On the last day of 2009, federal district court judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed homicide charges against five former Blackwater security guards involved in a shooting that killed fourteen Iraqi civilians in 2007. Judge Urbina's decision cites egregious prosecutorial misconduct by the federal prosecutors handling the case as the reason for the dismissal. The dismissal comes at the end of a year that saw at least a dozen cases of federal prosecutorial misconduct, including the well known Ted Stevens fiasco. These cases and others reinforce an emerging consensus that we must do more to ensure that our prosecutors live up to the standards of professionalism and fairness on which our system depends.
Way to go, Dems, for voting against a big registration advantage for yourself...
Morans!
Because what a handful of ACORN employees did was soooo much worse than Triple Canopy:
Former Iraq Security Contractors Say Firm Bought Black Market Weapons, Swapped Booze for Rockets
Last spring, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Iraq got a makeover,replacing the scandal-plagued Blackwater private security company with a firm named Triple Canopy.
The new $1 billion contract cemented Triple Canopy's status as the pre-eminent provider of private security services in Iraq, with its heavily armed employees appearing side by side with senior State Department diplomats.
But the company's rise to prominence followed a long, often chaotic route, marked by questionable weapons deals, government bungling and a criminal investigation that was ultimately closed without charges being filed, according to newly released investigative files.
Company employees told federal investigators that Triple Canopy swapped booze for weapons and supplies from the U.S. military. They said the company bought guns and other arms on the black market in Iraq. Some worried that the money was flowing into the hands of insurgents, records show.
WASHINGTON - The State Department said Wednesday it has extended a contract for protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq with a subsidiary of the security firm once known as Blackwater USA even though the company doesn't have a license to operate in the country.
Whistleblowers Unveil More ArmorGroup Allegations:
Former Company Officials Say State Department Contractor Involved in Myriad Fraudulent Schemes
Former employees of ArmorGroup, the private security company that holds a State Department contract to protect the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, unveiled new allegations against the besieged contractor a week after photographic evidence emerged of its guards engaged in physical and sexual harassment. In a press conference revolving around an unlawful-termination lawsuit filed against ArmorGroup, former senior company officials said ArmorGroup was aware of widespread fraud; intentional use of non-English speaking guards to save money at the expense of embassy security; operations of a shell corporation in order to win contracts intended only for American companies; and even involvement in prostitution - and that the State Department knew about at least some of the company's illicit practices
ACORN: No investigation necessary to oust them. GOP-connected contractors: no investigation sufficient to oust them.
But ACORN is hardly alone in the Versailles Dems' war against the Dem base. Consider President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan's war on public schools and public school teachers:
Controversial Blackwater Security Firm Gets Iraq Contract Extended by State Dept
Company Banned From Operating by Iraqi Government Earlier This Year By KIRIT RADIA
Sept. 1, 2009-
The State Department has extended a contract with controversial private security firm Blackwater, ABC News has learned. The contract was due to expire this month.
Sources say the department has agreed to temporarily continue using the subsidiary known as Presidential Airways to provide helicopter transport for embassy employees around Iraq until a new contract with another security company, Dyncorp International, is fully implemented. Presidential Airways is an arm of U.S. Training Center, which is a subsidiary of the company Xe, formerly and still commonly known as Blackwater....
The Blackwater contract's extension is for an indefinite period of time, but an official stressed it was "limited." The official said the State Department would like to complete the transition in "weeks or months."
Certainly by 2012. Or '13. Definitely by '13. Or '14.
Census Bureau Cuts Its Ties With Acorn
By JAKE SHERMAN
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Census Bureau on Friday dropped Acorn as a partner for the 2010 Census after two separate hidden-camera videos captured four employees of the community organization giving tax advice on running a brothel to a man posing as an aspiring politician and a woman posing as his girlfriend and a prostitute.
The Census Bureau earlier this year signed up the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, one of the nation's largest community groups, as a national partner for the decennial census, a role that entails helping to publicize the importance of the count and encouraging people to participate.
In a letter to Acorn President Maude Hurd, Census Director Robert Groves said Acorn had become a distraction.
But not Blackwater. No distraction there. Dead Iraqis, maybe. But no distractions.
