Friday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said

Today's honoree: Brad Friedman, who wonders when we're going to see James O'Keefe in his pimp costume outside the offices of Blackwater/Xe.

If Barack Obama is such a bleeding heart liberal, why is Blackwater about to get another contract?

Here's another reason we on the sane side of the political spectrum are exasperated with Barack Obama, and another reason we scratch our heads at this notion on the right that he's some kind of dirty fucking hippie pacifist:

Blackwater Worldwide's legal woes haven't dimmed the company's prospects in Afghanistan, where it's a contender for an important role in the U.S. strategy for stabilizing the country.

Now called Xe Services, the company is in the running for a Pentagon contract potentially worth $1 billion to train Afghanistan's troubled national police force. Xe has been shifting to training, aviation and logistics work after its security guards were accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians more than two years ago.

Yet even with a new name and focus, the expanded role would seem an unlikely one for Xe because Democrats have held such a negative opinion of the company following the Iraqi deaths.

During the White House campaign, then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, now President Barack Obama's secretary of state, backed legislation to ban Blackwater and other private security contractors from Iraq.

Xe eventually lost its license to operate as guardian of U.S. diplomats in Iraq. Clinton's State Department decided not to rehire the company when the contract expired in 2009. Delays in getting a new company in place led to a temporary extension of that contract.

A federal judge on New Year's Eve dismissed criminal charges against five of the Blackwater guards, citing repeated missteps by federal prosecutors. The Iraqi government has promised to pursue the case, a new strain on relations between the U.S. and Iraq.

Xe on Wednesday reached a settlement in a series of civil lawsuits in which dozens of Iraqis accused the company of cultivating a reckless culture that allowed innocent civilians to be killed. On Thursday, however, two former Blackwater contractors were arrested on murder charges in the shootings of two Afghans after a traffic accident last year.

Despite the scrutiny, the U.S. relies heavily on Xe (pronounced "zee") for support in Afghanistan; the workload may grow significantly.

STILL we're fighting wars with a largely mercenary army. STILL we're giving taxpayer money to the Christian Crusaders who run Blackwater/Xe. STILL we're trying to make war invisible to Americans by letting them keep their sons at home.

If Barack Obama thinks this is going to shut people like Rudy Giuliani and Dick Cheney up, he'd better guess again. What it WILL do is guarantee that the people who bought all that "hope and change" crap are going to sit on their hands when it comes time to decide to keep him in the White House.

Murder by Numbers. Large Numbers.

There are two types of large numbers we ought to be concerned about regarding Blackwater Worldwide: The large numbers in the contracts we're handing out to Erik Prince like boxed Christmas cards and the large numbers of people they've murdered with (so far) complete impunity.

Several questions stand out about Blackwater, now cowering under the new brand name Xe, going after what is potentially a billion dollar Pentagon contract to train Afghan police forces.

The first question goes to that 31% of the Pentagon that isn't corporately-generated and it's this: Don't you read the fucking newspapers?! On New Year's Eve, five Blackwater mercenaries were let off the hook for killing 14 of the 17 Iraqis who were slaughtered at Nisour Sq. in Baghdad September 16th, 2007. The Iraqi government, enraged by the judge's excessively liberal ruling that was predicated not on a disbelief of guilt but a technicality, immediately countered with a hefty civil suit which Blackwater then immediately settled out of court (a settlement that a Blackwater executive crowed was "an absolute bargain" for the soldier of fortune corporation).

Days later, it was announced that two more Blackwater mercs were arrested and charged with the murder of two Afghanis and the wounding of a third May 5th of last year (the two men in question, Justin Cannon and Christopher Drotleff, were supposed to be training Afghan military forces).

Secondly, if Blackwater is one of the few "security" companies in the world who can fulfill the function that we apparently no longer can, if Blackwater is being kept in Iraq despite getting kicked out by the Iraqi government as of May of last year, then doesn't that qualify as a violation of antitrust laws? Or does Blackwater's countless smaller subsidiaries give them immunity from being broken up as a monopoly? Where the fuck is the Federal Trade Commission, the government office that's supposed to step in and break up monopolies?

And why am reading ridiculous statements such as this?

Charles Tiefer, a professor of government contracting at the University of Baltimore Law School, says Xe's foothold in Afghanistan could give it an edge over other competitors. And defense officials considering bids for the police training work may pay more attention to Xe's resume in Afghanistan than as a security contractor in Iraq, he added.

Are Defense Department officials stupid enough to think that they'd be contracting a completely different company just because we're talking about Afghanistan and not Iraq, that their new brand name is Xe and Prince abdicating his position as CEO means they deserve a second chance and new lease on life?

A quick review of the many instances of Blackwater's behavior: Illegally taking point in combat scenarios (such as in Fallujah in 2004 in which Blackwater mercs were barking orders at a US Marine). Murdering 17 civilians, shooting some of them in the back when they tried to flee and using a gunship in Nisoor Sq. Murdering an Iraqi bodyguard during a 2006 Xmas Eve incident. Six weeks later, the murders of three more Iraqis. Proof of gun running, serious allegations from former Blackwater executives of murder committed by Prince himself, tax evasion, evidence tampering, coverups. The list goes on and on and on like the rap sheet of a career criminal with a 110% recidivism rate.

