Stupidity and insanity and banksters run amok

Wisconsin Senate hopeful Ron Johnson in all his glory.

Rand Paul.

Teapartiers love Ayn Rand but have no idea who she really was. Sickeningly,

...she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation.

Being rewarded for torture:

A psychologist whose research was used in constructing the US's program to torture terrorism suspects has been granted a $31-million no-bid Army contract to provide "resilience training" to US soldiers.

The Pentagon needs more money:

The latest talking point du jour has been around in one form or another for years. It asks us to forget that A) America spends more on defense than every other major nation combined and B) the Pentagon, whose annual budget is now approaching World War II levels in inflation-adjusted terms, has lost track of trillions of taxpayer dollars. In light of those troubling truths, we are nonetheless urged by Beltway Republicans to focus on the fact that defense spending is "4.9 percent of our gross domestic product, significantly below the average of 6.5 percent since World War II," as a recent Wall Street Journal editorial proclaimed.

That widely circulated article, aimed squarely at grassroots conservatives, was jointly written by three of the most influential Republican think tanks in Washington -- the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Foreign Policy Initiative. And like clockwork, the "percentage of GDP" nugget went from their pen to the GOP's well-oiled media machine.

For those who just don't have enough:

A gold and jewel bedazzled version of Monopoly worth $2 million is heading to Wall Street this Friday. That's not a metaphor.

Crafted by master jeweler Sidney Mobell and 22 years in the making, the set features dice with 42-cut diamonds and a photo-etched 18k gold board.

Krugman on the lack of property mortgage documents:

True to form, the Obama administration’s response has been to oppose any action that might upset the banks, like a temporary moratorium on foreclosures while some of the issues are resolved. Instead, it is asking the banks, very nicely, to behave better and clean up their act. I mean, that’s worked so well in the past, right?

The response from the right is, however, even worse. Republicans in Congress are lying low, but conservative commentators like those at The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page have come out dismissing the lack of proper documents as a triviality. In effect, they’re saying that if a bank says it owns your house, we should just take its word. To me, this evokes the days when noblemen felt free to take whatever they wanted, knowing that peasants had no standing in the courts. But then, I suspect that some people regard those as the good old days.

What should be happening? The excesses of the bubble years have created a legal morass, in which property rights are ill defined because nobody has proper documentation. And where no clear property rights exist, it’s the government’s job to create them.

That won’t be easy, but there are good ideas out there. For example, the Center for American Progress has proposed giving mortgage counselors and other public entities the power to modify troubled loans directly, with their judgment standing unless appealed by the mortgage servicer. This would do a lot to clarify matters and help extract us from the morass.

One thing is for sure: What we’re doing now isn’t working. And pretending that things are O.K. won’t convince anyone.

Blog sprinkles

Keep Sarah Palin off of Discovery Channel:

"I am appalled that Discovery Communications -- home of numerous eco-conscious offerings -- has picked up "Sarah Palin's Alaska." Sarah Palin's anti-nature crusade as governor makes her extremely unsuitable to host a show in your lineup. I urge you to cancel the show before it airs."

Plan B has more options: Understanding Ella, the Latest Controversy in 'Morning After Pills' And a clever response to an anti-abortion ad.

One more reason we really don't want Chinese food products....

According to a 2008 State Oceanic Administration report, raw sewage and pollution from agricultural run-off has polluted 83 percent of China's coastal waters, leading to algae and other problems.

The Council of Dads has advice.

Seventh graders prove science isn't dead.

It's dangerous to ask for help in a forum.

The 7.2 Mexicali, Mexico, earthquake was so powerful that it shifted the Earth's crust 31 inches near Calexico, Calif., according to radar images and data released by NASA on Wednesday.

Irony. And more BP jokes.

We're number one!1! ... uh... We're number seven!!

Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries. This report—an update to three earlier editions—includes data from seven countries and incorporates patients' and physicians' survey results on care experiences and ratings on dimensions of care. Compared with six other nations—Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives.

Strange what happens when you run out of money, isn't it?

A growing number of centrist Democrats say they’re open to trimming Pentagon spending in the face of record budget deficits and mounting public debt.

Liberal Democrats for years have called for cuts to the massive defense budget to no avail. Even after Democrats regained control of Congress in 2007, their few attempts at reining in defense spending have proven futile, partly because of opposition from centrist Democrats hawkish on defense issues.

