A senior foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has told The Nation that if elected Obama will not “rule out” using private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. The adviser also said that Obama does not plan to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009, when a new President will be sworn in. Obama’s campaign says that instead he will focus on bringing accountability to these forces while increasing funding for the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the agency that employs Blackwater and other private security contractors. (Hillary Clinton’s staff did not respond to repeated requests for an interview or a statement on this issue.)
Obama’s broader Iraq withdrawal plan provides for some US troops to remain in Iraq–how many his advisers won’t say. But it’s clear that Obama’s “follow-on force” will include a robust security force to protect US personnel in Iraq, US trainers (who would also require security) for Iraqi forces and military units to “strike at Al Qaeda”–all very broad swaths of the occupation.
“If Barack Obama comes into office next January and our diplomatic security service is in the state it’s in and the situation on the ground in Iraq is in the state it’s in, I think we will be forced to rely on a host of security measures,” said the senior adviser. “I can’t rule out, I won’t rule out, private security contractors.” He added, “I will rule out private security contractors that are not accountable to US law.”
But therein lies a problem. The US Embassy in Iraq is slated to become the largest embassy in world history. If Obama maintains that embassy and its army of diplomats and US personnel going in and out of the Green Zone, which his advisers say he will, a significant armed force will be required for protection. The force that now plays that role is composed almost exclusively of contractors from Blackwater, DynCorp and Triple Canopy. And at present, these contractors are not held accountable under US law. Obama and a host of legal experts, including in the Justice Department, acknowledge that there may be no current US law that could be used to prosecute security contractors for crimes committed in Iraq, such as the killing of seventeen Iraqi civilians last September in Baghdad’s Nisour Square.
Obama’s proposed increase in funding to the diplomatic security division would ostensibly pave the way for a protective force composed entirely of US government personnel, but the process of building that force would likely take a long time. Short of dramatically reducing the US civilian and diplomatic presence in Iraq that necessitates such a security force, Obama may have no choice but to continue the contracting arrangements with firms like Blackwater if he is elected President.
The irony is that it was Senator Obama who sponsored a bill in February 2007 defining a legal structure to prosecute State Department contractor crimes in US courts. Obama staffers say they will “fight like hell to get it passed.” But it may not pass before the next President takes power. Even if it does and Bush signs it, serious questions will remain unresolved about how contractor crimes can be monitored effectively. The senior adviser acknowledged that Obama could find himself in a situation where, as President, he continues using forces he himself has identified as “unaccountable.” The Obama campaign, in other words, may have painted itself into a corner.
Obama campaign and Senate staffers characterize this as an inherited problem with no good alternatives. “We are in a situation where, because of bad planning and a series of disastrous policy choices by the Bush Administration, we’re forced to rely on private security contractors,” says the senior adviser. “What we’re focused on at the moment is getting the legal architecture in place that will hold these guys accountable to the same standard that [applies to] enlisted US military personnel.”
In Iraq right now, the number of private contractors is basically equal to the number of US troops. While Obama advisers say they plan to “have a serious look” at the role of contractors in Iraq, one adviser seemed to indicate that unarmed contractors would continue to operate at significant levels. “These contractors are not only providing private security functions like Blackwater. They’re rebuilding schools, they are serving food, they’re doing logistics, they’re driving trucks, and the important question is, If you take those 100,000-plus contractors out of Iraq, what do you replace them with? Inevitably the answer is, You replace them with US military.”
But, the senior adviser notes, “ideally we would have diplomatic security personnel, US government personnel, not subcontracted but US Bureau of Diplomatic Security agents providing security to all our ambassadors.”
Says another Obama adviser, “If we could start this whole war from the beginning, what would we have done versus what can we do now, now that we’re in the middle of it? In an ideal world, we would not have these contractors, but that’s not the world we operate in right now.”
The State Department has only an estimated 1,450 diplomatic security agents worldwide who are actual government employees, and only thirty-six are deployed in Iraq. In contrast, Blackwater has nearly 1,000 operatives in Iraq alone, not to mention the hundreds more working for DynCorp and Triple Canopy. Moreover, the State Department says it could take years to identify prospective new agents, vet them, train them and deploy them. In short, this would be no small undertaking by a President Obama. As Ambassador Ryan Crocker said in late 2007, “There is simply no way at all that the State Department’s 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.”
Making diplomatic security a military operation would pose serious challenges as well. As the New York Times reported late last year, “the military does not have the trained personnel to take over the job.” Even if the military trained a specialized force for executive protection and bodyguarding in Iraq, this arrangement would mean more US military convoys traveling inside Iraq, potentially placing them in deadly conflict with Iraqi civilians on a regular basis.
The private security industry knows well that it has become a central part of US policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Extricating the firms from this position would require a major and aggressive undertaking with significant Congressional support, which is by no means guaranteed. In fact, Blackwater appears to see a silver lining in the prospect of US forces being withdrawn or reduced in Iraq. Joseph Schmitz, chief operating officer of Blackwater’s parent company, The Prince Group, said, “There is a scenario where we could as a government, the United States, could pull back the military footprint, and there would then be more of a need for private contractors to go in.” The Obama senior adviser called Schmitz’s comment “an unfortunate characterization.”
Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, one of Congress’s sharpest critics of the war contracting system, says of Schmitz’s remark, “That’s why some of us have been really careful about not just talking about a troop withdrawal but a contractor withdrawal as well.” Obama, she says, should make it impossible for Schmitz and others “to think that Barack Obama would be creating new opportunities for Blackwater after our troops are withdrawn.” The clearest way for him to do that would be to endorse legislation banning the use of Blackwater and other mercenary firms in Iraq. In November Schakowsky and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Stop Outsourcing Security (SOS) Act, which mandates that US personnel undertake all diplomatic security in Iraq within six months of enactment. The bill has twenty-three co-sponsors in the House and one–Sanders–in the Senate. Sanders said he’d “love” it if Obama and Clinton signed on. “If either of them came on board, we’d certainly see more Democratic support,” says Sanders. Will Obama do that before November? “The answer is no, in all candor,” says the senior Obama adviser. “Obviously it’s a dynamic situation, and he’ll continue to analyze it.”
Schakowsky is pressing Obama to support the bill and says that if he becomes President she will urge him to “cancel” any remaining Blackwater contract in Iraq: “There’s plenty of justification to say this company is trouble, and there’s no point in continuing our contract with them.”
The senior adviser said, “Senator Obama is concerned that Blackwater remains in Iraq, and he’s concerned that they remain in Iraq and other countries totally unaccountable to US law and totally unaccountable to the law in the country in which they are operating.” Which raises the question: If he’s so concerned, why not throw his support behind a ban on the use of these forces in Iraq?
Jeremy Scahill is the author of the New York Times bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.
© Copyright 2008 The Nation
So much of what I now experience sure does feel like an Orwellian reality — but what I continue to see is an effort to present all this privitization of what was once accountable to the public — in the false form of smooth peanut butter and a happy face. Listen and trust your gut!
Gee, what a surprise.
let the iraqi resistance fight blackwater over there so we don’t have to fight them here.
Good point hazmat. And as long as the national guard and the hired goons are all tied up in the sandtrap in Iraq, they are less able to harrass us on the streets here.
There is no way Barack Obama would come out on the record against Black Water right now. Jeremy knows that. He’s an awesome reporter, but he is also like a pit bull; he will not relent, no matter what. That’s why we will need him to help us hold Barack’s feet to the fire if indeed he manages to get elected. If the people are against Black Water in a big enough way, once he is in the White House, he will bring them down or at least make them answer to the same law as soldiers, which will ultimately put them out of business anyway.
Zoya got it right !
Or as Mr. Ferlinghetti once said:
Bird With Two Right Wings
And now our government
a bird with two right wings
flies on from zone to zone
while we go on having our little fun & games
at each election
as if it really mattered who the pilot is
of Air Force One
(They’re interchangeable, stupid!)
While this bird with two right wings
flies right on with its corporate flight crew
And this year its the Great Movie Cowboy in the cockpit
And next year its the great Bush pilot
And now its the Chameleon Kid
and he keeps changing the logo on his captains cap
and now its a donkey and now an elephant
and now some kind of donkephant
And now we recognize two of the crew
who took out a contract on America
and one is a certain gringo wretch
who’s busy monkeywrenching
crucial parts of the engine
and its life-support systems
and they got a big fat hose
to siphon off the fuel to privatized tanks
And all the while we just sit there
in the passenger seats
without parachutes
listening to all the news that’s fit to air
over the one-way PA system
about how the contract on America
is really good for us etcetera
As all the while the plane lumbers on
into its postmodern
manifest destiny.
Thus: We can only hope that Obama will be somewhat less violent than the other candidates.
Vote Nader..VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE……..
At least he provided a reasoned,if unwelcome, response to the question instead of totally dodging it.
Obama, Clinton, McCain, scary armageddonist preachers - spot the difference. Blind ambition and not a jot of integrity. Obama is on record as saying there is no viability for a Palestinian State. Now mercenaries can take over from the army to run Iraq. Illegally invaded, which seems to have escaped him.
Not a bad track record for a man who’s middle name is Mohammed.
Why not turn over the non-security functions of contractors to Iraqis? Or can it be that no Iraqi is to be trusted?
Obama will do as he’s told to promote the imperial agenda in the ME.
There is no reason to believe he will initiate conflict with the Pentagon.
I haven’t listened much to his oratory, but if he hasn’t advocated rolling back the 2002 executive empowerment act, the Patriot Act, or the Military Commissions Act, then he’s not what we need in the oval office.
In fact, this country may sorely regret the election of this Multicultural Messiah. On the megalomania scale he ranks higher the GWB.
okay, we can be defeatist about obama and say he’s another sellout. and we can be so angry we don’t vote or we vote for hillary which is just a vote for john mccain. or we can write and call obama’s campaign headquarters and ring the goddamn phone off the hook saying change has nothing to do with private mercenary forces inside, or outside, the united states. I’ve called and the people there are very amenable to talk. Call and i think there’s a chance he’s listening.
http://www.barackobama.com/
Nader will not win because he does not have a movement behind him like Barack Obama does. I will vote my conscience on who I think is most likely to energize the Progressive electorate and that would be Barack Obama.
This issue will be resolved. There’s no reason to say Obama will not hold Blackwater accountable when obviously that is what’s he been working on in the Senate. Extinguishing the contracts under the Sanders bill requires that there are actually US troops available to do some of those jobs (at a minimum logistics). That takes time to train and allocate US military to do some of those jobs and most importantly a change in the scale and purpose of our presence in Iraq which requires a change in the Whitehouse. A withdrawal would make a lot of those jobs that private contractor are performing now obsolete. “Going bigger” McCain style would require more US military or more private contractors, and probably the latter.
His middle name is Hussein, not Mohammed.
The next Prez is gonna find it is lots easier to start a War than End one.
For Obama to get into details about which he only knows what they tell him (lots of different stuff) it wont be good for his health.
To really work the prez will have to lay off the mercenaries first because they are the Gold suits of the War racket.
To say this up front might get ya ticket to paradise before your time.
