Iraq is learning lessons from a major player

Blackwater USA’s contract will be renewed. No big surprise here. We Americans knew it would be because we have learned how the U.S. government operates. Iraqi’s have more than likely learned that lesson too after five years of fighting alongside us. The renewal of this contract under suspicion of several incidents instigated by Blackwater should prove to the Iraqi’s once and for all that the U.S. government cannot be trusted.

Innocent Iraqi’s were murdered on September 16 by Blackwater guards when they did not get out of the way fast enough for Blackwater’s liking. Blackwater acted without regard for human life and property knowing full well they had 100% backing of the U.S. government and complete immunity from prosecution from the Iraqi government.

The Iraq police completed their investigation within two weeks. The FBI is still dragging its feet on their sham investigation, as is standard operating procedure. Another lesson the Iraqi people are learning from us, drag the investigation out until the uproar dies down, the citizens forget about it and the outcome no longer matters.

Blackwater attacked a vehicle they say was firing upon them yet no weapons were found in the burned out car. This lesson is directly out of George W. Bush’s play book. Lets not forget, he attacked this country saying they had weapons of mass destruction yet no weapons have ever been found. Another standard operating procedure that the Iraqi’s must surely be learning from us.

The State Department has installed ‘new rules’ concerning how the U.S. military coordinates with and supervises contractors such as Blackwater. Another lesson Iraq will soon learn. Tell the public that the situation is under control and reassure the public that incidents like this will never happen again. Democracy on the march.

Oh, another lesson, make sure the media is fed only positive information by a ‘trustworthy’ government spokesperson so the public can feel at ease in the knowledge that everything is being ‘taken care of’. Be sure to do it without promising anything.

‘We will get what we want, no matter the cost’. This has become the calling card of the U.S. government. It has been thus for many years. Allowing U.S. citizens to voice their opinion is nothing more than a tool in a game called democracy. Our opinions and protestations don’t mean anything to the U.S. government. Investigations are nothing more than a tool to ‘prove’ that they care. This government always gets what it wants. The final lesson the Iraqi government will learn in order to be just like us.

U.S. government as military/business state

This may not be much of a surprise to anyone who follows national politics but the military-industrial complex has become the military-intelligence complex. There used to be a joke floating around that said “Military intelligence is neither”. Meaning our military had gotten weak and they were far from intelligent. However, the Bush administration, under the guidance of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, changed that.

They devised methods of financially profiting from a military role in Iraq while at the same time guaranteeing the continued need for a bigger, more technologically advanced military presence throughout the world. This administration saw this great opportunity for profit in Iraq and was just brazen enough and unethical enough to put their plan in motion. Their only hurdle to more profit was the fact that the U.S. public will not stand for the return of the draft. War profiteers salivate over having a draft because a larger military means more support staff, more supplies and more weapons which translates to more profit.

But this did not deter them in their profit scheme. They simply hired professional private soldiers, such as Blackwater USA, but did it in such a way as to create a financially symbiotic relationship.

Training Future Private Contractors

Blackwater USA founder, Erik Prince started out in the service of his country and soon learned how to turn his U.S. military training into profit, for himself. Their website states that "Blackwater Training Center was founded in 1996 to fulfill the anticipated demand for government outsourcing of firearms and related security training.” “Anticipated” and “outsourcing” are the key operative words here. Erik Prince did not create this company in ‘hopes’ that the federal government would need his services. He had assurances that his company would become another tool in our governments design for continued world dominance. The U.S. government hires Blackwater USA to train military personnel. Did the U.S. military become ineffective in training their own? Or is this part of a scheme to spread money around to their cronies?

Top CIA and Pentagon officials have taken up high positions in Blackwater USA and retain close working relationships with our government in order to profit from our self-declared ‘war on terror’. A war that we perpetuate in our continued ambition to remain the world’s dominant nation.

Stephen Cambone, once undersecretary of defense for intelligence and longtime aide to Donald Rumsfeld was hired by QinetiQ (pronounced kinetic) North America (QNA), a major British owned defense and intelligence contractor based in McLean, Virginia who has also profited from hiring former high-ranking Pentagon and intelligence officials.

Michael McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, was once the director of the National Security Agency. Between the two positions he received a seven-figure salary at Booz-Allen Hamilton, a major intelligence contractor. The Intelligence community and contractors have become so tightly intertwined at the leadership level that their interests are identical.

