Blackwater Rising

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So what are these Blackwater operatives? Peace keepers, law enforcers or dogs of war, armed goons? Or are they the new Stasi?

by Anwaar Hussain

ninja.jpg

Kālā Pānī, literally ‘Black water’ in Urdu/Hindi languages, a term for the deep sea and hence exile, was the name of a notorious cellular jail situated in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (India). The prison was known to house many notable Indian activists during the struggle for India’s independence. In March 1868, 238 prisoners tried to escape. By April they were all caught. One committed suicide and of the remainder, British Superintendent Walker ordered 87 to be hanged.

On the U.S. mainland, the Blackwater River of Florida is a 58-mile long river arising in southern Alabama and flowing through the Florida Panhandle to the Gulf of Mexico. The river enters Florida in Okaloosa County and flows through Santa Rosa County to Blackwater Bay, an arm of Pensacola Bay. The river passes through Blackwater River State Park.

There is yet another blackwater river in North Carolina that goes by the name of White Oak River. The White Oak River is located in North Carolina’s outer coastal plain province in Carteret, Jones, and Onslow Counties.

Also in the U.S. state of North Carolina is a private military company, the Blackwater USA. It is a self-described private military company and security firm founded in 1997 by Messrs. Erik Prince and Al Clark. Blackwater operates a tactical training facility that it claims is the world’s largest. The company trains more than 40,000 people a year, from all the military services and a variety of other agencies.

Blackwater is currently the largest of the U.S. State Department’s three private security contractors deployed in Iraq. At least 90% of its revenue comes from government contracts, two-thirds of which are no-bid contracts. The cost for each Blackwater guard, a foot soldier, in Iraq is estimated to be around $445,000 per year, more than twice that of a U.S. General’s salary with 26 years of service.

On September 16, 2007, more than 20 Iraqis were shot at by Blackwater employees on an intersection in Nisoor Square, Baghdad. At least 11 were killed, including a mother and her child in an automobile. On September 23, 2007, the Iraqi government said that it expects to refer criminal charges to its courts in connection with the Blackwater shooting.

Can the Iraqi government do that? Not really. Two days before he left Iraq, L. Paul Bremer signed “Order 17” giving all Americans associated with the CPA and the American government immunity from Iraqi law. That exemption still holds.

The company markets itself as being “The most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world”. In the international media, however, it has frequently been referred to as a mercenary group. The online thesaurus Encarta calls a mercenary a soldier of fortune, dog of war, soldier, legionnaire, freedom fighter, guerrilla etc. while the online Thesaurus.com calls a mercenary as acquisitive, avaricious, bribable, corrupt, covetous, grabby, grasping, miserly, money-grubbing, selfish, sordid, stingy, unethical, unprincipled, unscrupulous, venal etc.

So what are Blackwater operatives to be called, peace keepers, law enforcers or dogs of war, armed goons?

Let us decide.

Blackwater’s owner and founder is one Erik Prince. A former Navy Seal, Prince sold the idea of a “contractor brigade” at a military conference in early 2005. He said, “There’s consternation in the [Pentagon] about increasing the permanent size of the Army”. Officials “want to add 30,000 people, and they talked about costs of anywhere from $3.6 billion to $4 billion to do that. Well, by my math, that comes out to about $135,000 per soldier.” He added: “We could do it certainly cheaper.”

Prince is reported to have contributed $168,000 to the Republican National Committee since 1998, and has also supported the candidacies of conservatives such as President George W. Bush and Senator Tom Coburn etc. Cofer Black, the company’s current vice chairman, was the Bush administration’s top counter terrorism official when 9/11 occurred. Blackwater has become home to a significant number of former senior CIA and Pentagon officials. Robert Richer, formerly the head of the CIA’s Near East Division, became the firm’s Vice President of Intelligence immediately after he resigned his position as Associate Deputy Director of Operations in fall 2005.

Earlier this year, Erik Prince appeared before the House oversight committee. His demeanor suggested as though he were a general of US forces deserving rightful deference from run of the mill civilians. Prince simply dismissed any allegations of wrongdoing about Blackwater’s bloody trail in Iraq: “I believe we acted appropriately at all times.” His royal disdain for his congressional questioners was barely concealed. “If there’s two questions left,” he said, “I’ll take them and then let’s be done.”