A bird with two right wings cannot fly.
Obummer, Clinkton, and McCant, just another Blues Song waiting to be sung. Leaders are corrupt, the system is corrupt, the outcomes are unacceptable, dissent is terrorism, the food supply is tainted, the water supply is controlled, homes are too expensive or being foreclosed, credit cards cost thirty percent, your phone and email is being monitored, energy costs are rising, the national debt is beyond repair, global warming is accelerating, animal extinctions are accelerating, the environment is toxic, and the American People are debating about who they will next elect to run the country into the ground. If you want to survive you better start thinking local.
Once again, this proves that Obama will not be able to take on corporations in the Military Industrial Complex as POTUS. Billary’s campaign largely is financed by aerospace and national defense companies. McCain is a lying sack of s##t. That is why I cannot vote for any of these people. We need to change the system.
Apparently, Mr. Scahill, you prefer corporate dominated healthcare and NAFTA. I will vote for Obama with severe misgivings, but given the choice of Hillary Clinton for president, I would be forced not to vote at all.
Everytime I hear Obama speak I think “Oh boy, someone is going to shoot that poor man.”
Who has money to lose and guns to use?
I wouldn’t say anything to offend Blackwater just yet if I were Obama either.
Like Pete Seeger Says Think globally Act locally….
It’s important to get Blackwater all the way out of Iraq, and not back here to round up all us dissidents into renditioned jails where Blackwater Christian fundamentalist fascists can torture us according to the long-range plans of Bush-Cheney.
Yes, get them out of Iraq, but what does it really accomplish if we’re only to replace them with personnel from the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security? We’re still permanently fixed in Iraq, blowing Iraqis away every day with nonchalance and impunity, but it’s OK because the replacements for Blackwater are somehow bound by US law. Some improvement. As we’re forced to say about absolutely everything these days, It Doesn’t Make Any Fucking Sense.
Is this an example of the kind of thing we’re supposed to “hope” for, from Obama, the kind of “change” we can reasonably believe in? He’ll make it all perfectly legal to provide “diplomatic security” with State Dept. thugs who are free to continue ruling over the lives of Iraqis and keeping them in police state lockdown forever, because they’ll be bound by US “law”? Boy, what a glorious day of change and freedom the Iraqis have in store! See what the Democrats really offer us as an alternative to the fascist surge now fully in progress? What more could we want?
SOSAD: Obama, Clinton, McCain
7 PM nightly Iraq war report:
Things are going well. Freedom is on the march. Less bombings and killings but we still have a long way to go since the country is in ruins, there are no jobs, soldiers get blown up regularly and a few stray rockets always seem to go off in the wrong places. Overall, the Pentagon says: “we’re cautiously optimistic.”
Repeat over and over again for the next 50 years or before the oil runs out.
Obama is only an opportunity to change things and that represents an improvement over the other front tier candidates. We should use that opportunity to join his campaign and infuse it with the policies that we want to see going forward.
Green Party needs to do some work on the local level to get some elected reps in the party before a legitimate run for the presidency can be had…Ralph Nader will be lucky to get his voice heard in any of the debates during the general elections. Why did he have to worry who the other candidates were before he ran?
Jeremy Scahill was on Democracy Now today (02-28-08)in an extended interview with Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman. TherE is much more information therE than was even in the fine article above.
Go to: democracynow.org to see what I MEAN.
elmeztisogordo,
Ditto that on the votes.
And Daniel Nolan,
I couldn’t agree more.
Elmeztisogordo,
Ditto that, on the votes.
And Daniel Nolan,
I couldn’t agree more.
the blackwater stuff will turn out to be mostly about shoving the depression down our throats.
Sounds to me Obama is going to pull an LBJ
“When you drive a car you’re voting Bush!”
Hazmat says - let the iraqi resistance fight blackwater over there so we don’t have to fight them here.
I don’t quite understand exactly what you are tying to say. If you are saying let Blackwater go over to Iraq and play rather than having Blackwater play here, I’m all for it (in kind of a twisted ‘this is fucked’ way).
And by the way, Blackwater and other private armies are already going to play a bigger role in any natural disaster here, like Katrina, or a bunch of peaceniks who are causing trouble.
Seeing Nader in a debate with Obama would be interesting. Both are eloquent speakers but Nader has the edge on substance.
Of course Nader is responsible for aids.
Fundamentalist democrats have discovered that if it wasnt for Nader’s seat belt crusade Patient zero would have died in a car accident.
Damn Nader and his good intentions gone awry.
You can try to tell the Obamamaniacs the truth about their messiah. But you can be sure they won’t listen.
The article contends: “These contractors are not only providing private security functions like Blackwater. They’re rebuilding schools, they are serving food, they’re doing logistics.” Based on the reports being leaked that show how little electricity is operating, how dire the situation for the vast majority, how low the employment rate, etc. one wonders if ANYTHING has been built outside of those permanent bases TOMDISPATCH made us so clearly aware of. (Remember the operation where sewage leaked from the upper floors to lower floors?) For the billions poured into the quagmire, is there ANY accountability that ANY real infrastructure has been built? It’s a free for all, the economic equivalent of preaching abstinence at a Vegas whore house.
Anyone who believes that candidates campaign the way that they will actually govern needs to look at the campaigns of Lincoln and FDR.
Scahills screed is naivete in the extreme. Too often the Left seems utterly frightened of actually being in power, so works to bring down genuine progressive candidatees.
And as to Nader: In a debate between Obama and Nader, Obama would leave Nader a blithering mass. Let’s stop romanticizing about old Ralph. He is simply a self-absorbed egotist, irrelevant to the American political scene.