As if that isn't enough, check out this nugget, also from Courthouse News:

They claim that "On or about September 9, 2007, one of Mr. Prince's employees, a man named Evan Liberty, drove through the streets of Baghdad firing an automatic weapon from a port hole of an armored Blackwater vehicle. Mr. Liberty fired without reason, and fired without regard for who might be struck by the rounds.

That was just eight days before the massacre in Nisoor Square and if Evan Liberty's name sounds familiar, it ought to: The oddly-named Liberty was one of the five defendants let off the hook by Judge Urbina for his part in the massacre that took place barely a week later. There's something you never read about in the mainstream media. Liberty was not a victimized bystander in an isolated incident but a rabid mad dog in the middle of an anti-Iraqi rampage.

Liberty and God only knows who else was going on a rampage in the middle of Baghdad killing and wounding innocent Iraqi civilians with automatic fire and then being covered by his company when Blackwater hustled him and the other 4 murderers out of Iraq and refused to reveal their names to Iraqi investigators.

This is a systematic pattern of psychopathic and sociopathic behavior that had only been reinforced and even encouraged starting with officials in the Bush administration and subsidized even more under the Obama administration. It's the logical outcome of placing guys with guns under no accountability whatsoever and giving them enough wiggle room to plausibly claim in one courtroom after another that they're not accountable to Iraqi law nor American military and civilian law simply because they're contractors.

Now, if this billion dollar contract and partial rundown of Blackwater's crimes hasn't already enraged you then look at it this way, Dear Reader: We're about to reward Blackwater and its cold-blooded war criminals with a $1,000,000,000 contract because of the Bush administration's seven year-long failure to adequately train Afghanistan's law enforcement infrastructure.

So which is it?

Is the Obama Administration continuing some of the worst aspects of George W. Bush's war against the Muslim world, or is there a paramilitary force operating independently about which the Administration knows nothing and does not control? Which of those options is more horrifying? And does it matter, when it's true, and when the paramilitary force is Blackwater/Xe, the company run by one of the worst and most dangerous Christian Dominionist crusaders in the country?

As always, we turn to Jeremy Scahill, who has the details:

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.

[snip]

A former senior executive at Blackwater confirmed the military intelligence source's claim that the company is working in Pakistan for the CIA and JSOC, the premier counterterrorism and covert operations force within the military. He said that Blackwater is also working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. This arrangement, the former executive said, allows the Pakistani government to utilize former US Special Operations forces who now work for Blackwater while denying an official US military presence in the country. He also confirmed that Blackwater has a facility in Karachi and has personnel deployed elsewhere in Pakistan. The former executive spoke on condition of anonymity.

His account and that of the military intelligence source were borne out by a US military source who has knowledge of Special Forces actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When asked about Blackwater's covert work for JSOC in Pakistan, this source, who also asked for anonymity, told The Nation, "From my information that I have, that is absolutely correct," adding, "There's no question that's occurring."

"It wouldn't surprise me because we've outsourced nearly everything," said Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, when told of Blackwater's role in Pakistan. Wilkerson said that during his time in the Bush administration, he saw the beginnings of Blackwater's involvement with the sensitive operations of the military and CIA. "Part of this, of course, is an attempt to get around the constraints the Congress has placed on DoD. If you don't have sufficient soldiers to do it, you hire civilians to do it. I mean, it's that simple. It would not surprise me."

More...

In Congress right now, we have Republican Senators with Dominionist leanings ranting about the rights of anti-abortion zealots to not have their tax dollars pay for abortions. What about MY rights to not have my tax dollars go to a company run by a guy who would be perfectly happy to force me to convert to his version of Christianity, a company with a record of rape and cover-up and corruption? What about MY religious freedom to not have my tax dollars pay for Erik Prince's Christian Crusade?

And this man's company was allowed to operate in Iraq until May

The involvement of self-styled Christian Crusaders in Bush military policy was even worse than we knew:

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

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

These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct.

Here's Jeremy Scahill, author of this article, on Countdown last night:

And yet it wasn't until May that another company took over the security contract in Iraq.

This shouldn't be a bombshell revelation to anyone who's been following the Blackwater story. Erik Prince has been known to be a nasty piece of work for quite a long time. The only question is just HOW nasty, and now no one has an excuse not to know.

But even if Erik Prince ends up getting frogmarches off to prison, which if these allegations are proven in court, he richly deserves, he isn't the only Soldier for Jeebus that is turning the United States Military into a 21st century replay of the Crusades. There's still that thorny little problem of Christianist chaplains with the very same vision:

Ever since former president George W. Bushreferred to the war on terror as a “crusade” in the days after the September 11 attacks, many have charged that the United States was conducting a holy war, pitting a Christian America against the Muslim world. That perception grew as prominent military leaders such as Lt. Gen. William Boykin described the wars in evangelical terms, casting the U.S. military as the "army of God." Although President Obama addressed the Muslim world this month in an attempt to undo the Bush administration's legacy of militant Christian rhetoric that often antagonized Muslim countries, several recent stories have framed the issue as a wider problem of an evangelical military culture that sees spreading Christianity as part of its mission.