Blackwater USA was formed in 1997 to provide training support to military and law enforcement organizations. In 2002 Blackwater Security Consulting (BSC) was formed. Blackwater has reportedly received no-bid government contracts of over one billion dollars so far.

In 2003, Blackwater attained its first high-profile contract: guarding the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Administrator L. Paul Bremer in Iraq, at the cost of $21 million for 11 months. Since June 2004, Blackwater has been paid more than $320 million out of a $1 billion, five-year State Department budget for the Worldwide Personal Protective Service, which protects U.S. officials and some foreign officials in conflict zones.

In 2006, Blackwater won the remunerative contract to protect the U.S. embassy in Iraq, which is the largest American embassy in the world. It is estimated by the Pentagon and company representatives that there are 20,000 to 30,000 armed security contractors working in Iraq, and some estimates are as much as 100,000, though no official figures exist.

For work in Iraq, Blackwater has drawn contractors from their international pool of professionals, a database containing “21,000 former Special Forces operatives, soldiers, and retired law enforcement agents,” overall. For instance, Gary Jackson, the firm’s president, has confirmed that Bosnians, Filipinos, and Chileans, “have been hired for tasks ranging from airport security to protecting Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.”

According to The Age, Blackwater has been hiring mercenaries in Chile to replace its soldiers on security duty in Iraq many of whom had trained under the military government of Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean monster. “We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals” the president of Blackwater USA, Gary Jackson, said. Squads of Bosnians, Filipinos and Americans with Special Forces experience have been hired for various tasks. Their salaries can be as high as $US1000 a day, the news agency AFP recently reported. Erwin, a 28-year-old former US army sergeant working in Iraq, told AFP: “This place is a goldmine. All you need is five years in the military and you come here and make a good bundle.”

On Christmas Eve, 2006, a security guard of the Iraqi Vice-president, Adel Abdul Mahdi, was killed by one Andrew J. Moonen, a drunken Blackwater mercenary. Moonen left Iraq days after the killing, returning home to Seattle, Washington in the United States, where the United States Attorneys are investigating currently. The United States State Department and Blackwater USA had attempted to keep his identity secret.

In late May 2007, Blackwater contractors, “opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days… and one of the incidents provoked a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi Interior Ministry commandos, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.” And on May 30, 2007, Blackwater employees shot an Iraqi civilian deemed to have been “driving too close” to a State Department convoy being escorted by Blackwater contractors.

On the whole, between 2005 and September 2007 Blackwater security staff was involved in 195 shooting incidents, in 163 of those cases Blackwater personnel fired first. 25 members of staff have been sacked for violations of Blackwaters drug and alcohol policy and 28 more for weapons related incidents.

Iraqi blood is cheap. That goes without saying. Rivers of it can be spilled. Americans are killing Iraqis, Iraqis are killing Iraqis. The mayhem goes on with no end in sight. But have the Americans imagined what would happen when the chickens finally come home to roost. Consider the Blackwater goon squad shooting at citizens of Washington DC who might accidentally get “too close” to a presidential motorcade. It may be recalled that Blackwater USA was deployed at New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The residents there were told by gun-toting guys dressed like Ninjas wearing “Blackwater” badges: “Try to go into your homes and we’ll arrest you.”

So what are these Blackwater operatives after all? Peace keepers, law enforcers or dogs of war, armed goons? Or are they the new Stasi?

Or have they, with the largest private military base in the world, a fleet of 20 aircraft and 20,000 gun-slinging soldiers at the ready, become the elite, rapidly deployable, avant-garde Praetorian Guard available to the highest bidder at the forefront of the global ‘war on terror’?

Any one?

Copyrights : Anwaar Hussain

Acknowledgement : Other than the embedded links, the article draws heavily upon various wikipedia sources.