Dependence on Private Contractors

Intelligence gathering is becoming privatized and therefore less controlled and scrutinized by politicians. Awarding lucrative contracts to the private sector for intelligence gathering allows the Pentagon more control of their operational outcome by having quicker and more complete access to intelligence. No longer are they dependent on what the CIA decides to pass on.

The proliferation of these private enterprises will not cease after the war is over. The hunger for more and more intelligence cannot be quenched once we have the technology to allow us to gather it. An atmosphere of distrust between citizens and their government officials will always ensure that private citizens will be spied upon.

The Bush administration is already building the case for the need to spy on us under the guise of their war on terror. This legislation is not going to go away after the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The so called war on terror will continue as long as America pushes its policies onto an unyielding and unreceptive world.

High-tech devices such as military drones and robots, low-flying satellites and jamming technologies will not be relegated to storage after the war. They will continue to be used, this time on us. Civilians will not be able to go anywhere without someone watching.

Private military, disguised as private security forces, will be used much as NATO forces are used throughout the world. They will be used to supplement the National Guard just as they were during the Katrina aftermath.

Failing Diplomacy

Doug Brooks, president of International Peace Operations Association, an association of private military firms, says his members can help ‘where governments have failed’. The failing point of any government to prevent war is when diplomacy fails. Have we lost the art of diplomacy? Have we become so much more eager to resort to violence rather than address our differences at the conference table?

The recent Colombian military incursion into Ecuador, to attack the rebel group FARC, brought condemnation by Ecuadors president Rafael Correa and Venezuelan president Victor Chavez. Why wasn’t the action discussed with Ecuador before the raid took place in order to prevent the condemnation and perceived attack on Ecuador’s sovereignty? Venezuela took the action as an attack against them by the United States! Why? Because Venezuela backs FARC, a group that resorts to violence, kidnapping, rape and murder to get what they want. And Venezuela, who represents itself as ‘the peaceful path’, will jump at any opportunity to condemn the U.S. over anything the U.S. does or backs. Missed opportunities at diplomacy that leads to the misinterpretation of actions and supports the misplaced perception of arrogance, can be deadly which is exactly why diplomacy and open, truthful conversation is necessary for the world to move toward peace.

The need for acceptance and understanding is at the core of the ongoing friction between Israel and just about everyone else.

As long as the inability to maintain meaningful diplomatic relations exist between governments there will be wars, and the need for sophisticated intelligence networks.

Donald Rumsfeld understood this, so with Cheney’s support, he set out to modernize the U.S. military into a high-tech, computerized fighting force as a means of covering up what was really going on, the building of intelligence networks through the use of private contractors. The uniformed military and the defense industry were not pleased. Both objected to Rumsfeld’s network centric policies and the accompanying cuts imposed on Cold War-era weapons such as aircraft carriers and artillery systems. But the September 11, attacks served to galvanize the country and provided the opening for Rumsfeld and his allies in the administration to make intelligence the centerpiece of their new “war on terror.” Yes, those attacks proved very fortuitous indeed.

As a result, we attacked a nation that had nothing to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks, we have been instrumental in the murder of countless Iraqi citizens and contributed to the spread of terrorism which ensures that private contractors will always play a major role in the spread of America’s form of democracy and profiteering.

We have become a cancer. We are pushing our government/business model onto the rest of the world through war profiteering. Using our military might where we used to rely on diplomacy serves only those who are in a position to be financially rewarded. People like Stephen Cambone, Doug Brooks, Michael McConnell, Dick Cheney and Erik Prince are war profiteers and as such do not have America’s best interests at heart.

The privatization of what used to be the domain of the military brings about the question of ethics. Once you become private, you take the defense and protection of the American public out of the equation. Now you are no longer concerned with defending this country. Your outlook changes from the altruistic ‘fighting for your country’ to one of fighting for your financial health.

Diplomats don’t want to go to Iraq

U.S. foreign diplomats are being forced to serve in Iraq under penalty of dismissal for refusing. It seems their new plush, multi-million dollar Baghdad facility is not incentive enough for them to do their jobs. It also seems they are very worried about being killed.

Perhaps they have no faith in the White House private army, i.e., Blackwater, to protect them. And they have no faith in the U.S. military to keep them from harms way.

Perhaps they lack faith in what Bush and his generals are trying to force us all to believe. That the war has turned around and the streets of Iraq are now safe.

