"I would like to have the largest, most professional private army in the world." Gary Jackson, president of Blackwater USA
Blackwater right now has contracts that [Gary Jackson] says are so secret that he is not able to tell one branch of the Feds that he's working for a different branch of the Feds.. Much of the interview I had with them was couched in this -- this almost cowboy-like secrecy. They were very proud of being on these top secret missions."
Barry Yeoman, author of "Soldiers of Good Fortune," on Democracy Now
For background you can see our other Blackwater Posts here
Will there Be more on BlackwaterUSA? You bet your
and here.Our government-selling out our servicemen-it will bite us in the ass-be enraged
Our only intention in this post is to partially illustrate (and I say partly because no one knows the true scope) how far Blackwaters tentacles reach.
Blackwater is run by Run by Eric Prince whose Father founder of a wealthy right wing Christian dynasty (the family business was eventually sold to Johnson Controls) who provided seed money to fund the “Family Research Council” where Eric Prince served as an Intern. The Family also gave large amounts of money to James Dobson and “Focus on the Family.” Eric Prince also served as an Intern to President George Herbert Bush and serves on the board Christian Freedom International. He broke with the first President Bush to support Patrick Buchanan.
Other conservative Christian Rightwing groups Prince has been associated with: Calvin college (a conservative Christian Institution), Alliance Defense Fund (A conservative Christian Legal Group) and Bolthouse Farms.
Political contributions Made by Eric Prince:
http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Erik_Prince.php
Eric's Sister Betsy married Dick DeVos Heir to AMWAY corporation an almost cult like business that is one of the one of the largest republican right bank rollers.
Some notable names in the Blackwater Corporate Hierarchy:
One of the largest players in the Blackwater Hierarchy is J. Cofer Black. 37 year veteran of the CIA and responsible for catching the terrorist “Carlos the Jackal”.
Just before 9/11 he was tapped to head up the CIA's Counterterroism Center.
Robert Richer former Deputy Director of the CIA has also gone to work for Blackwater helping with one of their companies “Total Intelligence Solutions” that markets services to Fortune five hundred corporations.
The Lead attorney for Blackwater USA is now Ken Starr, the man who headed up the impeachment charge against President Clinton. Blackwaters former attorney was Fred Fielding who left to become President Bush's White House Counsel to help defend him against the federal attorney purge scandal.
For a lobbying firm Blackwater hired Alexander Strategy Group, a K Street lobbying firm run by former senior staffers of then-majority leader Tom DeLay before the firm's meltdown in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal.
Companies, Corporations and political figures Prince and/or Blackwater have had dealings with or been connected to (and believe me they be a heap of people smarter than this dude trying to figure this out).
Haliburton subsidiary KBR filed an Amicus brief in defese of Blackwater in the lawsuit brought against Blackwater by the families of the contractors killed in Falluja. Vice President Cheney still receives money from Halliburton.
Other Corporate Names associated with Blackwater contracts ; Eurest Support Services, KBR (formerly of Haliburton), Giant Construction firm Flour.
Chief executive of Domino's Pizza and major Republican donor. Brandon has given over $100,000 to GOP candidates since 1987. (Side note: The founder of Domino's Pizza, Thomas Monaghan, broke ground on the Ave Maria, Florida township, complete with its own university and strict Catholic-based laws.)
It should also be noted that Erik served as a defense analyst for tainted Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-California). Rohrabacher was a special assistant to Reagan before being elected to Congress in 1988, and has a chronicled involvement in the scandal of disgraced Republican lobbyist, Jack Abramoff.
Prince is associated with a number of other companies. In addition to Blackwater, he is affiliated with Bering Truck Distribution, Phase One Ltd., the Prince Group (who hired the former Defense Department Inspector General, Joseph E. Schmitz) and Prince Household L.L.C. He has associations with the Christian Solidarity International (CSI) and Institute of World Politics, a national security organization that teaches graduate diplomats and offers two Masters degree programs. He is also listed among the forty Board of Trustees for the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum with Senator John McCain.
Presidential Airways, whose parent company Presidential Airways, Inc. and its sister company, Aviation Worldwide Services (AWS), are owned by Blackwater, and based in Melbourne, Florida. It received a $2.43 million contract from the Department of Defense to provide "aircraft supports," in February 2006. Late last year, Washington Post reporter Dana Priest revealed a network of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe; she received a Pulitzer Prize for her work. It turns out, according to independent media sources, AWS and Presidential were both involved in the chartered flights.
NOTE: Presidential Airways has been implicated in flying black opps missions transporting suspected terrorists and God knows who else to clandestine prisons in countries not adverse to torture.