Comments

11 Responses to “Blackwater Rising”

  1. Michelle on October 5th, 2007 2:59 pm

    House Bill Would Allow Prosecution of Contractors
    Blackwater Eyes Domestic Contracts in U.S.
    Blackwater’s Prince Has GOP, Christian Group Ties

    Go To:
    Re: Current Legislation/Action
    « Reply #76 on Today 10/05/07 at 1:35pm »
    http://airdance.proboards50.co.....amp;page=6

  2. Jonathan Stephenson on October 5th, 2007 4:50 pm

    Anwaar you are exactely right about Blackwater Security, they are the US SS, Bush/Cheney’s private army and terrorists, they will and have been used in the USA, they even went around confiscating Guns from New Orleanians who were trying to protect themselves, something the police wouldn’t have dared try. All one has to do is look at the History of Hitler in Germany to see that the parallels are so close it is terrifying. This will be the private army carrying US Citizens off to camps, starting with Muslims, soon followed by political apponents, ultimately all of those these monsters consider useless eaters. 93 to 3 was the latest vote in the Senate to give Bush his money for the Iraq War
    15,000 people showed up for the huge march on the Pentagon to end the Iraq War. We the people of the USA deserve what is coming upon us, and it will be at least as bad for us, as it is for the Iraqi’s, Afghani’s, and Palestinaians, we deserve it for sure!

  3. Joe Cortina on October 5th, 2007 9:08 pm

    Interesting. As a former Spcial Forces officer myself - I highly disapprove of govt subsidized ‘private armies’ - as should ALL Americans. I WILL report this to Congressional authorities - but will not hold my breath - as they have probably approved it.

    This thing smirks of an AmeriKan Cheka which is of cours a threat to all American civilians.

    MMnn - lets see now- These Black Water thugs sound like the former Soviet Cheka that murdered some 20 million Christian civilians at the bequest of the JEw dominated criminals. Jews dominated the Cheka and the power arm of the USSR at the time.

    In the former USA (now the USI - the United States of IsraHELL) we have a jew appendage Furher surrounded by ALL REAL jews loyal to IsraHELL. The Zionist IsraHELL is substantially composed of former USSR jew commisars who would love to finish the job they started in the USSR.

    So REAL Christian Constitution loyal patriots like my self must be eliminated before IsraHELL can complete their world domination goal - and an AmeriKan Cheka/Stasi ultimately loyal to IsraHELL (ie. our furher jew Bush) would be germaon to the overall plan indeed.

    Our braindead pasty faced Christian-Zionist IsraHELL firsters would of course ideologically side with ANY force - no matter how criminal and no matter how treasonous - that would show loyalty to America before IsraHELL.

    Sounds like a great plan for the internal destruction of America to me. Since we have ALREADY evolved into a nation of spineless, greedy self serving sheep anyway - it should be a no-brainer!

    OH - and of course - our new masters must let us have those childish games to supplicate our diminshed intellects and keep our atrophied brains off of boring matters like the survival of what used to be America.

    We will have sold our souls and freedoms for 30 pieces of silver to our jew masters - BUT at least we will still have what the average brain -sharing neo-American values most in life today — nice shiny new material ‘things’, - our tailgate parties - our cold beer and plenty of gladiator ( NFL) entertainment at our local colluseums. GOOOO BUCS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  4. Hadi on October 6th, 2007 2:18 am

    Scary but very plausible. But then nothing new.Each super power in every era somehow manages to rewrite history and the American people are no better or worse. Have we not heard that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely? or he that lives by the gun, dies by the gun? or you can never have liberty if you are not prepared to give it to others? The last came from an American sage when the US indeed was a land of opportunity for all. It is still a land of opportunity, but getting to be more for the opportunists with gun toting thugs. I am running out of accolades for your investigative renderings. I who once admired the American policies of justice and fairplay for all find it difficult to do so now. I continue to admire though the majority of the people there.

  5. Tymenus on October 6th, 2007 9:41 am

    Out of Luck

    So why aren’t we all cheering
    For Post War profiteering
    I could be so darn wealthy
    If I only owned some stock.
    How’d I miss the gravy train.
    300 billion dollars waned
    To those known PMC’s*
    Now based inside IRAQ

    The feast of Post war Oil
    Bonanza for the soil
    Has already planned it’s entry..
    To reap spoils of the war..

    And the pentagon is spending
    Pocketing and lending
    A handout to the system
    Of those well connected scores…

    They’ll cut the social systems…
    They’ve got no time for victims..
    Privatize security..
    Wall Streets chomping at the bit…

    But I just think it’s awful…
    The poor become unlawful..
    And Seniors we’re so sorry,
    Medicaid has gone to sh*t

    The veterans are still waiting..
    Food Stamps are slowly fading..
    And the temporary assistance ..
    We’ve cut, to pave the way..