Well, if elected, couldn’t Obama just give the contractors a choice? Sign the paper saying you’ll abide by U.S. law or sign the paper saying you’ll abide by Iraqi law. Sign neither and the gravy train stops right here.
The problem with “for-profit” armies is that they have a vested interest in prolonging wars.
While I condemn the antics and very existence of Blackwater and other as much as anyone else, I also commend the Obama position on this issue.
Progressives like to hold candidates feet the fire on issues like this, but we all need to understand that the primary job of Obama right now is to take common-sense positions that he believes in and can convince the American voters are the right thing. And this does mean not being as extreme or as polarizing as the very decisions that you might make once you have the power to make those decisions. Obama is a master of making the very radical appear sensible and apple-pie American (indeed, for a senator “to the left of Ted Kennedy” he has gathered many many Republicans’ support. Ask yourself why). It would be foolish to declare war on the contractors before he gets elected, before he has security clearances, and before his decisions and stances actually matter. I am personally confident that Obama will make the right decision when the time comes- it is definitely our job to hold his feet to the fire then. What is the alternative? The alternative is to compel Obama to take positions that will not enable his election, and we will end up with Bush pt. 3 in McCain. As a radical progressive, I am very very excited about Obama’s candidacy, even if his positions are not perfect. I urge you to check out his policy positions and speeches on his website- barackobama.com I am more and more impressed, the more I read.
What are we to do then? Tell me?
I would love to vote my conscience as I have always done, but you know, I am tired of seeing my conscience candidates slipping through the cracks of obscurity (by the mass media and the masses in general). Aren’t you? What does it mean to vote your conscience anyway? It changes nothing. An all out revolution, 1776 style, would need to occur in order for the kinds governmental and environmental changes we seek to come to fruition. I sure as hell do not want to see Hillary in office - so I’ll take Obama. My first choice was Kucinich. When Kucinich, at the last possible second, was bumped off of the MSNBC debate, I lost all hope in the fight. I really feel there’s no hope for candidates like Nader, Kucinich, McKinney…I am sorry to say it. We are so divided even in the grassroots/left community. So, how do we expect the masses to see the light and stand by what refer to as “our conscience candidates?” So, go ahead, vote your conscience if it makes You (as in the singular YOU) feel better about YOURSELF.
Lots of money to be made in the
doom and gloom, horror industry.
For seven years careers have been made
listing every excrutiating, mind numbing
detail of the turn to fascism.
It has become an industry. The Horror Industry
It was necessary to overcome ignorance and denial.
What function does it serve now?
Must find more doom and gloom for the despair addicts?
I’ll vote for a door-knob or a box of toothpicks before I waste another vote on a Democrat.
I’ll vote for a hatbox with a severed head in it before I waste another vote on a Democrat.
I’ll vote for a paper-clip under my refrigerator before I waste another vote on a Democrat.
It isn’t a choice between Nader and the Democrats!
It’s a choice between Nader and a plastic spoon with ants on it!
It’s a choice between Nader and four broken pencils!
It’s a choice between Nader and a 1988 Oklahoma license plate!
It’s a choice between Nader and nothing!
One more reason why I’ll vote for Dennis Kucinich for president in November.
Actually I think it’s a pretty smart political tactic. If he gets the dem nom what better way to fend off McCain. Let’s not get so pure we get totally shut out the game.
what a schmuk you are Jeremy.
couldnt have come up with a more intellectually dishonest article title.
while everything he says is true, and I would argue it is a completely unreasonable request to ask him to refuse to use private contractors, he or his staff never said Blackwater would be their preferred mercenary.
Which is what you imply. There is a difference as we all know.
Nobody likes Blackwater.
Not Obama .
Not Clinton.
who knows what Senator. McSenile thinks.
the article could have just as easily been titled Hilary Clinton’s Mercenary position, just change the names and its all the same.
Truly pathetic attack on Obama and incredibly pathetic attempt to interject youy personal,vested agenda into Presidential politics.
Do you have two windows open so you can watch book sales while you type this tripe?
Glad I checked your book out from the library and didnt give you any of my hard earned money.
Sometimes I think progressives fail to realize we are in a protracted war here, at present playing defensive. One thing to take into consideration about Obama, is, and I say this as a native, we take all manner of sh$%# in life, know when to hide our true selves and when we can come out swinging. Obama may or may not be any better than Clinton, Nader with Gonzales aren’t going to get any concessions. That leaves us with McCain,which may very well send us to the grave. We as yet are no where near ready to take on National politics, best to keep our efforts local for now. The one thing I think Obama will not do is to totally shut down communications, ie Common Dreams etc. Piss poor choices I know, but look at how much we’ve lost in the combined Bush, Clinton, Bush years.
Just another reason not to vote for Obama.
Nader/Gonzalez 2008.
I see I am going to have to change my username.
It’s one party in my eyes. Obama is there to pacify the progressive folks and get elected. O.K.
He has the youth energized and signing up to vote. That’s a good thing, they like what he says.
If he is elected I will, and I hope all you will too; hold him to the fire (if there is such a thing in gov.) on the issues.
WE NEED TO BE THE ONES THAT DEFINE THE ISSUES! like election reform, taking back our airwaves from PR firms, quit spying on us and tell the truth! MAKE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE! Wow that’s for starts!
As it is the Greens are the closest to how I feel.
Anyone who believes that candidates campaign the way that they will actually govern needs to look at the campaigns of Lincoln and FDR.
Scahills screed is naivete in the extreme. Too often the Left seems utterly frightened of actually being in power, so works to bring down genuine progressive candidatees.