Obama and McChrystal.

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.

Finally.

The US military has begun notifying the Red Cross of the identities of terror suspects being held at secret camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, reports say.

The Red Cross, which has lobbied the Pentagon for years to give its staff access to all detention facilities, declined to confirm the changes.

The policy reportedly took effect this month with no public announcement.

Correspondents say that the move represents a victory for human rights groups seeking more US transparency.

The new approach is said to be part of a broad review of US detention and interrogation practice launched by the Obama administration.

What's wrong with these stories?

Seattle bank teller chases robber, loses job

US Marshals seize sanitizer for bacteria problems

Obviously what will win the 'war on terror' is bigger bombs.... which is what we've said ever since we dropped the A bomb on Hiroshima:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is seeking to speed deployment of an ultra-large "bunker-buster" bomb on the most advanced U.S. bomber as soon as July 2010, the Air Force said on Sunday, amid concerns over perceived nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran.

The non-nuclear, 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, which is still being tested, is designed to destroy deeply buried bunkers beyond the reach of existing bombs.

If Congress agrees to shift enough funds to the program, Northrop Grumman Corp's radar-evading B-2 bomber "would be capable of carrying the bomb by July 2010," said Andy Bourland, an Air Force spokesman.

Crazy Landlord Fights Heat Wave With Air Conditioning Ban

An Oregon landlord refuses to let his tenants install air conditioners because he thinks they "look tacky." Tenants of the Arbor Creek complex in Aloha who choose to sacrifice aesthetics for comfort have ten days to correct their mistake before facing eviction. One tenant's kid already landed in the hospital thanks to heat stroke.

China wants perfect astronauts:

Would-be astronauts competing for China's next space programme must comply with 100 rules - excluding those with bad breath or a runny nose.

The list, intended to recruit "super human beings", also prohibits those with body odours, tooth cavities or scars which may "burst open" in space.

Dammit! Americans have ruined the British class system by making people not buy fish forks!!

Cute: Why one should not draw faces in public.

I guess the question should be: Are people actually still evolving? Or are we now going backwards, sinking into primordial stupidity?

Don't answer that!

What the heck, we're in the neighborhood already

A third war won't kill us, right?:

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's top military officer says he's comfortable that Pakistan's nuclear weapons remain secure, but is gravely concerned about Taliban advances there and in Afghanistan.

He says the United States has worked with the Pakistanis to improve the security of their nuclear arsenal and he believes that country's military is focused on keeping them secure.

He also said Monday the worst-case scenario is that Pakistan's weapons would fall into the hands of terrorists. But he said he doesn't think that's going to happen.

Mullen spoke at a Pentagon news conference on his recent trip to the region.

Right. We're relying on the Pakistani military to protect the nuclear weapons? This military?:

Pakistan's army: as inept as it is corrupt

The answer to why Pakistan's mighty army seems impotent against Taliban insurgents is that it is more mafia than military

I have a bad feeling about this....

Update: We should have been dealing with this problem years ago, but instead the Bush administration just threw money at it.

Pakistan's peace pact with the Taliban is close to collapse, a Taliban spokesman has warned, accusing the government and the army of being stooges for the US.

The warning came as Pakistani troops continued their offensive against Taliban fighters in Buner in the country's northwest on Monday, killing seven fighters.

The fighting has strained the government's deal with the Taliban that allows for the enforcement of sharia, or Islamic law, across Malakand division in exchange for peace.

"They [the army and government] have no respect for any pact," Muslim Khan, the Pakistani Taliban's spokesman in neighbouring Swat, said.

"They keep violating every agreement and if this goes on, definitely there will be no deal, no ceasefire.

"This is not our army, this is not our government. They're worse enemies of Muslims than the Americans. They're US stooges and now it's clear that either we'll be martyred or we'll march forward."

Just goes to show you when you had a stooge who became preznit, the entire government reflected his leadership....



crossposted at American Street

Further proof

That the Pentagon does not give a shit about the troops and embraces the 'use them up and throw them out' policy: [my bold]

A newly leaked military document appears to show the Pentagon knowingly exposed US troops to toxic chemicals that cause cancer, while publicly downplaying the risks exposure might cause.

The document, written by an environmental engineering flight commander in December of 2006 and posted on Wikileaks (PDF) on Tuesday, details the risks posed to US troops in Iraq by burning garbage at a US airbase. It enumerates myriad risks posed by the practice and identifies various carcinogens released by incinerating waste in open-air pits.