    For lucky corporate collars..
    We’ve promised , taxpayers dollars.
    Pledging freedom to Iraq,
    Oh are people so naive?

    Send the message to your Rep…
    We’re tired of the inept..
    Shameful wasteful spending
    War-profiteering in Iraq..

    They’re trading social need
    To fund the corporate greed…
    And the rich will get much richer..
    And the poor, just out of luck.

    “There is a direct connection between war budget and abolishment of social programs.” V.R.

    *PMC= (Private Military Companies)

  6. Tymenus on October 6th, 2007 9:41 am

    Bad Business
    (Pentagon Contracts to Killers)

    There once was a man named Tim Spicer…
    Who thought it might be a bit nicer…
    To lobby our Feds, for a contract he wed…
    Of Two hundred and ninety three million…

    See, Tim is the main squeeze at Aegis..
    A contract, now just a bit famous..
    For security was bought and the contract was sought
    To establish defense in our spaces…

    But Tim, had a very fine knack…
    Shooting innocence right square in the back..
    Two guards under he, shot a boy trying to flee..
    The nature of hatred, was fact…

    So Peter McBride was the child,
    Who died on the watch, while Tim smiled…
    Shot in the back, without justice attacked
    “Shoot the bastard” was quoted in style…

    While Tim counts all his fine Greenbacks..
    Uncle Sam, taxpayer dollars have been sacked!
    We’ve rewarded a killer, whose hands in our tiller
    And contracted back to IRAQ!

    The pentagon turned a blind eye…
    The murder of Peter denied..
    To their justification , contract reparation
    Tim Spicer now lives rather high…

    U.S. Citizens and Patriots unite…
    We’ve contracted these losers , in blind site…
    What does that have to do… with a contract that’s new?
    To a company whose chief has this plight?

    See the Army contractor Ms. Sieber…
    Should have researched , a little more fiber…
    Of the child attacked, who was shot in the back
    Under murderous command of Tim Spicer…

    The Pentagon must step up to the plate…
    And deliver to Aegis their fate…
    Of a contract denial…it must be our style
    To not compensate these murderous traits.

    • Tim Spicer is the owner of Aegis Defense Services. The Army/Pentagon contract to co-ordinate the work of private security contractors in IRAQ. Two hundred ninety three million taxpayers dollars .
    • Peter McBride died at the command of Officer Tim Spicer, Commanding Officer of the Scots Guard.
    • Spicer’s former company, Sandline International , breached a UN embargo and supplied arms to Sierra Leone.
    More than fifty private security companies are in Iraq today, with an estimated 20,000 hired guns working for them. Spicer’s group is supposed to coordinate them all. And there’s one more catch: Spicer appears to have no previous experience handling such a large security operation, nor any ties to Iraq.

  7. Alan on October 8th, 2007 11:37 am

    Blackwater - Dark Forces

    You may have the idea that the war on terror being waged in Iraq is being prosecuted by brave enlisted soldiers in the various armed forces of the USA. Wrong. By far the largest number of American fighters in Iraq [at least 180,000 of them] are the soldiers of fortune and mercenaries - euphemistically known as “contractors” - employed by security service companies such as Blackwater USA, which has just been in the headlines because of their gung ho actions which led to the slaughter of a number of civilians in the streets of Iraq. [ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....477503.ece ]

    What is not widely known in the West is that these private security companies have a reputation in Iraq not only for shooting up civilians just for fun like wild west cowboys [see an example of this at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZX1odzHdAo ] but also for creating the ubiquitous death squads inside the Iraqi police force. [ http://www.unknownnews.net/040426lili.html & http://www.lewrockwell.com/pilger/pilger41.html ].The US administration could not do the war in Iraq using a military draft as it would have raised too many ghosts of the Vietnam war. So they have instead used private companies - euphemistically known as contractors - to do the dirty work for them.

    It was the killing of four Blackwater mercenaries in Fallujah (after a number of peaceful Iraqi demonstrators had been wrongfully killed by US forces) which immediately led to the totally over-the-top revenge-destruction of the town by the USA, killing thousands of people and razing most of the buildings to the ground in a classic “scorched earth” policy. This act was one of the most flagrant warcrimes to be carried out by the USA.

