Blackwater to leave the country after what a government spokesman called a “flagrant assault … on Iraqi citizens.”
But who told those Iraqi officials that they have the power to control anything regarding the 182,000 privately contracted personnel working for the U.S. in Iraq? Don’t they know about Order 17, which former American proconsul Paul Bremer put in place to grant contractors, including his own Blackwater bodyguards, immunity from Iraqi prosecution? Nothing has changed since the supposed transfer of power from the Coalition Provisional Authority, which Bremer once headed, to the Iraqi government holed up in the Green Zone and guarded by Blackwater and other “private” soldiers.
They are “private” in the same fictional sense that our uniformed military is a “volunteer” force, since both are lured by the dollars offered by the same paymaster, the U.S. government. Contractors earn substantially more, despite $20,000 to $150,000 signing bonuses and an all-time-high average annual cost of $100,000 per person for the uniformed military. All of this was designed by the neocon hawks in the Pentagon to pursue their dreams of empire while avoiding a conscripted army, which would have millions howling in the street by now in protest.
Instead, we have checkbook imperialism. The U.S. government purchases whatever army it needs, which has led to the dependence upon private contract firms like Blackwater USA, with its $300-million-plus contract to protect U.S. State Department personnel in Iraq. That is why the latest Blackwater incident, which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki branded a “crime,” is so difficult to deal with. Iraqis are clearly demanding to rid their country of Blackwater and other contractors, and on Tuesday the Iraqi government said it would be scrutinizing the status of all private security firms working in the country.
But the White House hopes the outrage will once again blow over. As the Associated Press reported on Monday: “The U.S. clearly hoped the Iraqis would be satisfied with an investigation, a finding of responsibility and compensation to the victim’s families-and not insist on expelling a company that the Americans cannot operate here without.” Or, as Ambassador Ryan Crocker testified to the U.S. Senate last week: “There is simply no way at all that the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security could ever have enough full-time personnel to staff the security function in Iraq. There is no alternative except through contracts.”
Consider the irony of that last statement-that the U.S. experiment in building democracy in Iraq is dependent upon the same garrisons of foreign mercenaries that drove the founders of our own country to launch the American Revolution. As George Washington warned in his farewell address, once the American government enters into these “foreign entanglements,” we lose the Republic, because public accountability is sacrificed to the necessities of war for empire.
Despite the fact that Blackwater USA gets almost all of its revenue from the U.S. government-much of it in no-bid contracts aided, no doubt, by the lavish contributions to the Republican Party made by company founder Erik Prince and his billionaire parents-its operations remain largely beyond public scrutiny. Blackwater and others in this international security racket operate as independent states of their own, subject neither to the rules of Iraq nor the ones that the U.S. government applies to its own uniformed forces. “We are not simply a ‘private security company,’ ” Blackwater boasts on its corporate website. “We are a professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations firm. … We have become the most responsive, cost-effective means of affecting the strategic balance in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere.”
Yeah, so who elected you guys to run the world?
Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.
© 2007 TruthDig.com
Admiral Yamamoto: “You cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass.”
Do you think this also applies to Iraq?
The whole point for the neo-cons was that private contactors could operate in an extra - legal fashion. So - just like with Abu-Gahrib - there will be no “investigation” - only another whitewash job - by these bastards.
The real irony of the whole thing isn’t the dependence of foreign mercenaries in the face of our national origins. The irony is in the face of last weeks’ testimony on how well the “surge” was working: that in Crockers quoted words, “there is simply no way” (without mercenaries) that the U.S. can even fulfill its security function in Iraq ????????????????
Blackwater is the type of organization that the Right creates to use as muscle for purposes of intimidation especially for domestic purposes. Corporations in the U.S. have traditionally created private armies to break heads in labor disputes. Fascist movements in Germany and Italy created similar private institutions to furnish employment and to go after political opposition. It’s easier for Blackwater use extreme violence in South America or the Middle East, but it has happened here in New Orleans, as the most glaring example.
War criminals.
Yes, whatfools; someone said that was the lesson of Vietnam too; they said it awhile ago though, people forget.
We have all these secret agencies in our government that don’t seem to be accountable to no one. Don’t know how much we spend on them, aren’t elected. Now we have these private armies that are along the same lines. I think the whole thing is like a secret mafia running our government. If we have any power as voters we should try to get rid of them. I want to be able to know why and how are money is being spent and I want to know who is running things so they can be held accountable and gotten rid of if the need arises. I don’t want a bunch of lawless thugs on my payroll.