Privatized corporate military operations now draw an estimated $100 billion in business worldwide each year -- much of it going to top U.S. corporations like Halliburton, DynCorp, Lockheed Martin, Grumman, and Raytheon. The military-industrial companies that once just created the guns and warplanes now provide mercenary forces for "privately" carrying out the military attacks and defoliation-- especially in Colombia where large numbers of "contractors" serve as agents and trainers for the U.S government. VP Dick Cheny still profits from Halliburton
Political Items favorable to Blackwater of Interest:
On Sept 11, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary at the time gave a speech to corporate executives from companies such as Enron, General Dynamics and Aerospace Corporation and people like Neocon Paul Wolfowitz. During this speech he stated “I’ve come not to destroy the Pentagon, but to liberate it. We need to save it from itself.”
The next day the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked.
The Administration and the GOP-controlled Congress have shielded the contractors from accountability, oversight and legal constraints. Despite the presence of more than 100,000 private contractors on the ground in Iraq, only one has been indicted for crimes or violations. "We have over 200,000 troops in Iraq and half of them aren't being counted, and the danger is that there's zero accountability," says Democrat Dennis Kucinich, one of the leading Congressional critics of war contracting.
A week to the day after the ambush In Falluja where 4 Blackwater contractors were killed , Eric Prince was sitting down with at least four senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, including its chair, John Warner. Senator Rick Santorum arranged the meeting, which included Warner and two other key Republican senators--Appropriations Committee chair Ted Stevens of Alaska and George Allen of Virginia. This meeting followed an earlier series of face-to-faces Prince had had with powerful House Republicans who oversaw military contracts. Among them: DeLay; Porter Goss, chair of the House Intelligence Committee (and future CIA director); Duncan Hunter, chair of the House Armed Services Committee; and Representative Bill Young, chair of the House Appropriations Committee. What was discussed at these meetings remains a secret. But Blackwater was clearly positioning itself to make the most of its new fame. Indeed, two months later, Blackwater was handed one of the government's most valuable international security contracts, worth more than $300 million.
The U.S. government is involved in growing numbers of "under the radar" interventions and mini-wars all over the world. Using mercenaries to carry out these operations enables the U.S. government to keep "plausible deniability" in the violation of sovereignty and the commitment of atrocities.
AND IT ISN'T JUST WAR BLACKWATER CAPITALIZES OFF OF AT YOUR EXPENSE:
Blackwater held a Hurricane Katrina Fund raiser where former Iraq Pro Counsel Paul Bremmer (who Blackwater protected in Iraq) who issued order #17(http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showConnection.php?id1=2697&id2=576) absolving “private contractors” from accountability (contractors working off contracts from the state department are not held to the Military Justice code) and Blackwater client and apologist gave the Keynote address. At the time Blackwater was pulling in $240,000 a day from the feds and others, for security. Most of it coming from Homeland Security contracts.
And if you run afoul of Blackwater they have no problem going after you:
Jeremy Shahill who wrote the Book Blackwater: The Rise of the Worlds most powerful Mercenary Army (where much of this info comes from) has been sued by Blackwaters attorneys to take down his website http://www.blackwaterbook.com/
And who do they use as “private Contractors?????
Blackwater has contracts with former soldiers from the the Brutal Chilean Dictator Pinochets regime. Contractors form Columbian forces and South African Mercenaries. Despite the objections of South Africa and Chile who no longer wish any of their soldiers or former soldiers to be associated with any more atrocities.
Although the Bulk of their “contractors” are former US special services, they have found they do not have to pay Chilean soldiers near as much.
Of course we all know that congress is holding investigations into Blackwater and their ties to politicians, members of the executive branch and corporations. As if we even had to guess how far that may go.
President Bush has suggested “The Civilian Reserve Corp”.
“Civilian reserves, which would operate much like the military's reserves, would help "ease the burden on the armed forces" by creating a corps of volunteers who have "critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them," Bush said. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0107/012507cdam1.htm
Hmmm, what does that sound like to you? The same damn thing maybe? But then he needs to protect what many have referred to as “Bush's Praetorian Guard”, a borrowed term from Roman Emperors.
Now lest one might suggest after perusing the above that this is just left wing sour grapes against the Neocon religious right wing fanatics, Keep this ONE VERY INTERESTING FACT in mind:
Blackwater received one it's first contracts under President Clinton!!!
It just wasn't until the screw up in Falluja that the general public became aware of them.
And that my friends is Scary!!!
The following links, in addition to those above, were used as reference for this post.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070402/scahill
http://www.blackwaterbook.com/
http://defconblog.org/2007/10/religious-right-and-blackwater/
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054744.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince
http://iraqforsale.bravenewfilms.org/blog/344-blackwater-runs-red
http://rwor.org/a/1236/blackwater.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince
Do you suppose no Democrats are involved in crap like this?
ReplyDeleteIt would not be surprising as I believe they are all, democrats, republican and most ironically tea party folk,for sale. It is just that I failed to see any mentioned when writing this post.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone knows of any democrats associated with such feel free to post who they are and the link to where you found it. rc