A May article in Harper’s by Jeff Sharlet illustrated a military engaged in an internal battle over religious practice. Then came news about former Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s Scripture-themed briefings to President Bush that paired war scenes with Bible verses. (In an e-mail published on Politico, Rumsfeld aide Keith Urbahn denied that the former Defense secretary had created or even seen many of the briefings.) Later in May, Al-Jazeera broadcast clips filmed in 2008 showing stacks of Bibles translated into Pashto and Dari at the U.S. air base in Bagram and featuring the chief of U.S. military chaplains in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Gary Hensley, telling soldiers to “hunt people for Jesus.”

In the aftermath of that report, the Pentagon responded that it had confiscated and destroyed the Bibles and said there was no effort to convert Afghans. But while the military dismissed the Bagram Bibles as an isolated incident, a civil-rights watchdog group, Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), says this is not the case. According to the group's president, Mikey Weinstein, a cadre of 40 U.S. chaplains took part in a 2003 project to distribute 2.4 million Arabic-language Bibles in Iraq. This would be a serious violation of U.S. military Central Command's General Order Number One forbidding active-duty troops from trying to convert people to any religion. A Defense Department spokeswoman, in an e-mail to NEWSWEEK, denies any knowledge of this project.

The Bible initiative was handled by former Army chaplain Jim Ammerman, the 83-year-old founder of the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (CFGC), an organization in charge of endorsing 270 chaplains and chaplain candidates for the armed services. Ammerman worked with an evangelical group based in Arkansas, the International Missions Network Center, to distribute the Bibles through the efforts of his 40 active-duty chaplains in Iraq. A 2003 newsletter for the group said of the effort, "The goal is to establish a wedge for the kingdom of God in the Middle East, directly affecting the Islamic world."

Not one of these people has been removed. And there's more.

Blackwater may have been replaced in Iraq, but its vision lives on.

They can change their name; they're still evil

And I shall continue to call them "Blackwater". And drunken Blackwater contractors opened fire on a civilian vehicle in Afghanistan this month:

Four U.S. contractors affiliated with the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide fired on an approaching civilian vehicle in Kabul this month, wounding at least two Afghan civilians, according to the company and the U.S. military.

The off-duty contractors were involved in a car accident around 9 p.m. on May 5 and then fired on the approaching vehicle, which they believed to be a threat, according to the U.S. military. At least some of the men, who were former military personnel, had been allegedly drinking alcohol that evening, according to a person familiar with the incident. Off-duty contractors aren't supposed to carry weapons or drink alcohol.

The incident occurred at a delicate time for the U.S., which faces rising outrage from Afghan leaders over civilian casualties from U.S. airstrikes. For Xe, which is the name Blackwater chose this year to distance itself from its controversial security work in Iraq, the shooting comes as the Obama administration and Defense Secretary Robert Gates reconsider the role of military contractors, a practice that boomed during the Bush years.

The contractors were trainers hired by Paravant LLC, a subsidiary of Xe. Paravant has terminated contracts with the four men "for failure to comply with the terms of their contract," according to Xe spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell. "Contractual and or legal violations will not be tolerated," she said.

Way to win hearts and minds, fellas.

Why is this company still allowed to operate in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why is our money still going to pay this company? I realize that the Obama Administration has a lot on its plate, but this company is so unrelentingly evil there is no reason to continue using them.

George W. Bush gassed his own people too

Not personally, but via his Blackwater Praetorian Guard thugs:

The helicopter was hovering over a Baghdad checkpoint into the Green Zone, one typically crowded with cars, Iraqi civilians and United States military personnel.

Suddenly, on that May day in 2005, the copter dropped CS gas, a riot-control substance the American military in Iraq can use only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders. An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint.

“This was decidedly uncool and very, very dangerous,” Capt. Kincy Clark of the Army, the senior officer at the scene, wrote later that day. “It’s not a good thing to cause soldiers who are standing guard against car bombs, snipers and suicide bombers to cover their faces, choke, cough and otherwise degrade our awareness.”

Both the helicopter and the vehicle involved in the incident at the Assassins’ Gate checkpoint were not from the United States military, but were part of a convoy operated by Blackwater Worldwide, the private security contractor that is under scrutiny for its role in a series of violent episodes in Iraq, including a September shooting in downtown Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead.

None of the American soldiers exposed to the chemical, which is similar to tear gas, required medical attention, and it is not clear if any Iraqis did. Still, the previously undisclosed incident has raised significant new questions about the role of private security contractors in Iraq, and whether they operate under the same rules of engagement and international treaty obligations that the American military observes.

“You run into this issue time and again with Blackwater, where the rules that apply to the U.S. military don’t seem to apply to Blackwater,” said Scott L. Silliman, the executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at the Duke University School of Law.

Officers and noncommissioned officers from the Third Infantry Division who were involved in the episode said there were no signs of violence at the checkpoint. Instead, they said, the Blackwater convoy appeared to be stuck in traffic and may have been trying to use the riot-control agent as a way to clear a path.

Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for Blackwater, said the CS gas had been released by mistake.

So which is it? Reckless, cowboy-type behavior, or incompetence? Either way, Blackwater should no longer be permitted to operate in Iraq -- or anywhere, for that matter.