Violence is cool. Sex, not so much. Even if the violence is real, and the sex hypothetical.
One of the key parts of the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq is phasing out the use of private security contractors (ie. mercenaries). John Amato at Crooks and Liars got the ball going by pointing to HR 4102, Rep. Jan Schakowsky's Stop Outsourcing Security Act, which would effectively impose restrictions on and eventually phase out the use of companies like Blackwater for armed security services.
San Diego officials will challenge Blackwater Worldwide's permit for an indoor military training facility in South County, saying the public didn't know about the plan.
Advertisement
"Residents deserve to know when a facility like this is approved - before it is approved," San Diego City Council President Scott Peters said.
The North Carolina company received a permit in March for a training site in Otay Mesa, an industrial section of south San Diego, shortly after abandoning its controversial proposal to build a larger facility in Potrero in East County.
The city Development Services Department granted the permit without public hearings. The site was already permitted for a vocational school, and city staff members decided Blackwater's training of Navy personnel qualified. The facility will have a shooting range, a simulated Navy ship and classrooms.
Brian Bonfiglio, a Blackwater vice president, said the opposition seems to originate from anti-war sentiment, not animosity toward the facility itself.
Bonfiglio said the company has been conducting military training for five years at several facilities in San Diego County, including the American Shooting Center on Ruffin Road in Kearny Mesa.
"If they go after our range, they are getting ready to take on every other firearms business in the county," he said. "They're asking something of us that they are not asking of any other business, and quite frankly it's inappropriate."
Yesterday, Peters, San Diego Councilman Ben Hueso and Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, held a rally in Otay Mesa to oppose the permit. They were joined by about 30 community activists.
Mary Ussery of Coronado wore a "Stop Blackwater" T-shirt. She said military activity belongs on military bases, not private property.
"Although it's not my backyard, it's close enough," Ussery said. "It's still my country."
Peters said Blackwater wasn't upfront about its plans to operate out of a 61,600-square-foot building owned by Los Angeles company Hometex in a business park on Siempre Viva Road, just south of Brown Field.
"They filed for a permit under the name of a subcontractor as a deliberate dodge to keep our city and community in the dark," Peters said.
The excellent Courage Campaign in California has a web site 'BlockBlackwater' up to fight Blackwater's domestic mercenary base. Ultimately, this company needs to stop getting Federal contracts.
After years of seeing the House pushed around by President Bush, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has learned to say no.
The California Democrat's refusal last month to schedule a vote on a warrantless surveillance bill that the president favors, followed by her decision this month to scuttle a fast-track vote on a U.S.-Colombia trade agreement have shifted some power to the eastern end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
But those tough stands also have raised expectations among antiwar activists and some lawmakers on the larger issue coming in the next two weeks: funding for the war in Iraq.
"What she's done is show people you can stand up to Bush and it's not the end of the world," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), a prominent opponent of the Iraq war. "She reminded the rank-and-file here not only do we matter, but we're an equal branch of government, and she reminded the president we're no longer a cheap date."
Added Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of the Appropriations subcommittee responsible for war funding: "She's got a hot hand right now. We want to make sure she keeps that momentum going."...
Democratic leaders have repeatedly said that, in the end, U.S. troops in the field will be funded. But expectations are high that finally Congress will be able to extract a significant policy concession for that money.
It is quite obvious that Congress will pass war funding, the only question is whether Democrats get something out of it. It would be quite useful to go after Blackwater, the company that even Defense Secretary Gates acknowledged is operating at "cross-purposes to our larger mission in Iraq".
The Courage Campaign, the remarkable online organizing group in California, has already successfully fought Blackwater in Portrero, California, preventing them from opening a large facility designed to help privatize and militarize the Southern border. It's time to take the fight to the next level.
I grew up, as many of you know, in a military family. In my family - as in most military families - there is a deep loyalty to the United States: the well-being of our country comes concretely before our families and very lives.
It is appropriate that when our country of, by, and for the people authorizes the use of deadly force, it is only to those whose loyalty to our country comes before any other loyalties they have.
Except that, as you know, that's not now the case. Now we have people using deadly force in our names whose loyalty is instead to corporations, most notoriously Blackwater.
The House Democratic leadership is close to finalizing a decision to combine all outstanding Bush administration requests for war funding - totaling at least $170 billion - into one huge bill, according to lawmakers and aides...