Because of the difficulties in testing samples, investigators could not prove that chemicals exceeded military exposure guidelines. But a military document released last December found that chemicals routinely exceeded safe levels by twice to six times.

The leaked report was signed off by the chief for the Air Force's aeromedical services. Its subject is Balad Airbase, a large US military base about 70 kilometers north of Baghdad.

I wonder where they got this attitude?....

This comforts me

Even though I'm beginning to worry about Loyal Bushie moles and legacy polishers and Pentagon sabotage and Republicans grandstanding and everything....



(via Rook at Rook's Rant)

It's kinda like going through rehab in Hollywood

Don't think they are really trying hard to fix the problem:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Nine graduates of an influential Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists, including some who had been imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, have been arrested for rejoining terrorist groups since the program started in 2004, Saudi officials said Monday.

Saudi Arabia has been furnishing jihadists and al-Qaeda members around the world for more than a decade. Why would they stop now, doesn't it get their disaffected and restless youth out of the country?

Besides, being locked up and tortured in Gitmo makes a person become a terrorist whether he was one before or not. Even thinking about the injustices done in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo have made many sign up for revenge.

So Gitmo is a factory for producing terrorism, right?

Pentagon officials have said that 61 of the more than 525 Guantánamo detainees who have been released have returned to terrorism. That claim has generated some skepticism, and the Pentagon is expected to declassify portions of a report on the subject in the coming days.

Ah... the famous 61:

On the January 25 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, host David Gregory allowed House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) to repeat the falsehood that, in Boehner's words, "we've already found" that 61 detainees released from the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay are now "back on the battlefield." In fact, the figure, which comes from the Pentagon, includes 43 former prisoners who are suspected of, but have not been confirmed as, having "return[ed] to the fight." Moreover, even the Pentagon's claim that it has confirmed that 18 former Guantánamo detainees have returned to the battlefield has been questioned by experts.

[snip]

Further, the Pentagon's definition of "returning to the fight" has been challenged by some analysts. As CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen noted on the January 23 edition of Anderson Cooper 360: "[R]eturning to the fight, in Pentagon terms, could be engaging in anti-American propaganda, something that's not entirely surprising if you have been locked up in a prison camp for several years without charge." Bergen further stated: "[W]hen you really boil it down, the actual number of people whose names we know are about eight out of the 520 that have been released [from Guantánamo], so a little above 1 percent, that we can actually say with certainty have engaged in anti-American terrorism or insurgence activities since they have been released. ... If the Pentagon releases more information about specific people, I think it would be possible to -- to potentially agree with them. But, right now, that information isn't out there."

Additionally, Seton Hall University School of Law professor Mark Denbeaux -- who has written several reports about Guantánamo detainees, including some challenging the Pentagon's definition of "battlefield" capture and published detainee recidivism rates -- has disputed the Pentagon's figures, asserting: "[The Defense Department's most recent] attempt to enumerate the number of detainees who have returned to the battlefield is false by the Department of Defense's own data and prior reports." He added that in "each of its forty-three attempts to provide the numbers of the recidivist detainees, the Department of Defense has given different sets of numbers that are contradictory and internally inconsistent with the Department's own data."

Update... Now it's only 2:

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Two Saudis formerly jailed at the US prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have joined Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch, and authorities here worry that two other ex-Guantánamo inmates may have strayed back to militancy because they have recently disappeared from their homes.

We are all The Prisoner

Number 6, Patrick McGoohan:

"We're run by the Pentagon, we're run by Madison Avenue, we're run by television, and as long as we accept those things and don't revolt we'll have to go along with the stream to the eventual avalanche.... As long as we go out and buy stuff, we're at their mercy.

"We all live in a little Village," McGoohan concluded in the same interview. "Your Village may be different from other people's Villages, but we are all prisoners."

Slowly working towards a war crimes tribunal

Oh please please please!

And, if you can believe it, an op-ed in the New York Times!:

Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services.

Now, a bipartisan report by the Senate Armed Services Committee has made what amounts to a strong case for bringing criminal charges against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; his legal counsel, William J. Haynes; and potentially other top officials, including the former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.

The report shows how actions by these men “led directly” to what happened at Abu Ghraib, in Afghanistan, in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in secret C.I.A. prisons.