    However, what many people do not realise is that Blackwater USA is the tip of the iceberg of Christian involvement in, and responsibility for, the wars in the Middle-East. Blackwater USA is run by a 27 year-old billionaire called Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal and born-again Christian fundamentalist with connections to James Dobson and Gary Bauer (whose ministries were financed by the Prince family fortune). From the President of the USA to the head of the biggest supplier of mercenaries in Iraq, this whole war in Iraq is being prosecuted in the name of Christ.

    The Iraq war is a Christian fundamentalist bandwagon. It has been from the beginning. George W. Bush claimed that it was God who had personally told him to “strike at Saddam” [ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/p.....;listSrc=Y ]. Way back in 2003, the U.S. government launched an Arabic language propagandist satellite TV news station in Iraq. It was produced in the studios of Grace Digital Media which is controlled by fundamentalist Christian millionaire, Cheryl Reagan. Even before the Shock & Awe Campaign began in March 2003, the most vocal support for the war in Iraq was coming from Christian fundamentalists. [See http://www.commondreams.org/he.....010-02.htm for the October 2002 Inter Press Service article “Conservative Christians Biggest Backers of Iraq War”. See also the Z-Net article, “US Christian Right’s Grip on Middle East Policy”, on http://www.zmag.org/content/sh.....temID=5879 ].

    Blackwater CEO, Erik Prince, is a board member of Christian Freedom International (CFI). CFI’s mission statement says:

    “As a U.S. based, grass roots organization, we mobilize Christians in prayer, advocacy, and action on behalf of men, women, and children who are harassed, tortured, imprisoned, and martyred for their faith”. [ http://www.christianfreedom.org/w_mission.html ]

    How does Erik Prince square that statement with his founding and running of Blackwater - one of the most blatant “fortune commando” operations of harassment and violence ever conceived? The answer is simple. He is part of the Christian Fundamentalist network which believes in the God-given use of extreme force to wipe out Muslims and establish what it calls justice, freedom and democracy for the masses. But the ends of anything can only be justified if the means used to bring about those ends are compatible with them. How can one establish “justice, freedom and democracy” through a brutal, genocidal occupation?

    The Christian fundamentalist scene in the USA is now largely more supportive of the Iraq war than it is of the moral imperatives of its Scriptures - about how it justifies genocide with a shrug and excoriates anyone who dares to criticise its destructive philosophy and values. Their church-going sombre Sunday suits and crisply-starched white shirts may look like a Unilever soap advert but their hands and hearts are filthy - drenched with rivers of blood.

    If you examine the Christian computer game “Left Behind: Eternal Forces”, based on the “Left Behind” books - staple Christian-chic reading for those who want religion by numbers - you will notice some telling points. In that game, the “Tribulation Force” goes round trying to convert - and ultimately to kill - anyone who does not conform to the “Christianity” they espouse. One observer writes:

    “Left Behind Games defends its product as advancing a moral, Christian perspective by pointing out that killing in the game depletes the unit’s Spirit points. If Spirit points are sufficiently depleted, the unit becomes “lost” and defects to the Antichrist’s army… Gamers can remove the penalties they incur when their forces kill by causing their fighters to stop and “pray”. This “prayer” is initiated when gamers press a button and one reviewer of the game from Wired Magazine wrote: “….In the thick of a really hectic Left Behind battle, I’d click the prayer button so instinctually that I pretty much forgot I was, well, praying” [ http://www.veteransforamerica......D7C92CCD0A ].

    That is classic hypocrite territory. Kill an unbeliever then think it will be made okay if one presses the prayer button. Like commit any sin you like then recite a “Hail Mary” or “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition”! What a hideous justification. [Incidentally, in that game, enemies of the “Tribulation Force” are pointedly portrayed as having “been to college” - a pathetically sad sign of the anti-intellectual influence in the Christian fundamentalist scene]. But this is what is now in the making: A crusading, uncompassionate, ruthless, pseudo-pious, bigoted, anti-intellectual, jingoistic religion masquerading as faithful “Christianity” favoured by God. It is this religion which has sent death-squad mercenaries into Iraq. It is this religion which has destroyed that country and been responsible for more than 1,000,000 deaths there.

