A Spork in the Drawer

Blackwater=Small Business

Oopsie:

Blackwater obtained dozens of small business contracts worth more than $110 million even though the private security company may have exceeded size limits for a small business, according to a federal audit released today.

The Inspector General of the Small Business Administration said Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., obtained 39 contracts set aside for small businesses from 2005 through 2007. Of these, 32 contracts worth $2.1 million were set aside for companies with annual revenues of $6.5 million or less.

No doubt this was an honest mistake.

The Inspector General also found fault with the handling of aviation contracts worth $107 million that the Defense Department awarded Blackwater. The contract was set aside either for a company with less than $25.5 million in annual revenue, or a company with less than 1,500 employees.

I'm sure this, too, was an honest mistake.

The report said the company may have improperly classified Blackwater guards in Iraq and Afghanistan as independent contractors rather than employees.

Golly, the honest mistakes are really piling up, eh?

Well, in the unlikely event that charges are filed against Blackwater I'm sure the company will demand justice under Sharia Law.

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Meanwhile, In Mexico

Big fun:

Videos showing Mexican police learning torture methods appeared on the Internet this week as the country, soon to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. anti-drug aid, is seeking to improve its human rights record.

Indeed, any country that tortures can safely be said to have a poor human rights record.

The videos show officers in the city of Leon, about 150 miles northwest of Mexico City, forcing one of their colleagues to crawl through vomit and injecting carbonated water into the nose of another. An instructor, whose face can be seen in one video, barks out commands in English. Leon Police Chief Carlos Tornero told the Associated Press that the instructor is from a private U.S. security firm, but he declined to say which one. [emphasis added]

Might I suggest a new national slogan: Americans - The Torture-Happy People!

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Sovereign

Or maybe not:

With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire, the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors immunity from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials. [Emphases added.]

Why don't they just come out and say that Iraq is a US colony? Of course, that would mean being honest and this crowd doesn't do honesty.

Meanwhile, if two wars aren't enough for you and you're still waiting for war #3 (Iran) how about sating your bloodlust and skipping right to war #4?

The Bush administration is willing to send a small number of U.S. combat troops to Pakistan to help fight the insurgency there if Pakistani authorities ask for such help, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.

Between war,war, and more war (not to mention our dandy economic situation) we'll be lucky to make it to the next presidential inauguration.

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Mysterious Friends In High Places

Here's a surprise:

Potential prosecution of Blackwater guards allegedly involved in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians last month may have been compromised because the guards received immunity for statements they made to State Department officials investigating the incident, federal law enforcement officials said yesterday.

FBI agents called in to take over the State Department's investigation two weeks after the Sept. 16 shootings cannot use any information gleaned during questioning of the guards by the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which is charged with supervising security contractors.

Golly, imagine that. BushCheney's favorite mercenary outfit/cult (Amway) gets to skate.

So who made the decision to grant immunity to the mercs? Who knows!

It is unclear when or by whom the grant of immunity was explained to the guards. Under federal case law applying to government workers, only voluntary answers to questions posed by the employing agency can be used against them in a criminal prosecution. If an employee is ordered to answer under threat of disciplinary action, the resulting statements cannot be used.

[...]

Diplomatic Security spokesman Brian Leventhal declined to comment on the situation, first reported yesterday by the Associated Press. Anne Tyrrell, a spokeswoman for North Carolina-based Blackwater Worldwide, also declined to comment.

It almost makes me think the executive branch has become a lawless criminal organization but that couldn't happen, could it? We live under the rule of law, not men, don't we?

Or perhaps it's once again time for the chairs of various Congressional committees to send more Sternly Worded Letters™ to the White House.

That'll get to the bottom of this.

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Business Is Booming

Apparently North Carolina just isn't big enough for everybody's favorite mercenary outfit, Blackwater USA. So our fine, if well-armed and tweaked, friends have decided to heed the advice of Horace Greeley and go west:

Blackwater U.S.A. has its sights set on a piece of land 45 miles east of San Diego. The security firm wants to build a training complex called "Blackwater West." Its private armed security guards, police and military personnel would use the facility, but many residents in the town of Potrero do not want the controversial company to be their new neighbor.

Where there is farmland as far as the eye can see, a plan is in the works to build a 220-acre training facility for Blackwater U.S.A., the security firm that Iraqi officials say is responsible for the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in September.

Afraid of the inevitable increase in traffic, the environmental effects of the facility, and the noise from a - get ready for it - 3,000-foot-long firing range residents are a bit peeved and, as the article states, a "recall movement is now underway to remove members of the Potrero Planning Committee who support bringing Blackwater to their town."

Who knows, maybe they'll be moving into your neighborhood next.

[Via BarbinMD.]

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A Must Read

Newsweek:

Since the fatal Sept. 16 Blackwater USA shooting in Baghdad’s Nasoor Square, officials from the private security company have insisted that their guards were responding to fire from “armed enemies.” Yet an extensive evidence file put together by the Iraqi National Police and obtained by NEWSWEEK—including documents, maps, sworn witness statements and police video footage—appears to contradict the contractors’ version of events. A confidential incident report, which has been provided by Iraqi National Police investigators to American military and civilian officials, concludes that the Blackwater vehicles “opened fire crazily and randomly, without any reason.”

Watch the video. And remember that the helicopter isn't US military (or Iraqi military - if such a thing exists.) but a mercenary helicopter.

Coming soon to a town near you.

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Well Then

Remember way back in 2003 the killing and stringing-up of four Blackwater mercenaries in Fallujah? The event that led to two fierce battles and the practical razing of the city? Whoops! Guess who's at fault:

Blackwater USA triggered a major battle in the Iraq war by sending an unprepared team of security guards into an insurgent stronghold, a move that led to their horrific deaths and a violent response by U.S. forces, according to a congressional investigation released Thursday.