It said these top officials, charged with defending the Constitution and America’s standing in the world, methodically introduced interrogation practices based on illegal tortures devised by Chinese agents during the Korean War. Until the Bush administration, their only use in the United States was to train soldiers to resist what might be done to them if they were captured by a lawless enemy.

The officials then issued legally and morally bankrupt documents to justify their actions, starting with a presidential order saying that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to prisoners of the “war on terror” — the first time any democratic nation had unilaterally reinterpreted the conventions.

[snip]

These policies have deeply harmed America’s image as a nation of laws and may make it impossible to bring dangerous men to real justice. The report said the interrogation techniques were ineffective, despite the administration’s repeated claims to the contrary.

Alberto Mora, the former Navy general counsel who protested the abuses, told the Senate committee that “there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq — as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat — are, respectively, the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.”

We can understand that Americans may be eager to put these dark chapters behind them, but it would be irresponsible for the nation and a new administration to ignore what has happened — and may still be happening in secret C.I.A. prisons that are not covered by the military’s current ban on activities like waterboarding.

A prosecutor should be appointed to consider criminal charges against top officials at the Pentagon and others involved in planning the abuse.

Wasn't this why the National Guard was created?

To avoid conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act?:

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

[snip]

Domestic emergency deployment may be "just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority," or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU's National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of "a creeping militarization" of homeland security.

"There's a notion that whenever there's an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green," Healy said, "and that's at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace."

The National Guard:

Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, state National Guard serves as part of the first-line defense for the United States.[3] The state National Guard is divided up into units stationed in each of the 50 states and U.S. territories and operates under their respective state governor or territorial government [4]. The National Guard may be called up for active duty by the state governors or territorial commanding generals to help respond to domestic emergencies and disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.[4]

With the consent of state governors, members or units of state National Guard may be appointed to be federally recognized armed force members in active or inactive service [5][6][7]. If so recognized, they become part of the National Guard of the United States [1]. The National Guard of the United States units or members may be called up for federal active duty in times of Congressionally sanctioned war or national emergency [4]. State National Guard may also be called up for federal service, with the consent of state governors, to repel invasion, suppress rebellion, or execute federal laws if the United States or any its states or territories are invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation, or if there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the federal government, or if the President is unable with the regular armed forces to execute the laws of the United States [8]. Because both state National Guard and the National Guard of the United States relatively go hand-in-hand, they are both usually referred to as just National Guard.

Maybe I've answered my own question: (my bold)

The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act substantially limit the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement.

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed on June 16, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction. The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services (the Army, Air Force, and State National Guard forces when such are called into federal service) from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain "law and order" on non-federal property (states and their counties and municipal divisions) in the former Confederate states.

The statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Coast Guard is exempt from the Act.

Any militarization of our country is a dangerous thing and needs to be controlled carefully.

Why we should always keep an eye on our government

And those we hire to protect us. They think our own citizens are the terrorists:

Undercover Maryland State Police officers repeatedly spied on peace activists and anti-death penalty groups in recent years and entered the names of some in a law-enforcement database of people thought to be terrorists or drug traffickers, newly released documents show.

The files, made public Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, depict a pattern of infiltration of the activists' organizations in 2005 and 2006. The activists contend that the authorities were trying to determine whether they posed a security threat to the United States. But none of the 43 pages of summaries and computer logs - some with agents' names and whole paragraphs blacked out - mention criminal or even potentially criminal acts, the legal standard for initiating such surveillance.

State police officials said they did not curtail the protesters' freedoms.

The spying, detailed in logs of at least 288 hours of surveillance over a 14-month period, recalls similar infiltration by FBI agents of civil rights and anti-war groups decades ago, particularly under the administration of President Richard M. Nixon.

[snip]

In February 2006, the national ACLU and its affiliates filed multiple federal Freedom of Information requests seeking records of Pentagon surveillance of anti-war groups around the country. Using information from a secret Pentagon database, NBC News reported that a unit of the Department of Defense had been accumulating intelligence about domestic organizations and their protest activities as part of a mission to track "potential terrorist threats."

"It serves no security purpose to infiltrate peaceful groups," said Michael German, a former FBI agent who specialized in counter-terrorism and who joined the ACLU two years ago as policy counsel in its Washington legislative office. "It completely misuses law enforcement resources."