Gosh, I thought by now that Iraqis would realize that foreign military occupation and armies of foreign mercenaries who are above the law are at the heart of sovereignty, freedom, and democracy. What did the Iraqis think those words meant anyhow? Iraqis will learn even more about freedom and democracy if and when Cheney is able to put foreign corporations in charge of the Iraqi oil industry and the rest of the Iraqi economy.
The neocons would get no campaign contributions from a conscripted military, they might get a few contributions from the “volunteer” army, but they get jumbo contributions from the Blackwater and other “contractors”.
Life is good for the neocons. Throw billions of the US taxpayers’ dollars at contractors and millions of those taxpayer dollars get dumped into the neocon campaign coffers.
“I don’t want a bunch of lawless thugs on my payroll.”
Too late.
Blackwater is basically hiring out “goons” to beat up and kill labor in a foreign country. The labor there happens to be citizens, and the civil war has turned out to be genocide instigated by the US government, either purposely or “accidentally.”
Goons have always been hired by robber barons to beat up and intimidate labor or townsfolk opposing the large industrialists goals or ambitions.
Sometimes it is the army they control, sometimes the police, by getting into the government, and sometimes they go out and hire professional thugs and muscle to carry out the intimidation.
Here we have the bosses running the government and usurping the military and hiring private gunman to intimidate, cow and kill the populace in Iraq, while here in the US, the police and the judiciary system are pretty beholden to bosses through their hold on the government.
During the Katrina debacle you got a good chance to watch as the government unleashed all of these types of personell on US citizens to drive them off the land, so that industrial cronies could move in and “reconstruct.”
“Yeah, so who elected you guys to run the world?”
The American people did; those who voted and those who didn’t.
There should be no “private contractors” fighting our battles. That makes them murderers and they should be tried as such. If we are to continue this fiasco and the one we are going to start in Iran, we should use only professional soldiers who are responsible to our country not a corporation. That means that we need to institute a draft.
The neocons don’t want that because that is about the only part of American history that they have learned. Once the draft begins, the public will be ready to end the war and kick the neocons out and hopefully end this fascist regime.
Sorry dreamertoo… doesn’t matter if you vote — or not. Its totally out of the citizens hands now, as the last election clearly proves. It also negates the argument that so many liberals hate to hear: that there isn’t any difference in the “two parties”. Except for a donkey and elephant–there isn’t.
So put your energy into the “process” if you feel you have to. But leave the crap about dissing people about not voting — at home. The reality is its a farce and a waste of time. There is absolutely no reason to vote at this point. The only way out of this is for our military to take control of Pennsylvania Avenue and arrest these criminals (dems and repugs alike) and try to restore order. Its the only way at this point. The only other way is for citizens to revolt, and again, clearly, the vast majority don’t have the courage for it.
We have a government printing fake money and using it to pay thugs like Blackwater USA along with all the rest. As long as our fake money is credible, they will continue to kill, murder and maim — regardless of who we “elect”.
Having seen Blackwater operate up close and personal in New Orleans after Katrina I can say that they are very professional at what they do, which is killing people.
The only difference between Blackwater and Murder Inc. is that Blackwater commits it’s murders in broad daylight with complete immunity.
Welcome to the United Nazi States of America. But we don’t need concentration camps to quell the masses, we have TV, ipods, debt and porn to imprison them. If we should however step out of line rest assured that even though the military isn’t supposed to be used against it’s own citizens (tell that to the students gunned down at Kent State) Blackwater can and will with smiles on their faces.
time has come for men of shared existence,
to surge for peace, as oceans on the shore.
and standing up for truth in staunch resistence,
doom to hell the bloody dogs of war.
fear not the death grip of corporations,
do not retreat from blackwater tides.
recognize the evil emanation,
though behind a patriotic veil it hides.
do not deceive yourself with dreams of valor,
be content to perish,cold,unknown.
and be prepared when comes the final hour,
to rise upon the ray of light you’ve shown.
the love and hope connecting all good men,
though buried now shall someday rise again.
At Kent State, the murdering of demonstrators was by poorly trained National Guard soldiers. The next murdering of demonstrators in this country will be by highly trained Blackwater mercenaries. There is no question that Bush has created an environment where this can happen.
ascrowflies September 19th, 2007 11:01 am wrote:
“I don’t want a bunch of lawless thugs on my payroll.”
Neither do I so I am going to vote against both of our childkilling parties.
Mother, father, infant child (20 so far) all shot to hell by congress’ hired butchers. Will we see the video on Big Brother’s 6 o’clock Hour of Hate? I don’t know about you but that’s what I see whenever I think of voting for the American Value Candidates.
And to think that these sadistic terrorists continue to brag about their Christian Faith! It’s no wonder there was a flood.