The private security company, one of the largest working in Iraq and under scrutiny for how it operates, also is faulted for initially insisting its guards were properly prepared and equipped and for impeding the inquiry by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

In other words, Blackwater lied and engaged in a cover up.

The families of the four killed contractors filed suit against the company in January 2005, saying that Blackwater's cost-cutting measures led to the deaths. That lawsuit is still pending as a federal judge tries to determine whether it should be heard in arbitration or in open court.

Blackwater has argued in court that it is immune to such a lawsuit because the company operates as an extension of the military and cannot be responsible for deaths in a war zone.

Ah, but Blackwater doesn't fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) so arguing that they're "an extension of the military" doesn't wash.

The State Department, one of Blackwater's largest customers, has opened an investigation into the incident. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told Congress Wednesday that the incident in Baghdad was tragic, but called private security companies such as Blackwater essential to operations in Iraq.

I'll say it again: If the US is unable to wage war without large numbers of mercenaries then it has no business in starting wars.

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Throw Them All Out

So Iraqi "Prime Minister" Nuri al-Maliki is upset that the powerful and connected mercenary outfit Blackwater USA has killed innocent civilians:

Several violent episodes involving Blackwater have infuriated Iraqi officials. An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said the decision meant Blackwater "cannot work in Iraq any longer."

"Blackwater has made many mistakes resulting in other deaths, but this is the last and the biggest mistake. This is unjustified," Khalaf said. "Security contracts do not allow them to shoot people randomly. They are here to protect personnel, not shoot people without reason."

None of this should be surprising. Blackwater and other mercenary providers essentially operate under no laws. And let's remember that it was the killing of four Blackwater mercs that led to razing of Fallujah.

I agree with Larry Johnson that Blackwater isn't going anywhere. Indeed, the Iraqi "government" has already started backing off.

Throw them all out. If the US military is unable to undertake missions without the use of mercenaries then the US government had better start rethinking a few things.

John Amato has video of what appears to be "contractors" shooting up Iraqi civilians. And I highly recommend Jeremy Scahill's Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Blackwater is much more frightening than you might think.

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Mercs

Winning hearts and minds:

On the afternoon of July 8, 2006, four private security guards rolled out of Baghdad's Green Zone in an armored SUV. The team leader, Jacob C. Washbourne, rode in the front passenger seat. He seemed in a good mood. His vacation started the next day.

"I want to kill somebody today," Washbourne said, according to the three other men in the vehicle, who later recalled it as an offhand remark. Before the day was over, however, the guards had been involved in three shooting incidents. In one, Washbourne allegedly fired into the windshield of a taxi for amusement, according to interviews and statements from the three other guards.

Washbourne, a 29-year-old former Marine, denied the allegations. "They're all unfounded, unbased, and they simply did not happen," he said during an interview near his home in Broken Arrow, Okla.

[...]

Private contractors were granted immunity from the Iraqi legal process in 2004 by L. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation government. More recently, the military and Congress have moved to establish guidelines for prosecuting contractors under U.S. law or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but so far the issue remains unresolved.

[...]

Schmidt and Sheppard said they were horrified by what they described as a shooting rampage by Washbourne and waited two days to come forward because they feared for their jobs and their lives. The two have sued Triple Canopy in Fairfax County Circuit Court, arguing that the company fired them for reporting a crime.

But another man in the vehicle, Fijian army veteran Isireli Naucukidi, said Sheppard, who was driving, cut off the taxi on Washbourne's orders, giving him a better shot. Naucukidi said the three American guards laughed as they sped away, the fate of the Iraqi taxi driver unknown. Schmidt told Washbourne, "Nice shot," according to Naucukidi.

Naucukidi also said that Schmidt was responsible for an earlier shooting incident that afternoon involving a white civilian truck, and that he believed Schmidt and Sheppard had blamed Washbourne to cover up their own potential culpability. Schmidt denied responsibility for that shooting but acknowledged in an interview he had fired a warning shot into the grille of a car on a separate airport run that morning and had failed to report it.

It goes on from there.

Forget the issue of American-paid mercenaries - excuse me, private contractors - being exempt from all laws. If we're going to go to war either a) have enough troops to do the job even if that means conscription or b) don't go to war. It's that simple.

And it's important to note that Iraqis don't see any difference between mercenaries and American troops which, naturally, puts our troops in a bad position, to say the least.

As far as I'm concerned Blackwater USA and its mercenaries can go hang.

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Foreign Mercenaries

Don't know much about history:

The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks -- including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and putting more immigrants on a faster track to US citizenship if they volunteer -- according to Pentagon officials.

Foreign citizens serving in the US military is a highly charged issue, which could expose the Pentagon to criticism that it is essentially using mercenaries to defend the country. Other analysts voice concern that a large contingent of noncitizens under arms could jeopardize national security or reflect badly on Americans' willingness to serve in uniform.

Some time ago, Thomas Jefferson charged another George:

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

And now our king-in-his-own-mind George wants his own Hessians.

It's truly remarkable how fast and how far this nation has fallen.

[Via Steve Benen subbing for Drum.]

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Remember Iraq?

AP:

Elsewhere, coalition forces raided a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad searching for dozens of Iraqi hostages and combed through a rural area in southern Iraq where four American security contractors and an Austrian were kidnapped. Both efforts appeared to come up empty-handed.

"Security contractors" = "Mercenaries".

Thomas Jefferson wrote, and the Continental Congress approved:

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

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