And as to Nader: In a debate between Obama and Nader, Obama would leave Nader a blithering mass. Let’s stop romanticizing about old Ralph. He is simply a self-absorbed egotist, irrelevant to the American political scene.
You actually sound a bit naive. How did Lincoln and FDR actually run their campaigns? FDR for one, I think, actually ran on a balanced budget platform. So much for that… Much of what he tried as Pres. came from NYC and Al Smith… We know Clinton’s ideas probably come from er experience with Bill. We don’t know where Obama’s will come from.
Scahill is anything but naive. He knows that if you don’t bring up the real issues now, during the campaign, the issues will never be addressed again. You need to get the candidate to take a stand on something so you can hound him/her into following through…. They’re running to lead US (as in you and me) they need to know what we want them to do… Else they’ll do what Bush did….
Obama in fact is not a great debater I’ve heard (and seen). Both he and Nader are Harvard Law Grads; but Nader has many more years of experience dealing with politicians and getting things done… I think it would be an excellent, informative, real debate instead of the junk Clinton and Obama have talked about in the so-called msm debates. But not to worry the msm won’t let Nader anywhere near where he might actually educate and inform the candidates and the public.
You’re more of a self absorbed egoist than is Nader. He works, and has his entire life, 24/7 for the american public. Can you say the same?
Noamseatown re blackwater: It would be foolish to declare war on the contractors before he gets elected, before he has security clearances, and before his decisions and stances actually matter.
It would be wise for Obama to define the role of contractors, certainly outline the laws under which they would be governed as they are not now. The mercentaries are at the moment almost totally out of control; that is dangerous and foolish. They were out of control in New Orleans after Katrina and they are out of control in Iraq. This is outrageous. As a leader Obama should point this out and LEAD.
You really want to gamble that Obama will “probably” do the “right thing” whatever that is? Dont’ you want to know?
Get real, anyone who opposes mercenaries in any substantive way will be dead - actually, physically, and most certainly dead. We will only be free of them when we have no more money or mercenaries are socially excluded world wide.
Before Rummy left his job (allegedly) I believe he rewrote some manual to blur the line between the army and contractors. Officially they are now one and the same.
Does the Harvard lawyer know this?
Here’s a real simple concept: The President of the United States should not be allowed to have his own private, religious-lead army. Period.
Mr. Obama, Blackwater has millions of dollars of contracts waiting for them back in the States. Will you allow them to operate here?? Hello? Silence…
As far as I’m concerned their existence is illegal.
An Obama adviser said:
While Obama advisers say they plan to “have a serious look” at the role of contractors in Iraq, one adviser seemed to indicate that unarmed contractors would continue to operate at significant levels. “These contractors are not only providing private security functions like Blackwater. They’re rebuilding schools, they are serving food, they’re doing logistics, they’re driving trucks, and the important question is, If you take those 100,000-plus contractors out of Iraq, what do you replace them with?
** What do you replace them with? Are you kidding? You said you’re bring the troops home. You don’t need to replace them, if you’re being honest with us.
I believe the unemployment rate in Iraq is at least 50%. There are more than enough Iraqis looking for something to do during the day. If we leave, and they start working, things will probably get better, ya think!
AND HE’S THE CHANGE CANDIDATE???
We need a Nader vs Obama debate. If Obama won’t do it, then he’s not worth supporting, period. His decline will say it all.
Those who do not want to pressure the Democrats: You belong in the Republican Party, where their “with us or against us” mantra is more acceptable.
Yes, of course, we must put pressure the Democrats, folks. We need Nader as leverage. Without pressure, they will ignore us (truth spoken by Lawrence O’Donnell, Democratic consultant, MSNBC, McLaughlin report)
Aren’t you “sick and tired of being sick and tired?” (Molly Ivins)
Thanks Jeremy Scahill for bringing up a very important topic. Obama gets unmasked:
“If he’s so concerned, why not throw his support behind a ban on the use of these forces in Iraq?”
Well, because it’s not about speaking truth or doing what’s right. That’s why Obama has such a miserable record on the war and not voting on controversial measures. He’s all about getting elected so he can represent the status quo elites, Big War, and Big Business Inc.
IT’S ABOUT GETTING ELECTED AND THAT’S IT STUPID!
About Nader: I don’t think Obama would stand a chance debating Ralph because when you speak truth to power the truth wins. Ralph or Kucinich could tear Obama to shreds in a debate. I have no doubts. Obama is a fancy, nice-sounding, expensive, pipe organ that’s all full of hot air.
About the war:
Obama’s website: “He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.”
In other words, if elected, troops will remain in Iraq fighting and dying for imperialism be it US grunts or highly paid mercs. And that’s the truth!
Perhaps elections in the US have descended into a competition between puppets, actors, suits or players.
i.e. Who’ll best continue the course of some pre-determined policy. To get elected you should have no ideas of your own, and approach the throne with an open mind. Whatever the guy behind the curtain whispers into your ear is the policy. The man — or woman — who best sugarcoats this, gets us turned on to it, is selected….err… I mean elected.
From the Democracy Now interview with Jeremy Scahill:
“…this is a bipartisan industry. I mean, Bill Clinton really gave rise to this phenomenon of the military contractors. We know that Dick Cheney was running Halliburton in the ’90s. Who was giving Dick Cheney all of those contracts? Well, it was Bill Clinton. And the Democrats have long been good for the war contracting industry. There’s a reason why Hillary Clinton is the number one recipient of campaign contributions from the defense industry. Number two is John McCain. Obama is number four. Chris Dodd is ahead of him. It’s very interesting. It’s a bipartisan phenomenon.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/28/jeremy_scahill_despite_anti_war_rhetoric
Vote for Obama, vote for Clinton, vote for Nader, vote for whomever - just vote with open eyes and a clear conscience.