Some information about CS gas is here. And this is from a report of the Journal of the American Medical Association from August 4, 1989:

Tear gas has gained widespread acceptance as a means of controlling civilian crowds and subduing barricaded criminals. The most widely used forms of tear gas have been o-chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile (CS) and (-chloroacetophenone (CN). Proponents of their use claim that, if used correctly, the noxious effects of exposure are transient and of no long-term consequences. The use of tear gas in recent situations of civil unrest, however, demonstrates that exposure to the weapon is difficult to control and indiscriminate and the weapon is often not used correctly. Severe traumatic injury from exploding tear gas bombs as well as lethal toxic injury have been documented. Moreover, available toxicological data are deficient as to the potential of tear gas agents to cause long-term pulmonary, carcinogenic, and reproductive effects. Published and recent unpublished in vitro tests have shown o-chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile to be both clastogenic and mutagenic. Sadly, the nature of its use renders analytic epidemiologic investigation of exposed persons difficult. In 1969, eighty countries voted to include tear gas agents among chemical weapons banned under the Geneva Protocol. There is an ongoing need for investigation into the full toxicological potential of tear gas chemicals and renewed debate on whether their use can be condoned under any circumstances.

[snip]

The widespread use of tear gas agents naturally raises the question of their safety. Relatively little, however, has appeared in the mainstream medical literature regarding their toxicology. In general, authors of review articles have averred that, if used correctly, the noxious effects of exposure are transient and of no long-term consequence (2-4). Much emphasis has been given to the findings of the Himsworth Report, (5) the results of an inquiry by a committee appointed by the British Secretary of State for the Home Department following the use of CS in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in 1969. In addition to investigating the use of CS in Londonderry, the committee reviewed a wide range of scientific data. Its main conclusion was that while exposure to CS can be lethal, most likely in the form of toxic pulmonary damage leading to pulmonary edema, such an occurrence would only be at concentrations that were several hundred times greater than the exposure dosage that produces intolerable symptoms.

Many questions remain, however. Epidemiologic inquiry following the use of tear gas under actual field conditions has been almost completely absent.

And a paper published in 2000 in the British Medical Journal states:

The key issue with regard to the safety of CS is not CS toxicity itself but that of its formulation.

Do we know the formulation of the CS gas used by Blackwater?

Here we have a private army, unaccountable to no one, not even the president, using tear gas against American soldiers because of a traffic jam. Where is the outrage? Why is Blackwater still allowed to operate in Iraq? Where is Congress?

Shit, piss, and corruption

This is what happens when you allow national security to become hostage to the greed of corporations.

Exhibit A: David H. Brooks, founder of unfortunately-named body armor manufacturer Point Blank Solutions. No, this isn't the nimrod who writes for the New York Times, alas. This guy is worse:

America's most ostentatious war profiteer is no longer a free man. In a long-anticipated move, FBI agents arrested bulletproof vest maker David H. Brooks in his Manhattan apartment at dawn on Thursday. In the tradition of Al Capone, Brooks was nabbed on allegations of financial shenanigans, despite strong suspicions that the defense contractor has much more serious crimes on his hands.

Brooks emerged as the poster boy for shameless war profiteering in November of 2005 when he blew some $10 million in profits from military contracts on a celebrity-studded party for his daughter. Leaked details of the bash drew national attention, including a description of Brooks' pink suede suit and photos of his daughter on stage with the rapper 50 Cent. A New York Times editorial compared Brooks to the ill-fated Marie Antoinette.

And indeed, while Brooks won't face a guillotine for his greed, he could spend up to 70 years in prison if convicted of all charges. The 71-page indictment (PDF) alleges that while Brooks was chief executive of DHB Industries, a leading provider of military body armor, he pocketed more than $185 million from insider trading, fraud and tax evasion. He is also charged with using millions of dollars in DHB funds for personal expenses.

A sampling of the charges authorities say Brooks concealed from shareholders and the IRS:

• $7,900 for a facelift for Brooks' wife
• more than $1 million for expenses related to his 100 trotting and breeding horses
• $101,190 for a belt buckle studded with diamonds, rubies and sapphires
• $101,500 for an armored vehicle for his family's use
• more than $1 million for numerous family vacations, including frequent stays at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and various Caribbean and European villas
• $31,802 to transport one of his daughters and her college friends to Halloween parties in Madison, Wisconsin, using a private jet
• hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonus checks drawn on a DHB bank account handed out by Brooks at a company Christmas party to non-DHB personnel, including his horse trainer
• and of course the predictable $10,000 here, $5,000 there for purchases at Luis Vuitton, Gucci, Gianni Versace, and Prada boutiques around the world

What makes Brooks' greed particularly obscene is that the bullet-proof vests that boosted his fortunes in the first place turned out to be not so bulletproof after all. In May 2005, the U.S. Marines recalled more than 5,000 DHB armored vests after they failed ballistics tests for stopping 9 mm bullets.

There's a special place in hell for guys who not only embezzle money but embezzle money made by providing faulty products to the U.S. military; products that put the lives of American soldiers at risk.

And speaking of putting the lives of American soldiers at risk, Exhibit B is our good friend Blackwater:

Federal agents are investigating allegations that the Blackwater USA security firm illegally exported dozens of firearms sound suppressors — commonly known as silencers — to Iraq and other countries for use by company operatives, sources close to the investigation tell NBC News.

Investigators from various federal agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the State Department and the Commerce Department, are digging into the allegations that the company exported the silencers without getting necessary export approval, according to law enforcement sources, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity. The sources said the investigation is part of a broader examination of potential firearms and export violations.