    If you not convinced about the hypocrisy behind the development of this crusading religion, take a look at Blackwater USA’s website, where it is stated:

    “Blackwater USA is the most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world. VISION: To support security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere. MISSION: To support national and international security policies that protect those who are defenseless and provide a free voice for all with a dedication to providing ethical, efficient, and effective turnkey solutions that positively impact the lives of those still caught in desperate times”. [ http://www.blackwaterusa.com/ ]

    It is extraordinary what sugar-coated rationales companies such as Blackwater will use for their global jaunts of violence and terror. By having these private armies or mercenaries and fortune commandos operating in Iraq it means that the US administration can commit genocide without any comeback as these companies are answerable to no one. Under Order No. 17, a rule that was written by American administrators before Iraqis took over the running of their own government, private security companies were conveniently given complete immunity from Iraqi law. For a discussion of what Blackwater is all about - including it’s CEO’s interesting Christian connections - see the extended interview with Jeremy Scahill - author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army” at http://www.democracynow.org/ar.....20/1337226 , and “Checkbook Imperialism: The Blackwater Fiasco”, http://www.truthdig.com/report.....er_fiasco/ written by Robert Scheer - an experienced journalist who was sacked last year from the Los Angeles Times because of his opposition to the Iraq war.

    This rise of these vast contracted private armies dovetails perfectly with what I reported in my article, “The Sword’s Fear of the Pen”, about the swelling of the ranks of US “special forces” operatives. Here is a relevant extract from that article:

    “A 24th January 2006 Reuters report revealed US military plans to “swell the ranks of the Special Operations Command, including Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and the top-secret Delta Force, to about 60,000 troops by the end of 2007″. It is these crack commandos which function as the strong arm and assassination force (death squads) for the ruling elite as they span the globe with their murderous plots, kidnapping people to disappear them into indefinite detention (what is euphemistically referred to as “extraordinary rendition”) and setting up unmanned drones to bomb secret targets.

    The strengthening of these special operations forces is not primarily for the combating of terrorism but will really play a major role in the repression of dissent or opposition. That will be their inevitable true function. The same methodology was used in Germany in the 1930s…”

    Soon, the USA will have more special forces than Hitler had at his disposal and a “citizen spy” network that will begin to mirror that of the old East German Stalinist regime in “Stasiland”. Most Americans are in denial about this - just as the Germans were in the 1930s. This is what the US Department of Homeland Security is all about. It is not about “security” but about control”. [See the full article “The Sword’s Fear of the Pen: The Systematic Elimination of Independent Writers and Thinkers Today” at http://www.forsomeoneschild.co.....ticles.htm ]

    In just the same way, Blackwater is not about “security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere”, as it claims in its syrupy mission statement. “Peace”, “Freedom”, “Security” and “democracy” are feel-good buzz-words used by these people to mask their true intentions. What they mean by those words is not the same as what you and I mean by them. It is a kind of “newspeak” which is in operation when they use those words, as in the book “1984″, where the ruling party’s slogan was “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength”. In any totalitarian situation, the meanings of commonplace words are changed in order to mitigate acts of evil in the eyes of the world.

    Soon there will be an enormous number of these “peace n’ freedom” privately-owned armies with Christian links coupled with elite “special forces” operating out of the Pentagon, which is itself a burgeoning bastion of this warmongering Christian fundamentalism. [See “Kill Or Convert, Brought To You By the Pentagon” at http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=220960 and http://www.dailykos.com/storyo.....94930/0382 and “Fundamentalists and the Military: James Carroll on the Danger of a New Crusade”
    http://www.talk2action.org/sto.....ew_Crusade

    One of the notable great causes of this Christian fundamentalism is its unconditional support for Israel. These bellicose fundamentalists have even produced their own newspaper, in conjunction with the Jerusalem Post, as they link forces with Israel. It’s called “The Jerusalem Post: Christian Edition”. [ http://info.jpost.com:80/C006/ChristianEdition ]. The names you will see on the front page of that site are predictable - for example, there is John Hagee (pugnacious pastor of the 18,000-strong fundamentalist Cornerstone Church in San Antonio Texas who wants to see Iran taken out next) and Gary Bauer, whose ministry was financed by Blackwater CEO Erik Prince’s family fortune [ http://www.politicalfriendster.....mp;id2=576 ]. There is a great deal of wealth amongst these Christian fundamentalists. Billions and billions of dollars. They use that wealth for the cause. They can even finance armies to wage wars. They can buy anything they want. Worst of all, whatever they do, they think it will be pleasing to their God.