All this talk about holding Obama to the fire is childish wishful thinking. Actually I wanted to use a word that is more harsh, but in the interest of good taste I won’t.
Yep, everyone held Bill Clinton’s opportunism, and George Bush’s illegal warfare, and litany of punishable crimes, to a fire. A fire, somewhere.
I got lots of faith in ya’ll. Lots of faith. At least you have a lot of irrational belief in yourselves, not based on any fact or reality whatsoever.
You know as well as I that when push comes to shove, Obama or no Obama, we won’t be able to do jack. Only by a long, long shot, if in the next election we totally pack congress with Cindy Sheehans, Ralph Naders and Dennis Kuciniches.
That means voting third party, folks. Sorry to instill fear and horror in your conservative hearts. (Don’t start burning your own barns or do anything drastic.)
My Democratic Senators both voted to further the Bush agenda on major legislation. After lying and running on anti-Bush campaigns. They are two-faced liars.
You know the deinfition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
I for one cannot live by self-deception simply to make myself feel better. Good luck with that.
CD runs three anti-Obama articles in one day? What the hell is this, Republican Dreams?
No. Did you complain about the dozen anti-Nader articles? Maybe they are trying to appear balanced after so many pro-Obama articles. Do you have a factual problem with any of it?
The commentary by jackass republicans that runs throughout this thread is reflective of their collective stupidity, if nothing else. How many times on other comment lines have I heard the expressions “we must hold his feet to the fire” on this issue, or that Obama represents “an opportunity for change,” or my favorite single issue find: ” … we must push him towards single payer.” Yeah, right. As if!
The angered dubyacrats herein who have responded to Jeremy’s “screed” remind me of the rabid right wing media commentators, incensed to find the object of their personality cult depicted as he is, without HM the Emperors’ finery. Is it “rush elmeztisogordo” and “kulshan o’reilly?”
And then you have the self styled progressives, imprisoned by their precious attachment to double think double plus good. A textbook example of clanging illogicality can be found in NoamSeatown’s highly disturbed observation that: “While I condemn the antics and very existence of Blackwater and other as much as anyone else, I also commend the Obama position on this issue.”
Ultimately, attempting to engage demopublicans or republicrats or whatever you want to call the members of this faux political party is not unlike debating the merits of Darwinism with a fucked-up-mentalist about “intelligent design.” It is one huge waste of time.
As for the Greens, they have a viable candidate in Cynthia McKinney.
It is time for a change and for real political rhetoric, not the cavernously hollow spiel of Barak Obama. Cynthia’s web sites provide the genuine article, and a moral alternative ballot utterly lacking across the degraded bipartisan landscape of our stormed and stressed Jackass Republicans.
Go Cynthia, Go!
Cynthia has the principles and the courage to renounce the Democrats and become a Green. I have nothing but respect for Cynthia McKinney. I am undecided but I may vote for her. She is certainly way more worthy of support than either of the Obillaries.
Anyone here still think Nader’s wrong headed getting into the race to raise these issues? Ignorance is bliss, right? The more time goes by, the more I think I will vote for him or Cynthia McKinney afterall. How else to register my outrage? What really am I risking by voting my conscience? No one, and I DO mean no one in DC is listening to us folks.
with respect to Barack Hussein Obama -
1. a rose by any other name would smell as sweet and
2. anyone can be the President of the United States
Two poetic phrases/old ideas that I hope will support him and his supporters because it appears that here now today is where the rubber hits the road in the campaign.
Perhaps the best way to bring the troops home is to give them a reason to patrol our own streets.
The DimWits are getting ready to cave in on granting immunity to the telecommunications industry. Just watch. And this capitulation will come at a time when Bush’s approval may have dipped below 30%. You figure. Nice job “opposition” party! Now go back to bending over please.
Elisabet, what are your 1 & 2 points about,…here now today is where the rubber hits the road in the campaign.’ To tell the truth I have no idea what you are saying.
yungturk 39, the same question to you. I have no idea what you are talking about.
Barak Obama and his supporters are without question the world’s largest untapped pocket of vile, sulfurous natural gas.
One consistent theme draws the full spectrum of neo-lib/con ideologists to his campaign tent: a deeply rooted mean spirited impulse to blame the victim at all costs, and a compensatory drive to enrich the uber classes even to and beyond the brink of national financial ruin.
The fulsome editorial endorsements of the Wall Street Journal and the commentaries of Charles Krauthammer are stark testaments to the dangers posed by the prospect of an Obama presidency. His supporters remind me of that most demented moment of the Bush administration, when some poor sap was called into the White House to be reminded about how ” …we create our own reality, see.”
No need for the truth to invade your dreams and transform them into our daily nightmares, is there Elisabet?
Well no thanks to the likes of you, I will face an old age without social security, health insurance, public resources like cheap water, or a clean environment to enjoy my retirement. I won’t even be able to afford retirement. But what the hell, in my neighborhood, none of us can even afford to live. Period.
What better way to keep us in our place than with jack booted Blackwater mercenaries, eh?
Gee thanks.
Most of you guys posting on this thread are nuts.
A Blackwater mercenary earns on average, $700 a day. Can we really afford that? If Obama or anyone else was honestly fit to be our president, there wouldn’t even be an embassy in Iraq within ten days after being elected. There wouldn’t be a Blackwater army, or any Halliburton contracts and we’d pull every troop out of Iraq and let the Iraqi settle their differences.
Thanks to Jeremy Scahill for addressing this important matter and pointing out the sort of conflicted positioning typically found on the Republican side.