Interesting someone mentioned Kent State…For some reason that song has been stuck in my head for weeks now, an omen of things to come no doubt…
Instead of protesting in traditional ways why not go after the organized criminals themselves?
will embrace “favors” from killing machine manufacturers, some will get jobs, they will be paid off. The “greater good” is an unrealistic tangible in the modern police state.
There might be a building in your town built with the some of the fruits of your labor that says “Lockheed Martin”. These are the guys that are making DU and other death machinery, stealing your liberties and freedoms. L-3, General Dynamics, et al have people who work for them that aren’t “evil” per se they are in a chain or process or organized crime. Code Pink would have a confused audience if they visited Lockheed in Bethesda, MD to protest against the war. The purveyors of terror are protected and celebrated by the so-called Democratic process. For example, Chris Van Hollen (D MD
The old mobsters in Chimp’s reign felt some sting during the time they were setting South East Asia on fire, so these lessons are applied, even with the Green Berets. Blackwater was/is an ideal machine for implementing swift murder and completely destructive terror the war planners realized would be needed to “win”.
More secrecy, less transparency, punish the average American with indifference and fear and hire more loyal brutalists for protection from the victims. Offshore the rules change, men and women are incinerated with a sense of duty. No bid=business as usual.
How did Washington DC’s highest court put it, recently? Ah, yes:
“It is a fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”
But the Govt. will pay for it’s own protection using mercenaries.
Has anyone else noticed how our “selected” representatives are dealing with protesters in Congress? Or how Giuliani dealt with Ron Paul when Paul was speaking the truth about staying out of entangling alliances etc.?
They laugh. They simply laugh.
This tactic must be out of the new Neocon handbook. I saw a hearing on CSPAN yesterday regarding the new surveillance law that was rushed through before the August recess. Medea Benjamin and about 10 other Code Pinkers got up in the middle of questioning with giant pink glasses on and wild hats etc. The entire lot of Representatives snickered and laughed as they walked out chanting this or that about the NSA and CIA eavesdropping on our emails and phone calls. One Congressman said, “Well, guess I can cancel my trip to Disneyland this year.”
The laughter and the snickers are hurting our efforts in trying to bring these criminals to justice. We need to start doing what they do NOT want us to do. Be smart. Smarter than they are. We need to beat them at their own game.
They need to be blind-sided by the law, somehow. The courts and judges and what few laws remain are our only hope for saving the Constitution. We cannot rely on any candidate to save us. They’ve all been compromised one way or the other. Mostly by AIPAC. I seriously doubt there is one single candidate running for President who hasn’t sworn allegiance to Israel above the United States. Save Ron Paul.
And as to Blackwater. Here’s a little clip of the evil they’re up to in Iraq. I think it’s wonderful that Iraq wants to kick the whole lot of them out, I just don’t want them coming back here. They MUST NOT BE ALLOWED in the United States. Period. They are terrorists to the core and an imminent danger to all citizens of the United States.
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Aegis-PSD.mov
WTF September 19th, 2007 1:20 pm wrote:
“How did Washington DC’s highest court put it, recently? Ah, yes:
“It is a fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”
But the Govt. will pay for it’s own protection using mercenaries.”
Isn’t it true that the whole reason we have a government is to protect the people?
They laugh to hide their shame, abbybwood.
It is not checkbook imperalism. It is credit card imperialism.
The money for Iraq is off the books-nobody is bothering about paying back the debt incurred.
That, evidently, is for our children to worry about.
Kristina40 September 19th, 2007 1:01 pm
Four dead in Ohio…
yes, that song has been haunting me a great deal lately. It’s coming. Will America rise up against the government murdering it’s own citizens for protesting? I don’t know.
Strange days indeed.
>>>Admiral Yamamoto: “You cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass.”
Do you think this also applies to Iraq?
>>>>>>>
Not at all. Iraqis all had rifles before we invaded. Those rifles didn’t stop the invasion and haven’t stopped the occupation. Rifles aren’t the problem the occupiers face.
Rifles are of limited use against a military power like the US, which is why the government let’s the gun lovers keep them — and keep the illusion that their pop-guns will be a defense against an out-of-control government. Uday and Qusai Hussein had an arsenal of rifles — and more. Didn’t help.
First, we need to consider that we’ve had an out-of-control government in the US, destroying our Constitution and out way of life for six years now. Where is the NRA to save us?
More important, what’s fueling the insurgency in Iraq are suicide bombers and IEDs. Unless our wannabe freedom fighters are ready to strap on suicide vests, they’re not going to have much effect.
And the government that panders to the gun lovers won’t let them keep arsenals of IEDs. The government knows that all the rifles in the country are pretty much useless, if the government decides to ramp up the dictatorship.