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, German said, the government has "actively encouraged" local police agencies to become intelligence gatherers and to compile information that does not necessarily have a connection to criminal activity.

Take a look at the army we have, Mr. Rumsfeld

And the war you wanted.

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The Defense Department's repair bill for dilapidated and destroyed equipment, weapons and vehicle is expected to exceed $100 billion this year. But if it settles the behemoth bill, the military may place in peril its plans to increase the size of the nation's armed forces.

Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the House panel that oversees defense spending, blamed the rush to upgrade the military's equipment and facilities to the failure of Pentagon to plan for a long and costly Iraq war. The Defense Department wants to bolster the size of the military with 92,000 new soldiers and Marines.

To pay the $100 billion plus military repair bill, Pentagon has no choice except to cut on its personnel budget, Murtha said.

The Bush administration's war of choice. Their quagmire. Their blunder. Bush's legacy.

Blackwater is in the money no matter who wins the presidency

An email sent out by Jeremy Scahill reprinting his Los Angeles Times article. I've posted it in full.

Blackwater's bright future
No matter who wins the White House, the security firm is shooting for lucrative work.
By Jeremy Scahill

June 16, 2008

From California to Iraq, business has never been better for the controversial private security firm Blackwater Worldwide. Company President Gary Jackson recently boasted that Blackwater has "had two successive quarters of unprecedented growth." Owner Erik Prince recently spun his company as the "FedEx" of the U.S. national security apparatus, describing Blackwater as a "robust temp agency."

Such rhetoric may seem brazen, given Blackwater's deadly record in Iraq and troubled reputation at home, but here is the cold, hard fact: Blackwater knows its future is bright no matter who next takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The company's most infamous moment came last September, when Blackwater operatives were alleged to have gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square. A U.S. military investigation labeled the shootings a "criminal event," and a federal grand jury in Washington is hearing evidence in the case.

The father of one of the dead, a 9-year-old boy shot in the head, testified before the grand jury in late May. He has rejected offers of monetary compensation from the U.S. government and Blackwater; he demands a public admission of guilt by the company. "This is important for me, morally, for my family and my tribe," said Mohammed Hafidh Abdul-Razzaq. Other survivors have been offering testimony to the United Nations, and some have filed a lawsuit in federal court in this country.

At the end of the day, perhaps criminal charges will be brought against a handful of Blackwater operatives as a token gesture. But this will not bring substantive change to the unaccountable private war industry. Indeed, the killing of Iraqi civilians and other scandals do not seem to hurt Blackwater's business at all. Quite the opposite.

In April, over the objections of the U.S.-installed Iraqi government, which has demanded Blackwater's expulsion, the Bush administration quietly renewed the company's lucrative Iraq contract for yet another year. To date, the company has pulled in over $1 billion from its Iraq and Afghanistan "security" contracts alone.

Blackwater is also winning at home. The company recently fought back widespread local opposition to its plans for a new warfare training center in San Diego. When residents and local officials tried to block it, Blackwater sued the city. A federal judge, appointed by President Bush's father, ordered San Diego to stand down. Now the company is entrenched, guns a blazin', in San Diego and is well positioned to cash in on the increasingly privatized border-patrol industry.

Blackwater's California expansion is just one of several ventures that reveal how Blackwater is growing. Among the others:

* Prince's private spy agency, Total Intelligence Solutions, is now open for business. Run by three veteran CIA operatives, the company offers "CIA-type services" to governments and Fortune 1000 companies.

* Blackwater was asked by the Pentagon to bid for a share of a whopping $15-billion contract to "fight terrorists with drug-trade ties" in countries such as Colombia, Bolivia, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Analysts say it could be the company's "biggest job" ever.

* Blackwater is wrapping up work on its own armored vehicle, the Grizzly, as well as its Polar Airship 400, a surveillance blimp Blackwater wants to market for use in monitoring the U.S.-Mexico border.

But is Blackwater counting its chickens before they hatch? Some may see it as a foregone conclusion that if Barack Obama wins in November, Blackwater's days on the federal payroll would be numbered. Obama has labeled it "unaccountable" and a danger to U.S. troops in Iraq. (By comparison, John McCain's top strategist, Charlie Black, has worked for Blackwater.)

But it is far more complicated than that. Obama may want to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq, for instance, but "diplomatic security" is where Blackwater's bread is lathered with golden butter. Obama has pledged to increase diplomatic activity in Iraq and to keep in place the Green Zone and the monstrous U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Despite his criticism, Obama may have no choice but to use these private forces. His top advisors have painfully acknowledged Obama "cannot rule [it] out."