Coincidentally, the company’s main responsibility in Iraq is protecting officials of the State Department, the agency that regulates exports of arms. The firm had more than $500 million in federal contracts in 2006.

Every time I see numbers like this I think of Michelle Malkin stalking the Frost family of Bethesda, Maryland looking for evidence that their children don't deserve help with their health care. And I wonder what the fuck kind of country we live in where we're sniffing around the parents of two brain-damaged children and we don't give a rat's ass about the mind-boggling sums of our taxpayer cash being shoveled into the pockets of the most corrupt companies in the country.

License to Kill

Now the Administration is claiming it has the right to grant anyone it wants immunity from prosecution for crimes. The latest beneficiary? Blackwater:

State Department investigators offered Blackwater USA security guards immunity during an inquiry into last month’s deadly shooting of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad — a potentially serious investigative misstep that could complicate efforts to prosecute the company’s employees involved in the episode, government officials said Monday.

The State Department investigators from the agency’s investigative arm, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, offered the immunity grants even though they did not have the authority to do so, the officials said. Prosecutors at the Justice Department, who do have such authority, had no advance knowledge of the arrangement, they added.

Most of the guards who took part in the Sept. 16 shooting were offered what officials described as limited-use immunity, which means that they were promised that they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in their interviews with the authorities as long as their statements were true. The immunity offers were first reported Monday by The Associated Press.

The officials who spoke of the immunity deals have been briefed on the matter, but agreed to talk about the arrangement only on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to discuss a continuing criminal investigation.

The precise legal status of the immunity offer is unclear. Those who have been offered immunity would seem likely to assert that their statements are legally protected, even as some government officials say that immunity was never officially sanctioned by the Justice Department.

Spokesmen for the State and Justice Departments would not comment on the matter. A State Department official said, “If there’s any truth to this story, then the decision was made without consultation with senior officials in Washington.”

A spokeswoman for Blackwater, Anne E. Tyrrell, said, “It would be inappropriate for me to comment on the investigation.”

Translation: We all knew about it, but we ain't talkin'.

Does anyone actually believe that these immunity deals were offered without approval by all concerned?

This is what George W. Bush's Praetorian Guard is doing in our name

Blackwater: haven for really sick fucks. This is what George Bush's mercenary Army is doing in our name, being paid by our tax dollars:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Haythem could only recognize his oldest boy from his tall and slim physique as well as what was left of his shoes. His son's head had been blown away, his body charred beyond recognition. His wife of more than 20 years was torn apart.

"Only part of her neck and jaw remained," Haythem told CNN. The rest of her was covered by a body bag.

Choking back tears, he said, "Killing them was not enough, blowing up their skulls, they burned them and disfigured them."

Haythem's wife, Mahassen, and his 20-year-old son, Ahmed, were among the 17 Iraqi civilians killed and 27 others wounded in a hail of gunfire September 16 in Baghdad.

[snip]

Haythem, 46, a doctor who specializes in blood diseases, spoke from his temporary home in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood where he is living with his mother and two remaining children -- daughter Maryam, 18, and son Haidar, 17.

While he spoke, his mother sat in a corner of the room, moaning and sobbing, rocking back and forth on a couch. She wore all black.

All Haythem and the family know about the final moments of their loved ones is what two Iraqi police officers who witnessed the shootings have told them -- that Ahmed was shot as he was driving his car in Nusoor Square and his mother clutched him tight as he was bleeding.

"Those who witnessed the incident say that my son's head was scattered and my wife held him and hugged him," Haythem said. "She was screaming, 'My son, my son! Help me! Help me!' "

The car slowly rolled forward until Blackwater guards unleashed more shots that turned the vehicle into a fireball, according to the witnesses.

"They understood the call for help. They sprayed her with bullets," he said.

Blackwater has not discussed specifics about the case, saying the FBI is investigating the matter. Blackwater CEO Erik Prince told CNN Sunday one of the Blackwater vehicles was damaged by small arms fire and that his guards committed no "deliberate violence."

Haythem's wife also was a doctor and his son was attending medical school with hopes of becoming a surgeon.

"They destroyed my family and they killed my beloved wife, my better half," Haythem said calmly. "They deprived me of my eldest son who I have raised into a strong, young man. They deprived him of fulfilling his dream to be a doctor and a surgeon. They planted pain and misery in the hearts of my two younger kids."

His daughter and son live in fear that he too will be slain on the streets of Baghdad, leaving them as orphans.

Blue Girl reports on how Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, a man who calls himself a Christian, is a fucking liar.

Blackwater contractors running amok on American soldiers

This is how the Bush Administration supports the troops -- by allowing Blackwater's thugs to intimidate them:

The colonel was furious. "Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers." He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad's Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company. Asked to address this and other allegations in this story, Blackwater spokesperson Anne Tyrrell said, "This type of gossip has led to many soap operas in the press."

Whatever else Blackwater is or isn't guilty of—a topic of intense interest in Washington—it has a well-earned reputation in Iraq for arrogance and high-handedness. Iraqis naturally have the most serious complaints; dozens have been killed by Blackwater operatives since the beginning of the war. But many American civilian and military officials in Iraq also have little sympathy for the private security company and its highly paid employees.