Blackwater will become the equivalent of Nazi Germany’s SS….
Heck-of-a-job Bu$hie…..
locust September 19th, 2007 2:44 pm
“It is not checkbook imperialism. It is credit card imperialism. The money for Iraq is off the books nobody is bothering about paying back the debt incurred. That, evidently, is for our children to worry about.”
All $2.5 Trillion dollars…In part accrued liability paid out of Taxpayers Receipts from Consolidated Revenue. However the majority of this current and accrued liability is monetized… Meaning the printing presses go flat-out for the next 10 years… Currently M3 [money supply] at 14%, while REAL inflation runs at 8% and the US dollar becomes as valuable as TOILET PAPER….
How much you want to bet that Erik Prince is now giving “lavish contributions” to the Dems. Between him and Rupert, Hillary can’t lose.
The time has come. You know it, I know, the world knows it. Civil war will happen here, The revolution will be in our lifetime. And who side will we choose?
These are the moments that our people will talk about in books after our bones have long been buried in the sands of time.
These will be the moments in which we set ourselves apart from the sheep, and we stand. We stand for what is rightfully ours.
The war has begun, the trumpets have been blown.
We are brothers and sisters!!
This is our fight. There is only, us and the enemey.
There is no black, white, red, or yellow.
There are only the freemen and freewomen.
And then there are the oppressors.
US and them. There lives and ours.
We are one unit, we are one people. Feed your brother and your brother will feed you.
Starve for your brother and he will do the same.
Give drink to your brother, and he will quench your thirst.
Fight not amongest ourselves, but let us unite in what will be the defining moments of our lives.
There is no rich or poor. Only us and them.
No strong men and weak men. Only us and them.
Turn the other cheek for your brother but not for the enemy.
Turn the other cheek for your sister but not for the enemy.
I ask you not, as a leader of men, but as a brother in arms, a brother in spirit, a brother in pain. A brother in sacrifice and a brother to those that wish to remain free.
I ask you in this time of our greatest need for cohesiveness and bonds built with one goal.
And that goal is maintaining freedom.
Providing Freedom for our brothers and sisters. Maintaining what was given to us by those that died.
And what is being taken away from us by those that kill.
We are blind, but only have to open our eyes to see what we have been missing.
We are deaf and mute, but only need to focus our minds to hear the call, and open our mouths to speak the words that will save us from our selves.
We are not going to take it any more.
Say it to yourself, when you lay your head on your pillow.
Say it to yourself when you wake.
Say it to those you love.
Say it to those you hate.
For it is only us and them.
Say that you will not let your brothers starve alone, say you will not let your brothers go with out drink alone.
We are one people, we are one movement.
We are the revolution.
~Future~
OK folks I’m starting my own private security company called Murkywater. The companies goals aren’t too clear other than we will be in charge of everything. As soon as I can gather enough recruits, we plan on storming a small town somewhere in the good old USA to establish post to lauch other high dollar endeavors. So, I’m looking for some of those no-bid type contracts - how do I get on the list?
The Gov of NC should immediately revoke Blackwater’s state business license and announce that no private armies will be allowed to operate within the borders of the great state of North Carolina.
The Gov of NO should order all private armies off of all city streets and out of her state immediately. Arnold - you too, champ. You are not safe when you have heavily armed militias operating in your state who are accountable to no one, especially when your own force protectors, the CA National Guard, is operating at less than half-staff.
You all need to remember that the people who voted for Bush are only exposed to the MSM, because they go blithely to work and back knocking themselves out trying to earn a living, don’t log onto the internet seeking other sources and views, and are clueless that all of the MSM has been under the ownership of only a handful of megacorporations since Bill Clinton opened the door to those consolidations by signing, and not vetoing, the Telecomm Act of 1996.
This has been the silent coup - the corporate takeover of the media. There is no democracy without lots of independent news outlets. The only way to combat this is for every one of you to get off your ass, work for a local progressive candidate and CANVASS door to door talking to people and waking them up. Change only comes one person at a time. If all of you do not do this, we will all drown and die in the avalanche we are already caught in. I woke up last week in the middle of a nightmare that I had logged onto the internet and could no longer reach this website, or any of the others I like, because the internet had been taken over.
There is also column in today’s Wash Post about our Orwellian government by Harold Myerson you should read. We are all already under surveillance via cameras installed and operated by private contractors at all levels of our government. There are red light cameras, photo radar speed cameras, “security” cameras, all of which collect data and images that can be used to identify people and track our whereabouts. Serve a FOIA demand on your local governments asking for a copy of their contracts with private corporations for these surveillance cameras. Copy your local council members. And who knows what these corporations, who give a cut of the profits to the local governments who view it as free money with no operation or maintenance obligations, are doing, or will do in the future, with all of this information. Our beloved telephone/cellphone companies already hand out info on us without our permission to the “homeland security” investigators.
