EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"
- As Death Toll Rises Beyond 500, Garment Factory Disaster 'Worst in World History'
- Climate Change's 'Evil Twin': Ocean Acidification
- Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
- Disaster Capitalism Strikes as Hedge Funds Circle Near-Bankrupt Municipalities Like Vultures
- Move Over, Koch Brothers: A Bigger, Darker Rightwing Funder Is Out to Destroy Public Education
- Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"
- Climate Change's 'Evil Twin': Ocean Acidification
- Disaster Capitalism Strikes as Hedge Funds Circle Near-Bankrupt Municipalities Like Vultures
Popular content
Today's Top News
Disaster Profiteering: US 'Security' Companies Offer 'Services' in Haiti
The Orwellian-named mercenary trade group, the International Peace Operations Association, didn’t waste much time in offering the “services” of its member companies to swoop down on Haiti for some old fashioned humanitarian assistance disaster profiteering. Within hours of the massive earthquake in Haiti, the IPOA created a special web page for prospective clients, saying: “In the wake of the tragic events in Haiti, a number of IPOA’s member companies are available and prepared to provide a wide variety of critical relief services to the earthquake’s victims.”
Security stands watching as relief aid is unloaded from a U.S. air force cargo jet at Port -au-Prince International airport January 16, 2010. (REUTERS/Hans Deryk) While some of the companies specialize in rapid housing construction, emergency relief shelters and transportation, others are private security companies that operate in Iraq and Afghanistan like Triple Canopy, the company that took over Blackwater’s massive State Department contract in Iraq. For years, Blackwater played a major role in IPOA until it left the group following the 2007 Nisour Square massacre.
In 2005, while still a leading member of IPOA, Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince deployed his forces in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Far from some sort of generous gift to the suffering people of the US gulf, Blackwater raked in some $70 million in Homeland Security contracts that began with a massive no-bid contract to provide protective services for FEMA. Blackwater billed US taxpayers $950 per man per day.
The current US program under which armed security companies work for the State Department in Iraq—the Worldwide Personal Protection Program—has its roots in Haiti during the Clinton administration. In 1994, private US forces, such as DynCorp, became a staple of US operations in the country following the overthrow of Jean Bertrand Aristide by CIA-backed death squads. When President Bush invaded Iraq, his administration radically expanded that program and turned it into the privatized paramilitary force it is today. At the time of his overthrow in 2004, Aristide was being protected by a San Francisco-based private security firm, the Steele Foundation.
What is unfolding in Haiti seems to be part of what Naomi Klein has labeled the “Shock Doctrine.” Indeed, on the Heritage Foundation blog, opportunity was being found in the crisis with a post titled: “Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S.” “In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region,” wrote Heritage fellow Jim Roberts in a post that was subsequently altered to tone down the shock doctrine language. The title was later changed to: “Things to Remember While Helping Haiti.”
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
23 Comments so far
Show AllIsn't the IPOA one of those things the Bush Sr's Carlyle Group owns a controlling interest in?
Just sayin'...
No the IPOA is a 501-C-6 non-profit trade association whose mission is to promote high operational and ethical standards of firms active in the peace and stability operations industry.
"peace and stability" my a$$. They are in the business of making money from killing. They just use such beautifully Orwellian language.
Right wing groups such as the Heritage Foundation and the companies that offer arms and services such as Blackwater are going to have a field day in the coming years, as disasters and wars pile up the bodies. Take a good look. This is Capitalism at it's finest!
"Think, Katrina. Think New Orleans. Think, "OPPORTUNITY"." The possibility of ethnically cleansing almost an entire country of Black People so that richfilth animals can buy the country and turn it into Havana under Batista. That said, the local boys did have an effective slave labor machine running there, might be wise if the richfilth can salvage "some of it", throw a bone to their resident Oligarchy and maybe give them a couple of points on the kiddie sex tours and casinos, you know, "to keep them in the game".
At the risk of sounding intemperate, "RICHFILTH ANIMALS ARE NO LONGER HUMAN. BY THEIR DECISIONS AND ACTIONS THEY HAVE SEPARATED THEMSELVES FROM THE BODY OF HUMANITY." The measure of a human is their behavior in the presence of vulnerability. Humans are not food. Whoever degrades life, any life, is possessed by sickness. BuSab.
Dropped this on another Haiti article yesterday. Needed saying again.
All the best to Mr. Scahill, he has done for us "Best of Class" for at least a decade I know about and probably longer.
"...opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region..."
didn't the U.S.... have a substantial role in... "Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy"...
sure... herd all the refugees into sweat shops... and cruise line terminals... while they make their way each day from mud huts... to labor tirelessly for vacationers buying duty free exports...
that'll "improve the public image" for real...
I hope the members of NGO's and national aid groups working within Haiti are vigilant of any and all foreign security or emergency assistance presence that cannot be readily identified as part of nonprofit organizations or national entities. The most likely employer of such for profit assistance is the US government. It should be reported and stopped in its tracks.
The quote from the "Heritage Foundation" - "Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S." just about sums up the disgusting nature of such activities.
Like I have said before, America is now an on going criminal enterprise.