Consider the numbers: At present, Blackwater has about two-thirds as many operatives in Baghdad as the U.S. State Department has diplomatic security agents in the entire world, including Iraq. Although Obama has said he wants diplomatic security to be done by U.S. government employees, accountable under U.S. law, the State Department estimates that it could take years to recruit, vet and train a force to take over Blackwater's work.

In addition, Obama's rhetoric on Latin America strikes familiar "drug war" chords, which bodes well for Blackwater, and he plans to send 7,000 more troops to Afghanistan, where the company is already firmly entrenched.

Blackwater's work in Iraq began with one $27-million no-bid contract to guard the U.S. administrator for the country, L. Paul Bremer III, in 2003. In five years it has metastasized into a central component of the U.S. presence in Iraq and is spreading fast into the most sensitive areas of the national security apparatus.

There is no question that a McCain White House would be preferred by Blackwater and its allies. The question is: Would a Democratic victory really be bad for business?

Jeremy Scahill is the author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army."

Update 6/17... interesting. I've been checked out by this site:

Domain Name qwest.net ? (Network)
IP Address 67.130.62.# (ONE VOICE COMMUNICATIONS)
ISP Qwest Communications
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Virginia
City : Mc Lean
Lat/Long : 38.9499, -77.2223 (Map)

And who is in McLean, Virginia?

CONTACT BLACKWATER

Mr. Erik Prince
Prince Group
1660 International Dr., Suite 47
McLean, VA 22102

I've also had many visits from Herndon, Virginia. Who is in Herndon? One Voice Communications. Which has on its testimonials a scrolling client list which has Blackwater. Oddly, every other company that appears has a quote, but Blackwater is silent.

Wonder why?

Update: Pay attention to Erik Prince's Greystone Limited company:

Yet the most important vehicle for Prince's global aspirations isn't Blackwater proper, but Greystone Limited, a company he quietly founded in 2004 as his firm's "international affiliate." According to Chris Taylor, a former Marine Recon soldier who until May was Blackwater's vice president for strategic initiatives, Prince sought to build a new brand. "Blackwater has a sexy name and people pay attention to it," Taylor says, and sometimes that high profile "may not fit the proposed mission." In particular, he says, "international opportunities" were to be "looked at through Greystone."

Nearly all of the 20 or more companies Prince has launched or acquired over the years are U.S. based. Greystone, however, was incorporated in the Caribbean tax haven of Barbados, although it is managed from Blackwater's headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina. (The Barbados address and phone number listed in the federal government's contractor database trace back to a firm that specializes in shielding corporate revenues from U.S. tax authorities.) "As far as I know, they were the same company with different names," notes a contractor who worked for Blackwater in Iraq.

Unlike Blackwater, Greystone has managed to stay almost entirely out of public view, and it remains a mystery even to industry insiders. Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, a trade group of which Greystone was a member until late last year, couldn't say what the company does. (Blackwater pulled out of the group last October after the IPOA launched an investigation into its conduct; Greystone followed suit in November.)

[snip]

Prince and his diversified group of companies, though, are positioned to endure. The Greystone model doesn't depend on America's wars: Whether the future of the business lies in what the industry calls "peace and stability" work or in providing "proactive" strike forces to private clients, some element of the Prince network is in a position to deliver. "They're soldiers of fortune," says the security director of a well-known humanitarian NGO. "Today they are willing to do the bidding of the United States, because the United States is willing to pay them. Who are they willing to work for tomorrow?"

crossposted at American Street

Lies and propaganda

Straight from the White House and the Pentagon.

Glenn Greenwald:

The Pentagon has posted to its website the roughly 8,000 pages and audio tapes it was forced to provide to the New York Times regarding its "military analyst" program. Anyone who reads through them, as I've now done, can only be left with one conclusion (other than being extremely impressed with David Barstow's work in putting together this story): if this wasn't an example of an illegal, systematic "domestic propaganda campaign" by the Pentagon, then nothing is.