I have been reading an interesting book by French philosopher Jacques Ranciere, “Aux bords du politique” (translates as something like, “On the edges of politics.”) The point he makes that is so relevant to the situation in the US right now is that governments maintain control by trying to keep people happily employed and dispersed from the town center, so that they cannot gather to discuss and protest (he goes back to the greek root “demos” for democracy, which implied such a gathering). This is THE major way power is maintained and dissent quashed, never even being able to take shape through communal discussion in the town square. This means that the creation of the suburbs and commuting culture was a coup for the elites, as well as, perhaps, the internet, which brings us together but also keeps us separate, in our own private spaces. At least we are talking to each other, but we are physically dispersed.
Hatchcover September 19th, 2007 4:16 pm
OK folks I’m starting my own private security company called Murkywater. …. we plan on storming a small town somewhere in the good old USA to establish post to lauch other high dollar endeavors.
Already been done. 2 years ago, Army paratroopers staged a night operation by parachuting into Magdalena NM (pop. 800) because it “looks like” an Iraqi town. Problem was they did not tell the locals and had to call it off when squad members were bailed up at shotgun point by the locals.
So if the govenment is under no obligation to do anything for the people it rules 1) Why the hell are there taxes? 2) Why is there even a government?
“Please, please, I tell myself, leave Orwell out of it. Find some other, fresher way to explain why “Operation Iraqi Freedom” is dependent upon killer mercenaries. Or why the “democratically elected government” of “liberated” Iraq does not explicitly have the legal power to expel Blackwater USA from its land or hold any of the 50,000 private contractor troops that the U.S. government has brought to Iraq accountable for their deadly actions.”
Then read Slavoj Zizek’s “Iraq: The Broken Kettle” or “Welcome to the Desert of the Real.”
“This means that the creation of the suburbs and commuting culture was a coup for the elites, as well as, perhaps, the internet, which brings us together but also keeps us separate, in our own private spaces. At least we are talking to each other, but we are physically dispersed.”
The young men who returned to civilian life after WWII were granted many educational benefits & loans precisely to keep them from coalescing into a radical movement; the regime wanted no repetition of the march of the Bonus Army in 1932, when vets camped in the nation’s capital to demand the bonuses that had been promised them 15 years before (and were dispersed by the army under Douglas MacArthur). Public spaces, cities, universities — all these things are dangerous for authoritarian regimes.
I think the scary thing (among many) is this:
Blackwater is guarding the diplomats, both Iraqi and American. Since they are above the law and are not sworn to the constitution, how do we know they don’t serve the double role of being a threat to those same diplomats if they don’t tow the Bush/Cheney line?
We’re in too deep. Having so many contractors in Iraq is like having a double army, one not designed to be loyal to regular Americans. They could be used to quell dissent at home and abroad.
Peace
Karl
Blackwater is only one of several mercenary outfits. It’s curious that the Iraqi govt. (a) has the power to boot them out and (b) would single out one in particular.
True, this event provided some ammunition. But why didn’t they take the opportunity to voice opposition against mercenaries in general?
These groups are not new by any means, here in USA back in the 1770’s late and to the end of the Revo War US hired Germans to fight the British hired Germans. Our payment was land by the way, check out Germantown , PA history. This will make you laugh if anybody is reading this….Davy Crockett was a hired gun for Texas in 1836. ( Texas did not become part of US unitl 1845 ),, Crockett signed on for 4,600 acres of land. 1860’s we saw Pinkerton hired bu USA. This goes on and on. Today we pay in $$$$. The big difference is we usually hired Americans ( except for 1770’s ).. this Blackwater group has memembers from many countries.
The last 7 years here has paralleled the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany - propaganda plus centrally controlled media plus fear and paranoia and surveillance. But fundamentalist Christianity was not part of the military indoctrination then, as it is now, albeit unofficially. All the people here who prefer to look the other way and pretend all is fine and dandy need to be shaken out of their denial.
Even in suburbs, there is nothing to stop you from talking to your neighbors and getting involved in your community. Can’t blame apathy on suburbs. When this country was mostly small farms, there was alot more distance between family homes than there is now.
Our police departments are hired guns, too. The difference is that corporate hired guns care only about profit, don’t give a damn about service (particularly when there is no competition and contracts are no-bid) and are totally unaccountable to us. It is the job of government to provide the best possible public service at the lowest possible price to the citizens to whom they are, or are supposed to be in a democracy, accountable. The concept of government’s role needs to be rehabilitated, because the corporate, repug and neo-con propaganda has done one hell of a job brainwashing everyone that govt is bad.