This is the modus operandi of George W. Bush: use people as props and then legislate to screw them over. Use soldiers as props for your war, then cut veterans' benefits, extend their tours of duty, and make those tours one day less than enough to qualify for educational benefits. Surround yourself with "snowflake babies" to sign legislation banning embryonic stem cell research, but if those babies' families can't get health insurance, veto legislation that would provide it for them.

Greed, venality, corruption, hypocrisy: That's what will be the Bush legacy.

Making terroristic threats is OK if you're a Republican too

Remember when Jesse Helms said that if Bill Clinton were to show his face in Helms' home state of North Carolina, he should watch his back? No law enforcement officials said a word about that.

You can't wear an "Impeach Bush" T-shirt on an airplane, but Rep. Darrell Issa can say this to Henry Waxman on Washington Journal:

"If Henry Waxman today wants to go to Iraq and do an investigation, Blackwater will be his support team. His protection team. Do you think he really wants to investigate directly?"

...and that's perfectly OK. No, Issa isn't threatening Waxman with bodily harm done by himself, but he is saying that Blackwater security officers might retaliate against Waxman if he goes to Iraq to investigate the company -- and he seems to think this isn't a problem.

Sure if "loyal American" means using civilians for target practice

Blackwater's Christofascist Zombie CEO, Erik Prince, has one redeeming quality that sets him apart from most corporate executives: he's loyal to his own employees. But despite the facts that a) the company received a no-bid contract and overbilled the government; there were not one but two civilian shooting incidents involving Blackwater personnel on September 16, and the company's personnel have been involved in almost 200 civilian shootings since 2005, not only has the government given Blackwater a nice shiny new contract, Prince defends his employees, saying “People make mistakes; they do stupid things sometimes.”

This is like stabbing someone on the back and saying "Shit happens." "Shit happens" is when a tree falls on your house, and "People do stupid things sometimes" is drinking too much or using a chain saw on a ladder when you've never used one before, not a consistent pattern of using civilians for target practice.

Erik Prince is the Brownie of privatized Iraqi security: greedy, ignorant, connected, and completely out of touch with reality:

Mr. Prince, who comes from a wealthy and prominent Republican family in Michigan, said his company’s phenomenal rise came from competence, not connections. He said he had not personally lobbied the White House or Congress to get federal contracts.

Asked if his sister-in-law, Betsy DeVos, a major Bush fund-raiser, former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman and wife of the party’s 2006 nominee for governor, had interceded on Blackwater’s behalf, he smiled and shook his head. “No,” he said.

The company had less than $1 million of federal government contracts in 2001. Last year, the company took in nearly $600 million in federal money, most of it under contract with the State Department to provide bodyguards for diplomats and visiting dignitaries, including the dozens of members of Congress who travel to Iraq each year.

[snip]

Mr. Prince said he was proud of his employees, who have conducted thousands of escort missions in the most dangerous parts of central Iraq without death or serious injury to any of the people they are assigned to protect. Thirty Blackwater workers have been killed in Iraq, he said.

He said Blackwater guards strictly followed rules of engagement set by the State Department, which call for gradual escalation of force before any shots are fired.

The House committee staff found that Blackwater employees had fired their weapons 195 times since early 2005 and in a vast majority of incidents used their weapons before taking any hostile fire. The report also said that in most cases Blackwater guards fired from fast-moving vehicles and immediately fled the scene of any confrontation.

On Monday, Pam posted about the kind of shining Americans Blackwater hires. But if you think that this is the kind of person needed in a war zone, don't forget that Blackwater thugs were deployed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 -- presumably because the Louisiana National Guard was too busy being fed into a meat grinder in Iraq. And the company has opened "training centers" in Illinois (to the chagrin of local residents) and California (to the chagrin of local residents).

Does anyone actually think these guys will behave any differently as the neocons' Praetorian Guard than they do in Iraq?

America the Bush Fiefdom

As far back as 1988, I was saying that the Bush family regards the entire country as a fiefdom for their family and friends to enrich themselves. I was right all along. Take a gander at this little tidbit:

Turns out Joseph Schmitz, COO & general counsel of the Prince Group, Blackwater's parent company, is married to one Lucila Garnica Gallo, Colomba Bush's sister (Jeb Bush's wife).

More about Joseph Schmitz here.

Why is the U.S. military protecting Blackwater mercenaries

Buried in the U.S. Embassy whitewashreport on the September 16 incident in which Blackwater mercenaries fired on Iraqi civilians is this little tidbit:

According to the report, a third Blackwater team, identified as TST 23, was dispatched from the Green Zone to assist after the car bomb detonated. Upon arriving at Nisoor Square, in Baghdad's affluent Mansour neighborhood, the report said, TST 23 was "engaged with small arms fire" from "multiple nearby locations."

The report said TST 23 returned fire and tried to drive out of the ambush site. However, one of the company's tactical armored vehicles, a BearCat, became disabled during the shooting. In the middle of the firefight, according to the report, the other tactical support team, TST 22, was ordered back out of the Green Zone to assist TST 23 in Nisoor Square, identified in the document as Gray 87.

Before TST 22 could arrive, according to the report, TST 23 had towed the BearCat and returned to the Green Zone. TST 22 found itself alone in the congested traffic circle and confronted by an Iraqi quick-reaction force. "Over the next several minutes, additional Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police units arrived and began to encircle TST 22 with vehicles," according to the report. "The Iraqis had large caliber machine guns pointed at TST 22."