We have “maverick” John McCain voting for the Military Commissions Act supporting torture, even after McCain made spirited commentaries against torture. So, too, do we have Barack Obama calling for an end to mercenary employment, while planning to support it.
We’ve been sold down the river so many times by the two parties. Only blind partisans support the Democratic or Republican frontrunners. Hey partisans, do the country a favor and vote third party this next time. What do we got to lose?
KEM PATRICK has got it right.
I’m not sure if Obama would make a decent Prez, or be able to organize the citizenry to save our almost-fatally-corrupted democracy.
But it definitely bears noting that, instead of using his Harvard law degree to immediately ply his way into personal profit and pure ego aggrandizement, he chose to work, anonymously and quite humbly, for social and economic justice in the battered slums of Chicago.
Since there’s nothing even remotely similar-of-spirit in the backgrounds of Clinton or McCain, I give Obama the most credibiltiy of the presently-three contenders, and cut him some slack.
Many hyper-idealists insist-on only voting for a perfect embodiment of their personal conscience. But politics in a democratic republic has never been about, nor can it ever be about, selecting perfection. It can only be about comparitively selecting the most electively-viable candidate who embodies the least corrupt values of human decency and constitutional democracy.
Third-party voters, who’re progressive, should carefully consider what hangs in the balance in this upcoming presidential election: America’s democratic institutions are now hanging by a thread guaranteed to be broken by a McCain presidency.
Once our constitutional/republican principles are supervened by the exigencies of an all-out, hundred-year, global religious war, there won’t even be opportunities for Americans to cast perfectly-progressive ‘conscience votes.’
At least Obama and Clinton (Obama, most credibly), acknowledge this paradox/pitfall.
Under such circumstances, wasting votes for hopeless third-party progressives, after the major candidates have been selected, can only be a perfectionist/narcissistic indulgence engaged-in at the expense of keeping hope alive in the real world.
I strongly URGE all my CD friends to call the Ed Schultz show today at 1-800-WE-GOT-ED and let his audience know that Obama is a Blackwater Supporter.
Ed has been pushing Obama hard and his audience deserves to know this story.
His show is on from 12 noon eastern to 3pm.
If you call early you’ll get on.
Ed will censor this information unless YOU call him.
Then let Ed know you’re considering voting for Nader or McKinney. He almost never even mentions their names. Then remind his audience to donate to Dennis Kucinich and Cindy Sheehan.
The Obamaphiles and Clintonistas call his show relentlessly. We need to start doing the same thing. His show reaches some 3 million people. When you post on CD you’re preaching to the choir. We need to start flexing our muscles and call national talk shows with vigor!
Of course, McCain would never allow Blackwater and the other mercenaries to become involved in a conflict. He’ll have them working on the home front.
As to who the US government ought to replace the contractors building schools and so on with, how about Iraqui contractors, thereby alleviating part of the terrible unemployment problems there.
A specific law saying that all military service and support should be done by military personel? A sticky situation when it comes to civil service in the homeland bases, not to mention our services are stretched thin as it is. But can we not just enlist the contractors and pay them army rates (less)? A draft, those are poular. Maybe a non-combat temporary enlistment opportunity.
Outsourced army, will we get angry enough about it? next time you find yourself conversing with a pro-war, pro-military, pro-empire person ask them how they feel about the corporatists who are ruining the reputation of our grand army.
when are we all going to stop using the word War and start using Occupation?
Obama’s response is just a more eloquent dodge, if I read the article correctly.
RANDOLFSKI has the best suggestion- call Obama, or better yet, work on some local Obama-mania/activists people, spread the concern like a virus, remind that if He wants a landslide, then come out (better) against the occupation. And from what I know of his campaign, I do believe he is listening. Imagine that!
Start exercising your power locally. Get as many people to run for office, even President, so it becomes cool to do so and maybe saner voices like Naders might prevail. I want the best of all people, not the lesser of 3 evils.
Yes the question is HOW can we use Obama’s campaign to further OUR interests? How do we use his popularity to get progressives into office?
NoamSeatown puts this whole damn issue into perspective for us, I urge you to read his comment. Thank you Naom! And thanks to GESTALT: yes let’s cut all the candidates some slack, realize that we can only demand perfection in OURSELVES, and identify with a candidate that most identifies with our beliefs, goals, and policies.
I recently found our about a wonderful group called the NeighborsProject.org. It’s something you can do to exert your power locally. Help your neighbors, especially to spend as least as possible on corporations, then slowly get them to join a union or progressive cause or party, then run for office as their fearless leader. Spend your whole life bettering the lives of your children.
Repent. I wonder what they meant?
I hope that Obama gets it. He’s radically better than Hilary & McCain. It’s going to take time to straighten out the mess that our nation is in. It’s going to be a gradual process. Too slow for some, and too fast for others.
Perhaps Nader will work with him - drop out at the last minute - encouraging his supporters to support Obama.
Perhaps Barack will offer Ralph a job in the white house.
Stupid, arrogant and conceited white men, and women have screwed up the civilized world - it’s time for some huge changes.
If the people are against Black Water in a big enough way, once he is in the White House, he will bring them down or at least make them answer to the same law as soldiers, which will ultimately put them out of business anyway.
_________________________
Can you spell “Haditha”?
BeingFrankwithBarney said:
“At least he provided a reasoned,if unwelcome, response to the question instead of totally dodging it.”
I cannot understand why Obama gets a pass for voting to punish consumers in a bankruptcy bill, voting for tort reform, and when push comes to shove having an amazing record of NV (no vote) in the US Senate. Hillary has been rightly criticized for voting for the Iran resolution, but nobody mentions that Obama refused to go on the record, so his NV was recorded there, too.