“Yeah, so who elected you guys to run the world?”
“The American people did; those who voted and those who didn’t”
OK, so who should I have voted for who would have done this much differently. I just saw Kerry droning on while a student who asked the wrong question was tasered for his youthful inquisitiveness. And now Hilary has had Medea Benjamin tossed out of a meeting on a T-shirt wrap.
The candidates (Dem And GOP) who oppose this endless unwinnable war (Gravel, Kucinovich and Paul) are being systematically suppressed by their own parties - most people are probably not even aware of them and their arguments.
All real opposition parties have been suppressed for years, as have intelligent arguments against the last 3 wars - including Clinton’s. Even the most liberal public election financing scheme would not benefit outsider parties much. As Thatcher might say, ‘there is no alternative.’
Translation: We can accept our ironclad one-and-one-half party system, with its pre-determined faux ‘choices’ and vote as if our elections were not fake, or we can stay home and sulk. Either way, it is all our fault.
At http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/pmblues you can read my essay, wherein Dracula’s daughter Isadora Dracula argues eloquently for supporting her for president, rather than voting for Godzilla………………….
So i take it I can start my own professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations firm?
here in the USA?
when a hurricane , flood, fire, rogue political party needs to be squelched?
Damn! can’t wait to get machine gunz and heli choppers!
if you visit the website probush.com you will see the bush campaign button that says it all and in plain english “youre with us or youre with the enemy” blackwater(and maybe triplecanopy) is bush’s private army and “we”(antiwar and antibush)are the enemy.
The Repubs spent millions on a smear campaign, fishing expedition against President and Ms Clinton called Whitewater.
If the Demos actually had huevos rather than poached eggs, they would start their own Blackwater investigations against Prez Bush.
I’ve wondered how various laws, other than accountability on the combat field apply here.
What sort of health care do they have access to?
There are crimes against impersonating a police officer. Any crimes against impersonating a Blackwater mercenary?
And so on. Until the Democrats are whipped into shape and pass some bills protecting mercenaries, their law-free status might come back to haunt them.
If we go to the streets to protest peacefully, regardless of our numbers, we will be ignored, imprisoned or killed.
If we take to the streets in violent protest, regardless of our numbers, we will be ignored, imprisoned or killed.
The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007, would place all governmental power in the hands of the President and effectively abolish the checks and balances in the Constitution.
KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary recently reprimanded for gross overcharging in its military contracts in Iraq, won a $385 million contract to build detention centers.
What part of this don’t we understand?
I have signed too many petitions to our “representatives.” I have made too many phone calls. I have attended too many “rallies.” They all were completely meaningless, made no difference, were completely ignored.
Mine may be a failed effort in the end but at least I will try to
DO SOMETHING! Will you help me? http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/unsanam2
That’s a bluff. There are two ways out of it.
(a) Perhaps 10 million people.
(b) Getting cops, soldiers, etc. onto the side of Democracy, pushing the wedge further up the pike.
Blackwater needs to practice somewhere
before they control the streets of America
A few weeks ago I heard Bush talking about how the private security forces were essential to the mission in Iraq. Maybe the Iraqi leaders were listening too. If you can’t get rid of the US Military then see if you can rid yourself of the unaccountable Blackwater, who by now must think that they can get away with anything. When anyone asks who they are accountable to, the US Government just up throws their arms and says, “Uh, I don’t know”. Right! This is a distortion but pretty much the essence of our governments response. Well, do the Iraqi’s govern their country or not. Weren’t we told a while ago that Iraq had it’s own independent government? So what is it? Of course, as Bush has said, this private army is essential to the mission. And now the Iraqi leaders are starting to act like it is their country. How will the US reconcile this hypocrisy?
Sure you can talk to your neighbors in the suburbs, but you are safely far removed from the CITY center, the center of political life, in the city, where power sits–that’s what Ranciere meant. It’s why matches on Washington are important, or chants about taking back the streets.