These diplomats reflect what the rest of America sees, that Iraq isn’t worth the fight. These individuals don't have any faith that the centuries of hatred between the two main groups of people that make up Iraq will ever tolerate each other.

The State Department will allow potential assignees to prove a valid medical condition as basis for not going. I can just see it now, all of the 200 people informed this week as prime candidates for assignment will be rushing to their doctors attempting to find a way out of “DOING THEIR JOB”.

Forced assignments have not been used since the Vietnam War era. But they all have agreed to worldwide availability and now their time has come to fulfill that obligation.

The Foreign Service corp owes the American soldier, who has sacrificed most over there, and the American public, who has suffered world ridicule at the havoc that this president has brought to Iraq, to do their part to bring this immoral occupation to an end.

The U.S. should have used diplomats long before considering using our military to force our point of view onto Iraq.

To those diplomats who will go to Iraq I wish them best of luck and I pray they are able to overcome the damage that the mentally imbalanced and morally petulant Bush/Cheney team has brought to the Iraqi people.

Blackwater USA on the insider fast track

The FBI is assisting the U.S. State Department probe into the September 16 Blackwater USA slaughter of 11 Iraqi citizens in Nisour Square.

One report that has already been completed is from the Iraqi National Police who have identified 12 eyewitnesses who label the shooting as unprovoked.

Edited: Oct 4, 2007:
Death toll, according to hospital records show 14 dead and 18 injured, a toll higher than most previous official tallies.

It will be interesting to see how the two separate findings will compare.

The hearing held today, by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, put Blackwater chairman Erik Prince on the defensive and, as expected, he vigorously rejected charges that his personnel did anything illegal.

So far the incident unfolds beginning when a U.S. State Department convoy, protected by a Blackwater security team, ordered a vehicle to stop to allow the convoy to pass through an intersection. When the vehicle did not stop, the convoy opened fire on it killing the driver, the drivers wife and their child. That seems to me an extremely high price to pay for not yielding the right of way to the convoy. It also sounds arrogant of the Blackwater security force to shoot to kill because they did not get the right of way. The Ugly American syndrome is alive and well in Iraq.

According to State Department policy, which governs private security force behavior, when an approaching vehicle fails to stop after being ordered by the convoy, the convoy is then allowed to fire one shot at the windshield as a warning shot. A question here, did Blackwater personnel actually verbally or symbolically warn the vehicle to stop or did they just fire into the vehicle instead?

No matter the answer, this ‘warning shot’ struck the driver instead of the windshield fatally wounding him. Another question, don’t these guys have better aim than this? Again, no matter the answer, this warning shot became a killing shot.

Since the driver was now dead the car continued to roll forward triggering the other Blackwater personnel to believe they were about to be attacked and so they opened fire on the vehicle.

It seems to me that three facts stand in the way of their defense of this being a righteous shooting. They were premature in opening fire, they reacted with way too much ferocity for not being fired upon and their field of fire was way too wide for attacking this one vehicle.

If they were shooting at this one ‘perceived’ threat, how is that so many other people, not in that vehicle, were killed? Many of the victims were shot in the back, because they were, obviously, trying to escape this onslaught.

How is it that, since the driver was dead, they believed they were being fired upon? If they are so jumpy that they all begin indiscriminately shooting into a crowd without a clear target at the sound of any gun fire, even their own, then they need to be taken out of combat because this is a sure sign that they have been there way too long. Or, they are just itching to kill, in which case they are much more dangerous.

There are a lot of questions raised by this incident, as expected. And these questions are painting a very clear picture of non-professionalism and a cowboy demeanor that true professionals will not allow themselves to be caught up in.

While this one incident is being investigated, there are other incidents involving Blackwater USA that are in question.

One incident alleges Blackwater guards threw frozen bottles of water at civilian cars, breaking windshields. No one was killed.

In December 2006, the State Department arranged for the company to pay $15,000 to the family of an Iraqi guard who was shot and killed by a drunken Blackwater employee.

In another shooting death, the payment was $5,000.

The State Department has counted 56 shooting incidents involving Blackwater guards in Iraq this year. All will be reviewed as part of a comprehensive inquiry ordered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Another case involving Blackwater is the alleged smuggling and selling of weapons on the black market.

Blackwater USA is the largest of three private companies contracted by the State Department to provide security for U.S. diplomats in Iraq and has ties to the White House.

But its their ties to the CIA that are most troubling.

