Taking steps

To start undoing what has been done in our name:

Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), the chairman of the House intelligence committee, introduced an amendment to the 2010 intelligence authorization bill imposing a 15-year criminal sentence on any “officer or employee of the intelligence community” who tortures a detainee. (Twenty years if the torture involves an “act of medical malfeasance”; life if the detainee dies.)

And

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is concerned about possible misconduct in Afghanistan by the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater and has promised to review the issue, the Pentagon said.

So what does Blackwater do?

A Code Pink protester claimed a high-ranking Blackwater official threatened his life during a break of a Senate Armed Services hearing focused on the military contractor's actions in Afghanistan.

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin reported that the threat was made by Johnny Walker, a program manager with one of Blackwater's subsidiaries. Walker testified at the hearing about the role his company, Paravant, played during its mercenary deployments to the Middle East.

But then this is going on:

In an interview with the Pakistani TV station Express TV, Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that the private security firms Blackwater and DynCorp are operating inside Pakistan. “They’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan,” Gates said, according to a DoD transcript of the interview. “There are rules concerning the contracting companies. If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”

And the realization that if we didn't have mercenary groups, we'd be unable to fight the wars we're in. We don't have the troops.

Yet the court sides against Rumsfeld:

CHICAGO � A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for the alleged torture by U.S. forces of two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm.

U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen's ruling did not say the two contractors had proven their claims, including that they were tortured after reporting alleged illegal activities by their company. But it did say they had alleged enough specific mistreatment to warrant hearing evidence of exactly what happened.

Andersen said his decision "represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they are located in a tumultuous foreign setting."

Andersen did throw out two of the lawsuit's three counts but gave former contractors Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel the green light to go forward with a third count alleging they were unconstitutionally tortured under procedures personally approved by Rumsfeld.

Update 3/7:UPDATE:

A Xe spokesman has told Talking Points Memo that they are unaware of any plans for the RNC to hold a fundraiser at their Moyock, N.C. facility. The spokesman said he was unsure why there was a slide in an RNC fundraising presentation that suggested otherwise. RNC Communications Doug Heye also told Politico's Ben Smith, who broke the story, that "No such Blackwater event ever existed," despite the calendar entry.

The Republican National Committee plans to hold an April fundraiser at a Moyock, N.C. compound owned by the military contracting firm formerly known as Blackwater, Politico reports.

According to an RNC fundraising document uncovered on Wednesday, RNC "Young Eagles" -- party major donors under 40 -- will meet at the facility in the spring.

Xe formerly known as Blackwater

Has stayed past its expiration date in Iraq:

WASHINGTON – Armed guards from the security firm once known as Blackwater Worldwide are still protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq, even though the company has no license to operate there and has been told by the State Department its contracts will not be renewed two years after a lethal firefight that stirred outrage in Baghdad.

Private security guards employed by the company, now known as Xe, are slated to continue ground operations in parts of Iraq long into the summer, far longer than had previously been acknowledged, government officials told The Associated Press.

In addition, helicopters working for Xe's aviation wing, Presidential Airways, will provide air security for U.S. diplomatic convoys into September, almost two years after the Iraqi government first said it wanted the firm out.

The company's continued presence raises fresh questions about the strength of Iraq's sovereignty even as the Obama administration urges the budding government to take more responsibility for the nation's future.

[snip]

Some of the same security personnel who worked for Blackwater might simply transfer to the new companies operating there, industry experts say.

"As Triple Canopy's work expands, the logical place to start looking and interviewing and evaluating employees will be those who are already there, those who have some skills and are already employed by Blackwater," said Alan Chvotkin, a senior vice president and counsel for the trade group Professional Services Council.

Xe, DynCorp and Triple Canopy are all members of the council.

Chvotkin added that in view of the controversies over Blackwater's role, "Triple Canopy and other security companies are making an independent assessment of any individual before deciding whether to hire them."

The Iraqi official also said that some former Blackwater officials could remain in Iraq, depending on their experience.