More immediately, Democratic leaders believe that by offering more than $170 billion in war funding, they can blunt Republican attacks on them for failing to support the troops, a senior Democratic appropriator said. The lawmaker, who declined to be identified, said the strategy also would increase Democrats' leverage to seek extra discretionary funding.
The excuse that Democratic leaders are going to give for this give-away is that they want to appropriate extra money so the next President has more flexibility. They are saying this with a straight face, as if the Bush administration won't simply steal the additional amount they appropriate.
There are a number of stunning elements here. One is the unbelievable lack of focus on this war funding in the context of a heated Presidential race where the media is focusing on lapel pins. A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq includes legislation on media consolidation because the media problem is fundamental to the war. The second is the complicity of Democratic leaders of Congress in granting Bush everything he wants after it has been revealed that Bush and his top level leadership pretty much explicitly planned episodes of torture. The third is how money is just going to be wasted on contractors who will torture, and the political will to oppose this give-away does not exist within Congress.
I'll tell you one of the things -- and you're just going to hate this -- because I hate it. But, there's this sense that we don't have the votes to do what we need to do, the right things to do, so we're not going to do anything, virtually. And what I say is, okay well if our troops, our wonderful troops over there say, "Well, you know, this is really hard and I don't know we can win this battle, so I think I won't do it." I just think we are looking at this so wrong. And I think the people of this country...89 percent of Americans polled are saying that our economy is directly related to our involvement in Iraq. I mean, they get it. We shouldn't be there in the first place. It's bringing our country down and our economy down. So I would think that the reason they made us the majority party anyway was so that we would do something about it.
That is exactly correct. And it's not just an academic question. Here's what's going on in Pakistan, via the GAO and Max Bergmann at Democracy Arsenal.
al Qaeda is now using the Pakistani safe haven to put the last element necessary to launch another attack against America into place, including the identification, training, and positioning of Western operatives for an attack. It stated that al Qaeda is most likely using the FATA to plot terrorist attacks against political, economic, and infrastructure targets in America "designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population."
It's extremely clear that Democratic leaders in Congress do not see a way to deal with the Bush administration, even when the Bush administration openly admits to authorizing and planning torture. It is also clear that funding for the war is not a priority for the Presidential candidates. But what we also learned, via the remarkable FISA fight, is that we can put this on the agenda if we work at it, and that we can win. And that is where we are right now.
Putting $170B in for Iraq is a disgrace upon every member of Congress, but at the very least it is time to refuse to put money towards Blackwater and the private armed military contractors in Iraq. These are the outsourced groups that can literally get away with murder and torture, and it is insane that our tax money goes to them. Sure, we can discuss bridges and infrastructure here versus money poured into sand in Iraq, and we will. But Congress has decided the money's going to go through.
And so what we can do is draw a line in the sand, and make it clear that not one more taxpayer dollar is going to the private armed military contractors who are destroying our military and ruining our national security.
Since we've been discussing whether to ban or simply regulate private military contractors, it's worth pointing out that Blackwater actually has a PAC called the Professional Services Council. This is a political incentive for increased use of mercenaries in hot zones and disaster areas by the US government. Of course, there's no reason these skilled workers couldn't be hired by other governments or even wealthy interests, which is why the use of armed military contractors is generally a very bad idea. The Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq defunds Blackwater in Iraq for precisely this reason.
One of the key allies of Blackwater is so-called moderate Republican Chris Shays, who is facing a stiff challenge from Democrat Jim Himes in Connecticut. Shays has repeatedly praised Blackwater's CEO Eric Prince, saying in one committee hearing that the company was doing a 'perfect job'. Just one week early, on 9/26/07, Shays had received $1000 from the Professional Services Council PAC.
So far, the PAC is not particularly large, but it has the potential to grow into a real political malignancy. The country is slowly acclimatizing to the open use of private military contractors, an extraordinarily dangerous development for our republic, as even Barack Obama does not necessarily want to defund them. On the other side, there was tremendous organizing going on among rural conservatives in Portrero, California against Blackwater's possible new facility near the Mexican border, supplemented by the Courage Campaign's organizing of progressive activists around the country. Blackwater was prevented from opening their new facility, blocked by a major local zoning fight.
