Tag Archives: Mercenaries

From Iraq to Afghanistan to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime!

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Occupation is a crime
A.N.S.W.E.R. has 7 Reasons to March on DC. We can borrow them!
– The war in Afghanistan is expanding and widening.
– 350,000 U.S. troops and US-paid contractors still occupy Iraq.
– Israel’s Siege of Gaza remains in place, with backing of Washington.
– Obama’s Justice Department is continuing the policy of renditions.
– Air strikes on Pakistan are killing an increasingly number of civilians.
– The real Pentagon war budget is over $1.3 trillion annually.
– More than 20 million people are now unemployed and under-employed.

7 Reasons You Should March on the Pentagon on March 21, 2009

1
The war in Afghanistan is expanding and widening. President Obama announced last week that another 17,000 troops are on their way to Afghanistan. Only 18 percent of Afghanis support this escalation and only 34 percent of the people of the United States approve of the added troops despite the president’s popularity, according to the Washington Post/ABC poll announced on February 17, 2009. This is a colonial war. The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, was not involved in the decision to add more occupying troops into his country. Rather, he was “informed of the deployments in a telephone call with Obama” on February 17, according to the Washington Post (February 18, 2009).

2
About 350,000 U.S. troops and U.S.-paid private contractors (mercenaries) still occupy Iraq. The Iraqi people want the occupation to end. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is insisting that only two of the 14 combat brigades in Iraq exit in 2009. The war and occupation of Iraq costs $430 million each day. If the U.S. government were to end the military occupation, any and all future Iraqi governments would return to a position of political independence from the economic and political dictates of the United States. Iraq’s anti-colonial legacy has created a political reality that prohibits the country from becoming like Kuwait or Saudi Arabia–an out-and-out dependency on U.S. imperialism. That is the real reason that the U.S. government fears a complete disengagement from Iraq and an end to its military occupation.

3
Israel’s Siege of Gaza remains in place, with the full backing of Washington. The U.S. government has continued to fund Israel’s war and blockade against the people of Gaza. The Pentagon provided the funding, and technical and logistical support for the establishment of the Israeli war machine, including its massive cluster and white phosphorous bomb arsenal, and the country’s large cache of nuclear bombs.

4
The new Justice Department has announced that it will continue the policy of renditions, meaning the CIA and Pentagon will capture and kidnap individuals anywhere in the world and transfer them to other countries. “The Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.” (LA Times, Feb. 1, 2009)

5
The new administration has stepped up the air strikes that are killing an increasingly large number of Pakistani civilians. Unmanned drone bombing attacks violate Pakistani sovereignty and are creating an ocean of resentment and anger inside of Pakistan. The U.S. government has no right to carry out these drone bombing strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. The people of the United States would not accept the legitimacy of other governments ordering air attacks in the United States. We must openly and loudly reject such tactics by the government that speaks in our name and spends our tax dollars for such aggression.

6
The real Pentagon war budget is over $1.3 trillion annually. This is greater than the combined total of most of the other countries in the world, including all the NATO countries, and Russia and China. Some label this “waste spending” because it spends precious resources to build exotic and high cost weapons, a new generation of nuclear weapons, and space-based war fighting capabilities, while filling the coffers of the big investors (i.e., the biggest banks) in the war corporations. Pentagon contracting is often based on guaranteed “cost-plus” contracts that reward price gouging since corporate profit is based on a fixed percentage above their expenses. Another label for this process is “extreme corruption” and theft from the public treasury.

7
More than 20 million people are now unemployed and under-employed. Nine million families are either in foreclosure or are at risk of foreclosure this year, according to the statistics just released by the government. Forty-seven million people are without health care. College tuition hikes are soaring and millions of students are at risk of being forced out of school. The people want change. They don’t want a simple tweaking of Bush’s criminal foreign policies. They want to put people’s needs before corporate greed. They want an end to wars of aggression that are wreaking havoc, death and destruction abroad, and diverting urgently needed resources in the service of semi-colonialism and Empire.