The transition from Blackwater to a new air security firm may be even more complicated. Chvotkin said it will not be easy to find a firm with Blackwater's air resources. Blackwater should not be ruled out as an option, he said.

"Since the nature of the work is so very different, there may actually be authority for them to operate the air services contract even though they don't have a license for private security," Chvotkin said.

Blackwater has been shifting its focus to other lines of business, including international training and air support in places like Afghanistan and Africa.

US mercenaries like Blackwater fighting Russians?

Earlier today, RIA-Novosti’s Russia Today TV broadcast a report detailing possible U.S. involvement in the conflict. Eduard Kokoity, the president of South Ossetia told Russia Today Ukrainians and mercenaries from the Baltics as well as nationals from other countries were involved in the fighting, as “foreigners have been found among their bodies.” Dmitry Medoev, the South Ossetian envoy to Russia, confirms this claim. “In yesterday’s most recent tank attack, the advancing tanks were supposedly crewed by Ukrainians. Two unidentified bodies found today are said to be black, possibly they are Americans, but we can’t say for sure yet.”

[snip]

In another report, a woman interviewed by Russia Today in Tsknivali, South Ossetia, talked about the presence of Georgian troops with American insignias. “There are lots of bodies over there, a lot of people have been killed, mostly Ossetians, but also Georgians, they had American emblems on their forearms and they were in black uniforms,” she said.

Black uniforms are a trademark of Blackwater and DynCorp mercenaries (see Chris Hedges, America’s Holy Warriors). DynCorp’s presence in Eastern Europe is well documented, particularly in occupied Bosnia where it engaged in sex-trafficking and prostitution.

In a Friday press conference, Chairman of Russia’s State Duma Security Committee Vladimir Vasilyev said without U.S. aid, Tbilisi would have been unable to start military operation in South Ossetia. “The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America,” said Vasilyev. “In essence, the Americans have prepared the force, which destroys everything in South Ossetia, attacks civilians and hospitals.”

It is entirely feasible the U.S. has “prepared the force” with mercenaries as well.

What a surprise. The Bush administration really does miss the Cold War, doesn't it? Wants to bring back the good old days?

Update:

The Russian news website Izvestia is reporting that an African American soldier/mercenary has been captured by Russian forces. He was captured with a number of Georgian soldiers, whose specialty was in handling ordinances. The report mentions that they believe he is a Nato instructor, and that he has been transferred to the Russian base of Vladikavkaz.

Doing what greedy unethical people do when given a truckload of government money

They totally pig out and ignore what they were supposed to be doing with it:

From prostitutes to Super bowl tickets, a federal probe reveals how contractors in Iraq cheated the U.S.

Are we suprised at this? No accountability, no oversight, no consequences. Bush literally opened the vault and invited these people to steal our tax dollars.

ROCK ISLAND, Ill.—Inside the stout federal courthouse of this Mississippi River town, the dirty secrets of Iraq war profiteering keep pouring out.

Hundreds of pages of recently unsealed court records detail how kickbacks shaped the war's largest troop support contract months before the first wave of U.S. soldiers plunged their boots into Iraqi sand.

Notice how these contractors knew long before the US citizens knew we were absolutely going to war. Bush's statements about not wanting to attack Iraq and trying to the last for diplomatic solutions were obvious lies.

The graft continued well beyond the 2004 congressional hearings that first called attention to it. And the massive fraud endangered the health of American soldiers even as it lined contractors' pockets, records show.

Bush's defense contractors were in it for the money. They ripped off the US military, in their indifference, they put our soldiers' lives at risk. Rumsfeld's glorious war plan was just giving money away.

Federal prosecutors in Rock Island have indicted four former supervisors from KBR, the giant defense firm that holds the contract, along with a decorated Army officer and five executives from KBR subcontractors based in the U.S. or the Middle East. Those defendants, along with two other KBR employees who have pleaded guilty in Virginia, account for a third of the 36 people indicted to date on Iraq war-contract crimes, Justice Department records show.