This should be exploding all over the front pages, but it's not. Glenn Greenwald continues:

Despite this, the truly extraordinary blackout by the major television and cable news networks -- which were complicit in this program -- continues. Howard Kurtz of CNN and The Washington Post previously called this blackout "pathetic", and yesterday, The Politico published a relatively impressive article further documenting the "deafening silence" from the networks at the center of this story. As the article noted:

While bloggers have kept the story simmering, Democratic congressional leaders also are speaking out, calling for investigations that could provoke the networks to finally cover the Times story — and, in effect, themselves.

Beyond the networks' keeping this scandal completely concealed from their viewers, The Politico story noted that only two network executives -- CNN's President Jim Walton and ABC's President David Westin (.pdf) -- even bothered to respond to the letters sent by Rep. Rosa DeLauro to all networks demanding answers with regard to their complicity in this program. When responding, the two executives -- exactly as Brian Williams was when he was finally forced by blog-inspired commenters to respond (on his blog, but not on NBC) -- were casually dismissive of the entire matter, insisting that they had done nothing wrong (other than CNN's acknowledgment that they failed to detect a conflict of interest with regard to a single military analyst they had used).

Now if this had been ... say ... Bill Clinton who had done this, they'd work in the death of Vince Foster, illicit sex, cigars, AND Monica Lewinsky into the relentless 24/7 news cycle. The frothing and blather would never cease.

By they, I mean the Right Wing Smear Machine... the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. They aren't even trying to hide it any more, are they?

What ever happened to Rumsfeld's six week war?

The plans for a power grab in Iraq and popping Chalabi in place so the neocons could attack Iran looked so good....

In February 2003, Gen. Eric Shinseki famously predicted that “several hundred thousand” troops would be needed for post-war hostilities in Iraq. According to documents recently released by the Pentagon in response to The New York Times’s expose on its propaganda program, however, Donald Rumsfeld claimed in a 2006 briefing that the reason why he did not support a larger invasion force was because commanders did not request it

Uh huh. Riiiiight. Let the finger-pointing and the blame game begin!



crossposted at SteveAudio

That's not just a cockroach!

It's a CIA operative!

So what's hot at DARPA right now? Bugs. The creepy, crawly flying kind. The Agency's Microsystems Technology Office is hard at work on HI-MEMS (Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical System), raising real insects filled with electronic circuitry, which could be guided using GPS technology to specific targets via electrical impulses sent to their muscles. These half-bug, half-chip creations — DARPA calls them "insect cyborgs" — would be ideal for surveillance missions, the agency says in a brief description on its website.

Scientist Amit Lal and his team insert mechanical components into baby bugs during "the caterpillar and the pupae stages," which would then allow the adult bugs to be deployed to do the Pentagon's bidding. "The HI-MEMS program is aimed at developing tightly coupled machine-insect interfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis," DARPA says. "Since a majority of the tissue development in insects occurs in the later stages of metamorphosis, the renewed tissue growth around the MEMS will tend to heal, and form a reliable and stable tissue-machine interface." Such bugs "could carry one or more sensors, such as a microphone or a gas sensor, to relay back information gathered from the target destination."

So we must activate our own state of the art defenses!







The arms race will never cease!

Somebody in the bowels of the Pentagon responds

To my post about General Richard Cody emphasizing the 'All Volunteer' military.

Citiwindo, a blogger name created in April 2008 and whose ip address showed (s)he is connected to the Pentagon said this in comments:

The last thing GEN Cody wants is to bring back the Draft. If you look at all of his previous statements in hearings and in media - he STRONGLY opposes the Draftt. He served in a draft Army, and knows how bad it can get. He made that statement last week to get Congress to get off their duffs and give the Army the money it needs to win this War, and to take care of the Soldiers and families. Congress continues to underfund this Army and cut key programs, FCS, etc. His message has always been the same. Grow the Army, fund it appropriately in the BASE budget, and stop trying to win this war on the cheap thru supplementals.

He served in a draft Army, and knows how bad it can get.

What do you mean? Do you mean those people who don't volunteer tend to be hostile about fighting incompetently run wars? And volunteers apparently will go uncomplainingly and willingly to their deaths because they ... volunteered? Or do you mean the fact that activating the draft would bring the wrath of all voters down upon the heads of politicians? Or could it be you are suggesting the draft gathers up people who shouldn't be in the military? Kinda like those soldiers who won WWII?

He made that statement last week to get Congress to get off their duffs and give the Army the money it needs to win this War, and to take care of the Soldiers and families.