Ranciere’s idea about the need for power to disperse people from the center came out of a really great discussion of the original philosophers of democracy, Plato and Aristotle, who were also suspicious of democracy and the problem of the unruly mobs. The problem they already recognized was that there could be no real equality since there would always be rich and poor, and so, cynically (I think this was Aristotle), the need was recognized to keep the poor dispersed, away from the agora, the marketplace, while allowing them to have the illusion that they had the right to participate, to vote, etc. But in the meantime, they would be too preoccupied with their own private business to participate. And thus the inherent inequality between the rich elites and the poor, which no form of government could eradicate, would be solved. That was written I guess about 2,500 years ago. So much for democracy. In the US right now, it’s all about power being exercised against those non-elites who dare exercise the democratic rights (Medea Benjamin, the guy in Florida, etc…)they rightfully possess, but which the elite masters were hoping they wouldn’t exercise by staying home and worrying about their crops, their cows, etc. How dare a poor man demand freedom of speech? Doesn’t he know he should stay home?
greengal September 19th, 2007 9:48 pm
The last 7 years here has paralleled the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany - propaganda plus centrally controlled media plus fear and paranoia and surveillance. But fundamentalist Christianity was not part of the military indoctrination ……
WRONG…..
There is a picture of Hitler praying which he did publicly OFTEN at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler’s_religious_beliefs
Similar to Bush praying at:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/15/3864/#comment-96711
Hitler’s involvement with the Church:
a) Hitler was baptized as Roman Catholic during infancy in Austria.
b) As Hitler approached boyhood he attended a monastery school.(On his way to school young Adolf daily observed a stone arch which was carved with the monastery’s coat of arms bearing a swastika.)
c) Hitler was a communicant and an altar boy in the Catholic Church.
d) As a young man he was confirmed as a “soldier of Christ.” His most ardent goal at the time was to become a priest. Hitler writes of his love for the church and clergy:“I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal.”-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
e) Hitler was NEVER excommunicated nor condemned by his church. Matter of fact the Church felt he was JUST and “avenging for God” in attacking the Jews for they deemed the Semites the killers of Jesus.
f) Hitler, Franco and Mussolini were given VETO power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany, Spain and Italy. In turn they surtaxed the Catholics and gave the money to the Vatican. Hitler wrote a speech in which he talks about this alliance, this is an excerpt:“The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism [Nazism] is hostile to religion is a lie.” Adolf Hitler, 22 July 1933, writing to the Nazi Party
Hitler and the Popeg) Hitler worked CLOSELY with Pope Pius in converting Germanic society and supporting the church. The Church absorbed Nazi ideals and preached them as part of their sermons in turn Hitler placed Catholic teachings in public education. This photo depicts Hitler with Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin. It was taken On April 20, 1939, when Orsenigo celebrated Hitler’s birthday. The celebrations were initiated by Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) and became a tradition.
Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send “warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany with “fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars.”(If you would like to know more about the secret dealings of Hitler and the Pope I recommend you get a book titled: Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell)
h) Due to Hitler’s involvement with the Church he began enacting doctrines of the Church as law. He outlawed all abortion, raged a death war on all homosexuals, and demanded corporal punishment in schools and home. Many times Hitler addressed the church and promised that Germany would implement its teachings:“The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today.”–Adolf Hitler, on 26 June 1934, to Catholic bishops to assure them that he would take action against the new pagan propaganda “Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church.”-Adolf Hitler, reportedly to have said in Berlin in 1936 on the enmity of the Catholic Church to National Socialism…..
ubrew12 is right..the are getting plenty of practice..on insurgents,civilians,women and children…and judging by the high number of the deaths of regular soldiers,who bravely spoke out against the bushwar(too many to be’coincidence’)…even on our own soldiers.they are already slated to take over ‘domestic’duties and these mercenaries are discompassionate hardened killers,fueled by huge amounts of cash…by the way,it is our money..that has been financing these killers.
finally someone, pleasethink, is presenting some intelligent discussion on why there isn’t any viable active dissent - yet.
instead of ranting about how we should take the streets, and how ineffective we all are, there ought to be a commondreams article on why, if so many of us are troubled as we seem to be, we haven’t taken the streets en masse right now when the situation is dire, deplorable, etc.
is it a conspiracy? I am of the mind of Parenti who paraphrased says that if that means someone is sitting around in a room somewhere figuring it out then yes there’s a conspiracy.
Are we really so vain that we think that onlychomsky, gore vidal, zinn, moyers, etc have a clear take on the current situation? Is that realistic? Or are there many intelligent (ok so they’re missing some ingredients perhaps) people on the other side of the spectrum working the other angle? The other angle would be how to keep the people down - particularly after the fiasco they feel they had to endure with Viet Nam, as well as historically. Whatever they have come up with has got us stuck in a jam, I would say, because if there were some realistic way for me to be out there I would be.
From my own incomplete observation, I would have to say that small communities have been undermined by various aspects of the economic system. Like zoning and building laws. Many small towns which, for example, once had movie theaters, no longer have them. Movie theaters is a good example because I think they are one of the components that keep small communities vibrant. Right now you have to travel to cinema complexes where you will sit in an audience of people who may as well be anonymous.