Indictments and jail time are fine.

But I want my money back.

I want it back from every 'defense' contractor that signed up and didn't deliver. I want it back from the twits who drove empty trucks about Iraq because that and only that was on the contract. I want it back from those who were signed up to supply food and water to our troops and gave them unclean water and old food, or no food at all because, being contractors, a war zone was a scary place. I want it back from incompetent body armor manufacturers that made soldiers take off good armor to wear their mandatory inefficient stuff and then were wounded. I want it back from Blackwater and DynCorp and other mercenary groups whose business is war and see no reason to try and help fix the country. I want it back from every warmonger in the Bush administration who plans to leave office and go into the ever so conveniently waiting defense contractor boardroom.

I want my money back and I want every business who benefited from Bush's idiot war to be fined. In fact, put them out of business and give the CEO jail time. Let them learn that we demand accountability, oversight, and justice. Let them learn that actions or non-actions have consequences.

I want my money and my country back.

Now it's DynCorp doing the shooting civilians thing

Blackwater is such a good example:

BAGHDAD, Nov. 11 — An Iraqi taxi driver was shot and killed on Saturday by a guard with DynCorp International, a private security company hired to protect American diplomats here, when a DynCorp convoy rolled past a knot of traffic on an exit ramp in Baghdad, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said Sunday.

Three witnesses said the taxi had posed no threat to the convoy, and one of them, an Iraqi Army sergeant who inspected the car afterward, said it contained no weapons or explosive devices.

“They just killed a man and drove away,” Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said in his office on Sunday afternoon. He added later, “We have opened an investigation, and we have contacted the company and told them about our accusations, and we are still waiting for their response.”

So what is DynCorp going to do about it? Hustle the shooter out of the country?

If Georgie needs more money for his war

Why doesn't he just get it back from the mercenaries who can't remember what they did with it?:

(CNN) -- The U.S. State Department is unable to account for most of $1.2 billion in funding that it gave to DynCorp International to train Iraqi police, a government report said Tuesday.

"The bottom line is that State can't account for where it went," said Glenn D. Furbish, who was involved in putting together the 20-page report for the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR).

The Department of State's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) "did not have the information needed to identify what DynCorp provided under the contract or how funds were spent," the report said.

As a result, the audit agency announced it has suspended its oversight of the agency's project until INL gathers the information.

"Their records are just not detailed," Furbish said Monday in a telephone interview. "From an audit perspective, we've identified the problem; they're working to rectify the problem."

They are working to rectify the problem? Uh huh. Riiiiiiight.

We want our money back.

Peace and Stability companies

Whose businesses thrive during times of war, who spread fear and death with indifference, who hide in the shadows and shroud themselves with mystery. Peace and stability?

I don't think so:

Meet Doug Brooks, whose trade group represents the private military industry's biggest players. He makes hired guns sound like U.N. peacekeepers.
[snip]

His organization currently represents 42 companies—among them, Blackwater, DynCorp, and MPRI—that belong to what Brooks describes as the "peace and stability industry." The IPOA's mission, according to its website, is "to promote high operational and ethical standards of firms active in the Peace and Stability Industry; to engage in a constructive dialogue with policy-makers about the growing and positive contribution of these firms to the enhancement of international peace, development, and human security; and to inform the concerned public about the activities and role of the industry."

The latter had consumed most of Brooks' time over the past week as he gave close to 40 interviews in three days to reporters seeking comment on Blackwater's Baghdad shoot-out. Wasn't he uncomfortable being the private military industry's unofficial spokesman when one of its most prominent players stood accused of murdering civilians? "No, not at all," Brooks said. "What it's given us the chance to do is get out the point of what IPOA is about, to paint a larger picture, put it in context. Yes, we do have contractors working around the world, doing stuff that's dangerous. Sometimes they're armed, and sometimes innocent people get killed."

Oh well then. That's ok.

WTF?