Always appreciate insights from award-winning investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill. He has yet to contact IPOA about anything he has ever written about IPOA, including this story and including the sections in his 'well researched' book specifically on IPOA. This despite the fact that *we contacted him* to offer to do an interview with him more than a half dozen times while he was writing the book. Shows how far journalistic standards have fallen with the demise of the print media.
IPOA did create a web page with available services to help address Haiti's massive humanitarian needs. Apologies if Mr. Scahill is offended.
Doug Brooks, IPOA
Yeah, it's not long until this is the face of capitalism everywhere. Sadly, Squidd is right, the preview we're being given in Haiti is a place that had no chance to deal with the disaster by themselves directly due to US/IMF/French/everyone else's policies dealing with Haiti over the last 206 years. http://theendisalwaysnear.blogspot.com/2010/01/pact-with-which-devil.html
Jeevee
Please be VERY careful re. what organization(s) you're sending money! We are also shocked by all the advertising that occurs in the middle of sensitive reports re. Haiti. ...As well as all the programs that cling to sports, jewelry, sex. etc., in the midst of this agonizing humanitarian crisis. They are definitely an enormous factor in the crumbling of
American values.
>>>Jeevee wrote: As well as all the programs that cling to sports, jewelry, sex. etc., in the midst of this agonizing humanitarian crisis.
Are you talking about the TV ad's? You think a country that didn't cut back on ANY of its entertainment while its own soldiers are getting blown away in some faraway land is going to think twice about it just because there was some disaster in some poor country? How many super bowls, American Idol, Academy Awards, etc., got canceled because the USA has been at war?
IPOA is trade org for the "the peace and stability operations industry". That is just too funny. Thugs are thugs whether or not the warlord they hire out to hides behind a corporate guise or not.
“In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region”
These words may as well be etched into the front face of the Apple iPhone, for when most people think of Heritage Foundation, they also think of Stanford University and Palo Alto, and Silicon Valley, and Apple Computer. And when they think of Apple Computer they also think of Silicon Valley and Palo Alto and Stanford University, and Heritage Foundation.
Of course, the United States has no right to reshape Haiti's government, even if its intent were 100% ethical, while its intent is actually closer to 100% UNETHICAL. Further, everyone knows that the pervasive suggestions of "image shaping" are themselves clear evidence of a very serious doctrine of malintent in the "good ol USA".
In the case of the elites who control the US government mainly through US corporations but also through media, academic, legal and other channels, this malintent manifests as an agenda to gain influence, control, and ultimately natural/human resource exploitation under the camouflage of aid and services.
Repost:
“...an earthquake of the magnitude of 9/11 can shift the tectonic plates of international politics. The international system has been in flux since the collapse of Soviet power. Now it is possible -- indeed, probable -- that that transition is coming to an end. If that is right, if the collapse of the Soviet Union and 9/11 bookend a major shift in international politics, then this is a period not just of grave danger, but of enormous OPPORTUNITY" -Condoleeza Rice
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020429-9.html
"Another [9/11 style] attack could create both a justification and an OPPORTUNITY that is lacking today to retaliate against some known targets, according to current and former defense officials familiar with the plan."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/22/AR2006042201124_pf.html
"Wolfowitz argued that the real source of all the trouble and terrorism was probably Hussein. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 created an OPPORTUNITY to strike,"
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/16420/
"I do agree that the tsunami was a wonderful OPPORTUNITY to show not just the US government, but the heart of the American people, and I think it has paid great dividends for us" -Condoleeza Rice
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines05/0118-08.htm
"Tonight I propose the creation of a Gulf OPPORTUNITY Zone, encompassing the region of the disaster in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama" - George W. Bush
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/15/katrina-speech-text/
"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the hurricane disaster that disproportionately struck poor blacks in New Orleans "gives us an OPPORTUNITY" to rectify historic injustices"
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/condoleezza_rice/index.html?query=HURRICA...
http://tinyurl.com/y9gg79s
"Things to Remember While Helping Ourselves to Haiti"
CBC interviewed the CEO of Global Security. They got their plane and "mercenaries" in before medical crews. Must have connections high up. Made me sick. Ron.
Why am I not surprised?
USA should really be known worldwide and in history as the "place" that Spawns GHOULS.
LAND OF GHOULS.
I'm not absolutely sure, but I think the U.S. is the only country that has sent armed troops under SOUTHCOM with its C3 mission to occupy Haiti. Other countries send only non-military assistance.
It's hard for the US to send anything other than military assistance since that is where all our tax dollars are spent. Wouldn't want to spend money on saving lives or enriching lives now would we?
"Some 2,000 Canadian soldiers, sailors and air crew, including two warships, have arrived in or are en route to the towns of Jacmel and Leogane, about 40 kilometres southwest of Port-au-Prince. It could take two weeks to get the full contingent on the ground." - according to The Canadian Press (from Google search)
It's just sad that when disasters like this strike a country, many people use it to their advantage and make profits out of the disasters that strike. Humanitarian assistance no longer exist but capitalism does. I hope that these people would realize how inhumane they did to these people.
Adrienne of
Tongkat Ali