    The ramifications of these actions are chilling. The fanatical Christian fundamentalists of today who are waging the modern wars in the Middle-East are reminiscent of the ancient Crusades in 1095-1291 which brought their own brand of bellicosity to the same region. They have both been genocidal jaunts hiding behind the skirts of Christianity. However, the difference between the two Crusades is that the most recent one threatens to trigger, at best, a global totalitarian dictatorship - at worst, the enactment of World War III… or both.

    Alan Morrison
    NoStoneUnturned WordShop
    reporting@neuf.fr

    *See Alan’s peace-music project website at www.forsomeoneschild.com
    *Alan also has a music-specific site at www.myspace.com/sincerityfrance .

  8. Global Voices Online » Pakistan: Blog-o-detention on October 11th, 2007 10:13 am

    […] piece, this time he give us a detailed insight into that notorious US government contractor, Blackwater USA. Blackwater is currently the largest of the U.S. State Department’s three private security […]

  9. Anwaar on October 11th, 2007 9:32 pm

    Blackwater Sued for Sept. 16 Shootings

    Thursday October 11, 2007 6:16 PM

    WASHINGTON (AP) - Families of Iraqis who died in a shooting involving Blackwater USA contractors in Baghdad sued the company Thursday, saying the firm violated U.S. law and fostered a culture of lawlessness among its employees.

    The suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., says the contractor has been paid more than $1 billion by the U.S. government since 2001 and that the company violated the federal laws in the Sept. 16 killings.

    “Blackwater has turned recklessness into profit at the expense of the lives of innocent civilians,” said Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the suit. Warren made the comments in a brief interview after the suit was filed.

    Seventeen Iraqis died in the Sept. 16 shootings.

    Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the company was aware of the lawsuit. “Because it is a matter currently under investigation by the FBI, we will refrain from commenting on the specifics of the case other than to say that the company will defend itself vigorously,” Tyrrell said.

    Blackwater protects U.S. diplomats as they move about on Baghdad’s dangerous streets. An Iraqi investigation into the killings recommended that the State Department sever all contracts for the company’s operations in Iraq within six months.

    Blackwater should be liable for claims of assault and battery, wrongful death, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and negligent hiring, training and supervision, the lawsuit says.

    The plaintiffs in the case are an injured survivor and three familes of men who died in the incident.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl.....41,00.html

  10. Anwaar on October 13th, 2007 11:42 am

    New York Times reports;

    New Evidence That Blackwater Guards Took No Fire

    BAGHDAD, Oct. 12 — Fresh accounts of the Blackwater shooting last month, given by three rooftop witnesses and by American soldiers who arrived shortly after the gunfire ended, cast new doubt Friday on statements by Blackwater guards that they were responding to armed insurgents when Iraqi investigators say 17 Iraqis were killed at a Baghdad intersection.

    The rest here; http://tinyurl.com/2clfr4

  11. Anwaar on October 30th, 2007 10:14 pm

    Iraq tackles foreign guards’ immunity

    Guardian Unlimited

    Iraq’s cabinet today approved a law to remove private security firms’ immunity from prosecution in Iraq, in response to the shooting of 17 civilians by Blackwater USA agents last month, a government spokesman said.

    The move came as a senior US law enforcement official warned that a state department pledge of immunity could render any US prosecution of Blackwater staff impossible.

    “The cabinet has approved a law that will put non-Iraqi firms and those they employ under Iraqi law,” Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters.

    Mr Dabbagh said the new law, which has been referred to parliament, would revoke the immunity given to foreign contractors under a controversial measure passed by the US-led coalition provisional authority in 2004.

    Link : http://tinyurl.com/ys98rw

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Anwaar’s articles appear simultaneously here at Truth Spring and at Soul Vibes in The Pakistan Tribune.


US loses its status as economic world power
DAVOS, Switzerland, 2008
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