Hmm. I understand the statement about taking care of our soldiers, like not cutting veteran's benefits which Republicans have done several times during the Bush administration. Besides the Walter Reed scandal which was mirrored in every other VA hospital across the nation, just recently we found soldiers who were suffering traumatic brain injuries were being sent back to the war and that some VA employees were told to no longer help disabled soldiers with the filing their paperwork. Is that the kind of getting off of the duff you mean? Or could it be the wonderful new GI Bill Senator Webb is trying to get passed? Why isn't McCain supporting this?

And yet you are blaming Congress? Is it because it is now run by a Democratic majority? You're not blaming the administration that got us into this mess? Not the people who thought this war would be a cakewalk? Not the neocons who thought they'd take out Hussein and pop in Chalabi and everything would be over in six weeks? Not the idiots who try to stifle the soldiers voices when they come back to the US? You aren't blaming the Bush administration but Congress? How odd.

So the plan is to keep sending the volunteers back again and again on their third... sixth... twelfth deployment while they slowly go mad or die? Is your response: So?

We have lost trillions ... TRILLIONS of dollars in this unwarranted, unsupported, unnecessary war of Bush and Cheney's. The neocon wet dream of all wet dreams was to take out Saddam Hussein and wedge ourselves into control in the middle of the oil lands. Well, we are now wedged between Iraq and the Eternal War on a Noun with no clear way out.

So. Just how would more money solve this problem? What could be done with even MORE trillions tossed into the quagmire that we haven't yet tried?

Do you think you could define what winning this war would entail? How do we win the Iraq war which is actually about twenty different little wars: the sectarian vs nationalist war, Shiite vs Shiite factions, Sunni vs Shiite, Kurds vs Turks, Kurds vs Shiite and Sunni, tribal loyalities, revenge, Saudi Arabia vs Iran posturing, warlords jockeying for power and a say in the new government, and al-Qaeda vs everybody else?

I don't think I have ever heard anyone even good ol' Petraeus dare to even attempt to define what victory in Iraq would look like and how it could be achieved. It's always just six months away. Wait another few months, four months, six months.... wait until Bush is no longer President....

Can you define your statement: winning this war? Because, by defining victory, you must then explain the real reason we attacked and invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq which had nothing to do with 9/11.

I don't think you can.

Practicing his love on lobbyists

All the way to the bank:

Critics on Tuesday questioned whether Sen. John McCain catered to special interests when he aggressively threw his support behind a $35 billion Pentagon contract for a European plane maker.

McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, played a crucial role in blocking the deal to build air tankers from going to U.S.-based Boeing, instead paving the path for EADS to score the loot. He framed his decision as an example of political integrity; Boeing has previously been exposed of contract abuse. But a review of campaign finance donations and lobbying records suggests that money and personal lobbying may have also been in play.

On January 15, 2007, McCain appeared at Alabama Gov. Bob Riley's gubernatorial swearing in ceremony and formally called for multiple bidders in the tanker deal. The push for an open process had only one true beneficiary, however, and that was the Northrop Grumman/EADS consortium, which was poised to be Boeing's sole competitor.

A day after McCain made his proclamation, the contributions began to flow. [snip]

All told, as documented earlier by CQ PoliticalMoneyline, McCain received more than $15,000 from EADS and its subsidiary, Airbus North America. Not only was this the highest amount received by any federal candidate, but prior to 2006, not a single employee from EADS had ever contributed to McCain. Two Airbus employees did donate nearly $4,000 for his 2000 run at the White House.

[snip]

But there are myriad signs that EADS curried up to the Arizona Senator. And it wasn't just the money. According to an Associated Press report published on Tuesday, the McCain campaign currently employs individuals who just last year were lobbying on behalf of EADS.

"Two of the advisers gave up their lobbying work when they joined McCain's campaign," the AP wrote. "A third, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, lobbied for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. while serving as McCain's national finance chairman."

One of those advisers, John Green, left Ogilvy Government Relations to become McCain's congressional Republican liaison shortly after the EADS deal was announced.

"They never lobbied him related to the issues, and the letters went out before they were contracted" by EADS, McCain campaign spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker told the AP.

In the end, McCain may have received more than just campaign contributions in return for his support of the EADS contract. Parts for the refueling tankers are slated to be built in Mobile, Alabama. And just days after the deal was finalized, the state's governor, Bob Riley -- a long holdout in the presidential process -- finally offered his endorsement of McCain's candidacy.