Is everybody that vulnerable to the need for hope that they cannot look behind the curtain???
The free-marketeers suggest free markets can solve any problem. They are the true anarchists because it’s so easy to be an anarchist when you own the world’s biggest fricking army.
Isn’t this all just another rerun? History repeats itself and whoever writes the history books re-writes the script for the next couple hundred years.
Maybe they should just put the presidency up to the highest bidder?
You have to wonder sometimes what it is that Busheviks are smoking these days. Gestalt seems to have puffed enough dope to have developed a potentially terminal case of myopia, “three contenders” indeed. Well maybe not myopia, given the substantial evidence of megalomania, another characteristic so typical of dyed-in-the-wool Jackass Republicans.
The unbridled arrogance of their posts!
“ …wasting votes for hopeless third-party progressives, after the major candidates have been selected, can only be a perfectionist/narcissistic indulgence engaged-in at the expense of keeping hope alive in the real world.” –GESTALT
“ …from what I know of his campaign, I do believe he [Obama] is listening. Imagine that! …the question is HOW can we use Obama’s campaign to further OUR interests? How do we use his popularity to get progressives into office?” –DUSTINCHICAGO
“As a radical progressive, I am very very excited about Obama’s candidacy, even if his positions are not perfect. I urge you to check out his policy positions and speeches on his website… ” –NOAMSEATOWN
* * *
To begin with, so what if Obama worked in the slums of Chicago after Harvard Law? Give him a bronze medal if you want, but don’t expect me to waste my vote for an utterly degraded individual who has since devolved into a malignant personality cum cult whose autobiography could just as aptly have been entitled “White Like You.”
For the benefit of the brain dead, Ralph Nader has spent his life dedicated towards public service, this despite repeated assaults and slurs on his character over the course of his career. And he has never compromised his ideals for the benefit of your disgusting ilk. He is a contender for office, no matter how inconvenient it may be for you.
For the record (again), its YOUR fucking political faction (I will not refer to the Afrikaners among you as constituting a “party”) that purged first Earl Hilliard, then Cynthia McKinney for not being Bushevik enough. Its your faction that is working even now to do undermine Dennis Kucinich’s campaign to retain his House seat, as it was your faction that eliminated his enlightened candidacy for the Presidency, assholes. And its your band of Busheviks who roll out a plush red carpet election cycle after election cycle for the Judaeo-Nazi Rahm Emmanuel.
Shameful, despicable, the whole lot of you, for ensuring Bush’s victory in 2008.
For ensuring, minimally, four more years of rapacious, bloodthirsty neo-colonial resource wars launched among the planet’s poor and dispossessed; four more years of violated Geneva Conventions to the everlasting shame of our country; four more years of privatisation and sure-to-follow destruction of our public resources; four more fucking years of fucked up health care and a thoroughly fucked, completely overwhelmed public health infrastructure (I hope you remember your “wasted” vote after you’ve fallen mortally ill from the next catastrophic contagion to hit the globe); four more years of below poverty level wages and people having to work multiple uninsured jobs just to scrape by; four more years of unmitigated assault on unorganized and co-opted labor unions; four more years of the gulag industrial complex.
It’ll be only a matter of time before rioters are mown down in the streets and bulldozed over into concrete walled ghettos, once your “three contenders” have been whittled down to one. “Radical progressives” my ass! “Hail Bush!” is just as much Barak’s mantra as it is the Dubyacrats.’
As for you Gestalt, don’t even think of stereotyping us as “hopeless third-party progressives,” or our ballots as “ …perfectionist/narcissistic indulgence(s) engaged-in at the expense of keeping hope alive in the real world.”
What you see in your mirror stays there, get it?
Don’t jump to conclusions. The author needs to read what he has written. There is a big difference between Obama “not ruling out the possibility of using private security contractors” and the fact that Bush has used private security contractors closely tied to Cheney and filling Cheney’s pockets with money.
Big difference.
weatherly -
I guess you’re aware that Bush isn’t running in 2008–??; though, if you’re actually aware of that, then there’s no argument that McCain is nothing but Bush’s stand-in.
But Clinton would be arguably less so, and Obama arguably further-less so, in my judgment.
You obviously don’t tolerate what other progressives would call reasonable ‘maybes.’
Anyway, I loved your outraged screed against the corrupt system, but not your absolutist intolerance against several, differently-opining, also system-wary posters above. Seems to me you’re tyring to build a 3rd party [or unrealistically-instantaneous Revolution} w/o considering what further political decline will actuall happen in the interim if even a weak progressive doesn’t get elected in 2008.
Marx saw a time when the rotten capitalist system’s fall would be accelerated by what he called ‘ forced compression of the contradictions.’ So, if you’re a Marxist, you’d be making Marixist ideological sense, at least.
On the other hand, if you’re not a Maxist, you still might think that there’s no such thing as a weak progressive, or that nothing remains of the US Republic, or that there was never really any US real Republic to begin with, and here, too, you’d at least establish consistency as a left-absolutist thinker.
Amy of which cases tend to suggest, in turn, that you’re either a political idiot or an obsessive-compulsive thinker; or maybe, more-hopefully, a decent, enraged humanist who’s just now, thoughtlessly vomiting his/her bile on a website with total abandon..
I liked your post, anyway, even tho you’ll have to execrate me as much as you did poor GESTALT and others.
Hillary Clinton Proposes Military Contractor Ban
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2008/2/29/hours_after_jeremy_scahill_expos_clinton_proposes_military_contractor_ban
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=293878