Is it any wonder that given Bush’s propensity for excusing his cronies behaviors that Erik Prince’s ‘problems’ will soon be over?

Given Blackwater’s CIA connections, any future investigations into possible wrongdoings should be swept away pretty quickly.

Hired guns and outlaws

Blackwater U.S.A. is a mercenary security force made up of ex-military commandos, ex-police officers and civilians hired to protect corporation and government employees around the world. They are hired bodyguards trained to kill and incapacitate.

Blackwater U.S.A. has been paid millions of dollars by the U.S. government, our tax dollars, to protect U.S. civilian employees and contract workers because the U.S. military force is not large enough to do it themselves. The American people do not want us in Iraq and therefore cannot raise a sufficient military to finish what was started there.

Blackwater's duty, as it is with any private organization, is first to their own organization, and secondly to whomever hire them.

It is inevitable that there will be a few men in every organization who will go beyond the legal guidelines to do their job. Individually, they will feel 100% justified in their actions. To the greater society they are immoral, unconscionable murderers.

The fighting in the streets of Iraq is the same terrorist tactics that took place in Viet Nam. This alone is the only correlation that can be drawn to that war. The enemy does not wear readily-identifiable uniforms. They blend in very well with the civilian population and are protected by their civilian supporters. Frustration among U.S. military and civilian security forces runs high due to this single fact. In a hostile situation such as Iraq with its day-to-day street fighting there are bound to be civilian casualties. This is the whole idea behind terrorist tactics, to force the aggressors to be perceived as murderers so that terrorist groups can tell the world ‘look at America, they come into our country and kill our civilians, they are blood-thirsty murderers, we must all rise up against them'. If the fighting was here in the U.S. the terrorist could not use this tactic.

However, since the U.S. government is the leading cause of why these terrorist groups are in Iraq, the U.S. government alone can put an end to it.

I have no faith that whatever we are are trying to accomplish in Iraq is ever going to come to fruition.

There is no valid reason for the U.S. to continue its participation in this struggle between two thick-headed, narrow-minded groups who think they are the only ‘chosen’ people who are allowed to occupy this planet. They are fed only by the deeply ingrained hatred for one another based in centuries old need for retaliation. To attempt to alter the course of the history of these people is pure folly.

Their only ‘crime’ against the United States is that they have vast reserves of oil that Americans want to feed their out-of-control and insane desire to own the most gas-guzzling, environmentally-damaging vehicles on the planet. Our appetites for fuel consumption cannot be curbed by higher gas pump prices. Our appetite for faster, ever bigger vehicles cannot be slowed down by threat of draining the well dry. We are convinced that there is always some way to hang on to those oversized vehicles, no matter how much fossil fuel they burn. We will fight tooth and nail to hang on to this foolish need to dominate this planet, as witnessed by the war in Iraq.

If we had been more reliant on alternative fuel sources these past six years this war in Iraq would not have taken place. If auto makers would stop making vehicles that can reach speeds far above the posted speed limits of ‘every’ American roadway we could take a giant leap forward in producing alternative-energy vehicles and lessen the threat to this planets oil resources that are needed for other machinery besides automobiles.

Corporations, and therefore individuals, are getting filthy rich from money made from the blood spilled in Iraq, over oil. Good Iraqi citizens have been uprooted from their ancestors homes, over oil. They have lost family members to random bullets fired by mismanaged, over-zealous security forces who would rather ‘kill them all and let God sort it out’, over oil.

This illegal war is based on the fact that spoiled, arrogant Americans cannot control their lustful need to, not just ‘have everything’, but also to ‘control everything.’ Our hunger for faster cars, our drive to be #1, along with our petty and selfish need to ‘answer to no one’ causes the rest of the world to stand back, shake their collective heads and frown in disgust at how pampered and petulant we have become.

We need to refocus our energy policies from one of killing people and destroying lives for the domination of oil reserves that will eventually be depleted, to a policy of alternate energy sources that is healthier for our planet and ultimately healthier for us. In adopting this new policy we might even be able to show the rest of the world that we are not as selfish and greedy as we have been showing ourselves to be. No. That would be asking for too much.

In the meantime, back in the real world, America and Blackwater U.S.A. are not above man’s law, and they certainly are not above God’s law. By protecting these individuals from prosecution their protectors are placing themselves against these laws and as such should be prosecuted as well. But then again, George W. Bush has lived against the law since he took office so what’s new, right?