Country stores where people gather to talk over a cup of coffee, are going out of existence. You have to travel to the exxon station mini mart. And so forth. There are a million other things, but these are a few I can think of that help keep us alienated from one another.
Things of this nature have definitely alienated the people who live in rural areas.
For the urban person, most of the jobs that you can do have become institutionalized. Regan made a huge effort to get that done. It’s almost impossible to work “off the books,” anymore for those of us who may never have wanted to contribute to this mess, for example.
It’s also almost impossible to start up your own business from scratch doing your own thing. That is hurtful to many of us who believe that there ought to be a way to make a living doing something, let’s say, creative. And this weakens our efforts to offer dissent.
This is just an example I came up with, but I’m not saying everyone should be entitled or has enough talent to be a rock musician, but I think it’s getting impossible to be a rock musician because in order to survive you probably have to take an institutionalized work situation. Like working at wal mart, instead of say, working at the small local movie theater that you started because there wasn’t one. You can’t start that movie theater because there are so many regulations that you would have to meet that it would be impossible to do so. This is just an example. Someone can come up with a more realistic example I’m sure.
Further, I think that iconoclastic people in the public, I don’t mean the rich and famous ones, have had their voice (temporarily) deprived of them. We’ve been shut out of the conventional american scene. I would suggest that non conformist types have been effectively ostracized from american society and the economy, and scattered to the winds and from each other (in order to survive,) so that we have to meet at commondreams with the hope that in it’s proper time we will be able to make a difference when it becomes a real opportunity to do so.
At last the Iraqi government is speaking up.
This is win/win situation for them, either
Blackwater goes (not likely)
or the Iraq sovereignity is show to be false.
Jeremy Scahill who wrote a book about Blackwater was on CSpan this morning answering callers, he stated there are more mercenaries in Iraq that US soldiers, there was also a suggestion that when Blackwater
has disagreements with US army sometimes
US soldiers turn up dead. Scary, huh?
What a neocon nightmare Bush unleashed in
Iraq, the cradle of civilization. All for
oil lust and zionist entanglements.
“He who hires mercenaries is doomed to failure” - Machiavelli, The Prince
the article ends:
“We are not simply a ‘private security company,’ ” Blackwater boasts on its corporate website. “We are a professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations firm. … We have become the most responsive, cost-effective means of affecting the strategic balance in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere.”
———————
let me just ask: how fucked up is your country?
a born again fundamentalist christian married to the daughter of the amway corporation now claims to be - the amercian government.
isn’t that some kind of copyright/patent infringement?
by the way; read about the fema prisons, 600 of them fully functional, just waiting for you pussies to get out of line;
http://www.freedomfiles.org/war/fema.htm
check em out, you are going to be living in them soon.
then ask yourself: why does the single country in the world who already has the largest segment of its society incarcerated, need another 600 prisons.
then ask yourself: how did you get both your thumbs stuck so far up your ass?
Frank1569 asked why the Governor of NC doesn’t kick Blackwater out of the state. It didn’t hurt Gov. Bill Clinton’s career not to kick the Iran-Contra types out of the west Arkansas staging areas.
yes JZman, i have been asking everyone to ask Hilary about Mena, I knew barry Seal, since 1973, i was all over central america in the 80’s,90’s
and my frind that worked ‘near’ blackwater has told me some stories. i imagine they are dop traffickers out from thereIraq and of course Colombia along with Dyncorp
wake up USA!!!!! sheeples
Mr Fish - if you can, please tell us more.
geoff29: “I would suggest that non conformist types have been effectively ostracized from american society and the economy, and scattered to the winds and from each other (in order to survive,) so that we have to meet at commondreams with the hope that in it’s proper time we will be able to make a difference when it becomes a real opportunity to do so.”
You mention music as an example, and it’s a good one. There is a growing underground music scene in many places. Google “house concerts” and you will find that more and more people are hosting concerts in their homes for donations that go entirely to the performers. By not making any money off the concert, it is not a residential zoning violation. And the performers have no middlemen that they have to share the donations or their earnings from selling cds at these performances with. Those of us who attend bring a dessert, and we meet the other people and talk during the break.
You have to take the initiative, whether by finding and going to house concerts, or by hosting them yourself.
There are writers groups, photography workshops, local DFA or other green groups that get together. Follow your passion and find the ones that appeal to you. Even if the MSM in your area doesn’t cover us non conformists, that doesn’t mean we aren’t there.
There are also groups that do “barn-raising” to get low band local FM stations going. In fact there are some pirate low band FM stations and there will be more and more as time goes on. Give in to despair, and the neocons, repugs and corporatists have won.