"The U.S. Army QRF" -- quick-reaction force -- "arrived on scene at 12:39 hours and mediated the situation," the report said. "They escorted TST 22 out of the area and successfully back to the [Green Zone] without further incident."

Is this now the mission of the United States Army -- to protect Bush's Praetorian Guard-in-training?

The Praetorian Guard is expanding

At FDL, Naomi Wolf notes that Blackwater, that wonderful company responsible for most of the American killings of Iraqi civilians, has been awarded a government contract for fighting the so-called "drug war":

Late last month, the Pentagon tapped five major defense contractors to provide wide-ranging support in global counter-narcotics operations. The contract, worth up to $15 billion over the next five years, illustrates the extent to which the Defense Department is relying on contractors to perform critical missions while combat forces are stretched thin by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In response to specific task orders issued under the indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract, companies will develop and deploy new surveillance technologies, train and equip foreign security forces and provide key administrative, logistical and operational support to Defense and other agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Wolf, whose new book The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot outlines just how the Bush Administration is systematically taking us down the road to a fascist police state, explains just how terrifying this is:

In my recently released book, The End of America — Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot, I describe the 10 steps that would-be tyrants use to close down a democracy and produce a “fascist shift.” The third of the ten steps is to ‘Develop a Paramilitary Force.’ Without a paramilitary force that is not answerable to the people’s representatives, democracy cannot be closed down; however, with such a force available to would-be despots, democracy can be drastically and quickly weakened.

Every effective despot — from Mussolini to Hitler, Stalin, the members of the Chinese Politburo, General Augusto Pinochet and the many Latin American dictators who learned from these models of controlling citizens — has used this essential means to pressure civilians and intimidate dissent. Mussolini was the innovator in the use of thugs to intimidate what was a democracy, if a fragile one, before he actually marched on Rome; he developed the strategic deployment of blackshirts to beat up communists and opposition leaders, trash newspapers and turn on civilians, forcing ordinary Italians, for instance, to ingest emetics. Hitler studied Mussolini; he deployed thugs — in the form of brownshirts — in similar ways before he came formally to power.

In light of these historical warning, we must ask, “What is Blackwater?” According to reporter Jeremy Scahill, the firm has 2,300 private soldiers deployed in nine countries, and maintains a database of an additional 21,000 to call upon at any time. Blackwater has over “$500 million in government contracts — and that does not include its secret ‘black’ budget…” [It also did not include, at the time Scahill’s wrote this description, the massive anti-narcotics contract described above.] One congressman pointed out that in terms of its manpower, Blackwater can overthrow “many of the world’s governments.” Recruiters for the company seek out former military from countries that have horrific human rights abuses and use secret police and paramilitary forces to terrify their own populations: Chileans, Peruvians, Nigerians, and Salvadorans.

Blackwater is coming home to Main Street, and one of our key constitutional protections is at stake. The future for growth is directed at increased deployment in the US in cases of natural disaster — or in the event of a ‘public emergency.’ This is a very dangerous situation, of course, now that laws have been passed that let the President decide on his say-so alone what a ‘public emergency’ might be.

The Department of Homeland Security hired these same Blackwater contractors to patrol the streets of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina — for a contract valued at about $73 million. Does Blackwater’s reputation for careless violence against civilians in Iraq, protected by legal indemnification, matter to us? Scahill reports at least one private contractor’s accounts of other contractors’ abrupt shooting in the direction of American civilians in the wake of Katrina: “After that, all I heard was moaning and screaming, and the shooting stopped.”

[snip]

(According to `the blueprint’ described in my book, unless people wake up in time, we in America are likely to see a call for a `security requirement’ for Blackwater to be deployed to `protect’ Congress and to be deployed around voting areas `to maintain public order’, and, unless we intervene, we will see them start to do crowd control when there are antiwar marches or other demonstrations. Then, again according to historical models, protesters will increasingly start to get hurt for `resisting arrest’ or for `provocations.’)

Because, to my sorrow, I know `the blueprint’, I was sad but not at all surprised when a horrified friend who works in downtown New York City told me that armed private contractors — who look like members of the NYPD but who are not answerable to any government entity — have been placed around the U.S. stock exchange. I went down to check it out. Indeed, Wall Street and the entire periphery of the Stock Exchange was like a militarized zone in the hands of what was not evident to onlookers as being in fact a private army: there were barricades; three immense trucks parked to deter and investigate pedestrians; armed dog handlers with their big dogs on tightly held leashes — all of this looks like government security but it isn’t. The company, hired, the guards said, by the stock exchange itself, is neutrally called `T & M.’ (More investigation of such companies is called for.)

I went up to a guard and, chatting sweetly, established from him that, indeed, none of these men were NYPD or even US government agents.

“That’s really big gun,” I remarked admiringly of his massive firearm, encased in leather. “What kind is it?”

“It’s a Glock,” said the contractor, with shy pride.

“Heavens!,” I said. “What kind of guidelines does the company give you for shooting?”

“Use our discretion,” he said. I thanked him, my heart racing.