This kind of momentum against the privatization of the military is extremely useful, and I'm quote hopefuly that Himes will use Blackwater and its links to Shays as a political issue in his race, so that the public has the opportunity to weigh in on the use of private military contractors.
The Obama campaign wouldn't give me an on-the-record explanation of his refusal to sponsor a bill to defund Blackwater, pointing me to this page instead. As I noted, Obama has a long history of aggressive work surrounding military contractors, which gives him some credibility on the issue. That he won't support this bill is reasonable, since you can quibble with any bill and it doesn't necessary reflect your position if there are other circumstances out there. That he won't state explicitly that he believes in defunding these mercenary groups, though, probably means he's interested in a regulatory approach. Yes, let's regulate mercenaries. Awesome.
I would say that we should get ready for the great turn to the right, except that I've never seen compelling evidence that Obama would govern as a progressive.
A senior foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has told The Nation that if elected Obama will not "rule out" using private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. The adviser also said that Obama does not plan to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009, when a new President will be sworn in. Obama's campaign says that instead he will focus on bringing accountability to these forces while increasing funding for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the agency that employs Blackwater and other private security contractors.
Both Obama and Clinton have been aggressive on private contractors, Obama probably more so than Clinton. Has this situation reversed itself? While Clinton has signed on to legislation to ban the use of Blackwater and other mercenary groups, Obama's position seems confusing. Where is he on the use of mercenaries?
Blackwater is rebranding itself, and needs a new logo. Wired's blog the Danger Room has compiled a few possibilities, and wants your vote. I like this one.
Unaccountable private military contractors
1 Arrogant administration
Generous helpings of "compassionate conservatism"
A fundamentally flawed healthcare system
Served Hot: An unwinnable cauldron of insurgency that costs thousands of American lives; tens of thousands of Iraqi lives; billions of dollars; and your country's international reputation.
Served Cold: An armed forces that struggles to recover from over-extension.
Served Now: Sign a Call for Consequences for renegade contractors and urge Congress to over-ride Bush's SCHIP veto here.
Revelations about Blackwater make it clearer and clearer just how murky & mucky a mess they've made. Once you've taken a look, you may not want to drink the Blackwater, but how about a Liberal Shot of Political Whiskey, courtesy of Lee Camp and the gang at Laughing Liberally.
Security convoys will be monitored by State Department personnel
Video cameras will be installed in all Blackwater armored vehicles.
Recordings of all radio transmissions between Blackwater convoys and their military and civilian supervisors will be saved.
So basically, they're like an out of control teenager who needs to be monitored at all times. In related news, the House passed a bill bringing them under US jurisdiction and requiring the FBI to investigate allegations of wrongdoing. Like these, for example.
Earlier in the week, Barack Obama offered similar legislation in the Senate as an amendment to a bill, where it was adopted unanimously. It was a follow up on similar legislation he originally authored in February. Both Edwards and Obama also spoke out about Blackwater last week.
"We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors," Obama said. "To add insult to injury, these contractors are charging taxpayers up to nine times more to do the same jobs as soldiers, a disparity that damages troop morale."
Obama said he authored an amendment to a bill that passed last week in the Senate that would force the Bush administration to describe the size and scope of private security contractors' work in Iraq.
"I've also proposed tougher government reform than any other candidate in this race -- reforms that would eliminate the kind of no-bid contracts that this administration has given to Blackwater," he said.
"The recent incidents of violence involving Blackwater contractors in Iraq, including the shooting of Iraqi civilians in Baghdad last month, have caused tremendous damage to America's battle for the hearts and minds of Iraqis," said Edwards. "These incidents hurt America's moral standing, both in Iraq and around the world. And they serve as a tragic reminder of how the Bush Administration has outsourced our military responsibilities to corporate contractors and political cronies who operate outside of the rules of engagement and without any meaningful oversight.
"As president, I will end our current system of outsourcing security missions to private contractors. It is imperative that we do so and return to an all-volunteer military that responds to the will of the American people."
Using private security firms mercenaries like Blackwater is a bad idea on so many levels. I'm pleased to see Congress and Presidential candidates takes some action.
STATE BLOGS