So while Senate Democrats and Republicans are playing a game of chicken as to who should apologize for saying mean things to America's Military Men and Women™, The Bush Junta is preparing paramilitary squads to operate right here at home, tying in nicely with the the detention camps that KBR has been quietly building.

George W. Bush may not just be looking to outdo his father, it seems he wants to bring his grandfather's dream of a fascist state to fruition as well.

Blackwater: Using the Iraqis for target practice

This is what happens when you privatize the military by outsourcing its functions to unaccountable private corporations:

The American security contractor Blackwater USA has been involved in a far higher rate of shootings while guarding American diplomats in Iraq than other security firms providing similar services to the State Department, according to Bush administration officials and industry officials.

Blackwater is now the focus of investigations in both Baghdad and Washington over a Sept. 16 shooting in which at least 11 Iraqis were killed. Beyond that episode, the company has been involved in cases in which its personnel fired weapons while guarding State Department officials in Iraq at least twice as often per convoy mission as security guards working for other American security firms, the officials said.

The disclosure came as the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had sent a team of officials to Iraq to get answers to questions about the use of American security contractors there.

The State Department keeps reports on each case in which weapons were fired by security personnel guarding American diplomats in Iraq. Officials familiar with the internal State Department reports would not provide the actual statistics, but they indicated that the records showed that Blackwater personnel were involved in dozens of episodes in which they had resorted to force.

The officials said that Blackwater’s incident rate was at least twice that recorded by employees of DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, the two other United States-based security firms that have been contracted by the State Department to provide security for diplomats and other senior civilians in Iraq.

Way to win hearts and minds, guys.

And from the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" file, Richard at All Spin Zone wants to know who Kiazan Moneypenny is (yes, that is a real name) at State, and why she has directed Blackwater not to disclose any documents related to the Blackwater massacre in Iraq.

Wait till Bush's Praetorian Guard starts policing protests in the U.S.

Because this is the kind of tactic that Bush's private army, paid with OUR tax dollars, uses:

Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in a shooting last week that left 11 people dead, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case was referred to the Iraqi judiciary.

Iraq's president, meanwhile, demanded that the Americans release an Iranian arrested this week on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Shiite militias. The demand adds new strains to U.S.-Iraqi relations only days before a meeting between President Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Iraqi authorities had completed an investigation into the Sept. 16 shooting in Nisoor Square in western Baghdad and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths.

He told The Associated Press that the conclusion was based on witness statements as well as videotape shot by cameras at the nearby headquarters of the national police command. He said eight people were killed at the scene and three of the 15 wounded died in hospitals.

Blackwater, which provides most of the security for U.S. diplomats and civilian officials in Iraq, has insisted that its guards came under fire from armed insurgents and shot back only to defend themselves.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said Saturday that she knew nothing about the videotape and was contractually prohibited from discussing details of the shooting.

Khalaf also said the ministry was looking into six other fatal shootings involving the Moyock, N.C.-based company in which 10 Iraqis were killed and 15 wounded. Among the shootings was one Feb. 7 outside Iraqi state television in Baghdad that killed three building guards.

"These six cases will support the case against Blackwater, because they show that it has a criminal record," Khalaf said.

Ask the executives at Bechtel, Halliburton, and Blackwater to empty their pockets

And don't tell me it must have fallen out of your pockets. This from 2003:

The Department of Defense, already infamous for spending $640 for a toilet seat, once again finds itself under intense scrutiny, only this time because it couldn't account for more than a trillion dollars in financial transactions, not to mention dozens of tanks, missiles and planes.

Though Defense has long been notorious for waste, recent government reports suggest the Pentagon's money management woes have reached astronomical proportions. A study by the Defense Department's inspector general found that the Pentagon couldn't properly account for more than a trillion dollars in monies spent. A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units.

And before the Iraq war, when military leaders were scrambling to find enough chemical and biological warfare suits to protect U.S. troops, the department was caught selling these suits as surplus on the Internet "for pennies on the dollar," a GAO official said.

In case you think anything's changed, guess again:

.S. Marine Gen. Peter Pace admitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday equipment will be a problem when U.S. forces in Iraq are increased.

During testimony over the $481.4 billion fiscal 2008 defense budget, Pace said the military has about 41,000 armored vehicles in Iraq -- fewer than will be needed "to cover all of the troops that are deploying."

Pace said it will be July before enough equipment is in place.

So where is the money going? Maybe Senate Democrats ought to be looking into this:

The U.S. Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis, lawmakers said on Tuesday.

The money, which had been held by the United States, came from Iraqi oil exports, surplus dollars from the U.N.-run oil-for-food program and frozen assets belonging to the ousted Saddam Hussein regime.

Bills weighing a total of 363 tons were loaded onto military aircraft in the largest cash shipments ever made by the Federal Reserve, said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that's exactly what our government did," the California Democrat said during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in Iraq.

On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq, initially "the largest pay out of U.S. currency in Fed history," according to an e-mail cited by committee members.

It was followed by more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6 billion three days later. The CPA turned over sovereignty on June 28.

Paul Bremer, who as the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority ran Iraq after initial combat operations ended, said the enormous shipments were done at the request of the Iraqi minister of finance.

If you thought those of us who draw parallels betweeen the Bush family and the Corleones were exaggerating, the Corleones could only marvel at the way the Bush Junta has elevated the suitcase full of cash to such truly astounding levels.