Greg Mortenson encircles Swat Province, US drones launched from Baluchistan

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Pakistan showing Swat encirclement by CAI and Shamsi Airport in Bandari Baluchistan
Not many maps show the location of the Pakistani airport from which US drones are launched against targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To plot the Shamsi Airport in Baluchistan, I started with a graphic supplied by the Central Asian Institute (CAI) showing Greg Mortenson’s school building projects, which appear to encircle the Taliban resurgent Swat Province, where schools are a battleground.

Recognize the map above? It’s an updated diagram of CAI’s progress in northern Pakistan, making it all the more clear that school-building is taking point in our Western incursion in Southwest Asia.

Think-tank pundits are describing the Southwest Asian conflict as having become the Afghanistan and Pakistan War. With 17,000 more US troops moving in (who knows how many more contractor mercenaries), Europe pulling its NATO soldiers out, and Kyrgyzstan ousting our base, we might as well become more familiar with Pakistan.

dronesBy the way, the furor about our military use of the Shamsi Airport has more to do with where we are deploying the drones. The US was given permission by the Pakistani government to use several bases in Pakistan from which to direct our attacks on Afghanistan. The bases are in Karachi, Jacobabad, Pasni and Dalbadin. Shamsi is noteworthy because it is being used by the CIA, and because its drones are monitoring regions in Pakistan itself.

We need zoom out only a little from this map to see that the US actions here are part of an encirclement strategy against China, Russia, and to the West, Iran!

Ethiopia fails at task US gov set for it

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Ethiopia says it has finished pulling its troops out of Somalia failing at the task of pacifying Somalia that the Pentagon had set for it. Who knows the details of the secret details that led to Ethiopia acting as mercenaries for the US government, but what is known is the total destruction inside Somalia that has ensued because of this US government terrorism against that poorest of countries.

Now, Barack Obama is in the process of trying to get the United Nations gang to once again act as Pentagon troops and to go into Somali and continue to destroy the future of that poor country. The UN has done such a knock out bang up job in keeping Haiti in similar dire conditions, I guess? The US government, like Israel, seems to specialize in picking on the poorest peoples of the planet, and that says something about the American people themselves, does it not?

One thing is absolutely clear by now, and that is that Barack Obama no more respects the national sovereignty of other countries than Bush did. Africa will have bleak prospects ahead under this new US government, which refuses to just leave Africa alone rather than to ‘manage’ it.

Iraqi POW sentenced for resisting US

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Hold your fucking horses of the Apocalypse! Can you believe this red, white, our colors don’t smell, shit? An Iraqi fighter is sentenced to hang for killing three US soldiers? We’re condemning normal acts of war because they make American crimes look bombastic in comparison? The crime committed in this case, is a military injustice.

Why charge this Iraqi? For killing his US adversaries in 2006, or for showing unsportsmanlike behavior in how he killed them? Do we hold the same standard for our killers in uniform? Do we overlook the conduct of US predator/reaper drone virtual-pilots sniping at foreign civilians from video consoles stateside?

The world has been shown that US soldiers can kill, rape, burn, torture, go on homicidal rampages, on duty or off, and pass go, and collect $200. Our private mercenaries are allowed to do worse apparently, and not even the Iraqi people can object.

In fact, negotiations on the US lease agreement of occupied Iraq have stalled over the Iraqi demands to be able to hold US soldiers accountable for crimes they commit at least while not on official duty. Forget on. Those are war crimes. Those crimes will be accountable one day to a world court, and there’s no statute of limitations. Speaking of which, prosecuting an enemy for his right to defend himself and his homeland is in itself a war crime. The Iraqi insurgent resistance fighters and the Iraqi people are protected by the laws of war. Iraq is an occupied country, trying to fend off its invaders.

To execute this Iraqi will be a further war crime, but what care we? In for a penny, in for 1.2 million Iraqis. Sue us.

Jonah and the Obama Chinese food story

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(Editor’s note: Jonah posted this account yesterday on Alfrankenweb, which reached the Rec List on Daily Kos. Now I’m fielding emails and calls inquiring whether Jonah is real. Here are the Alfrankenweb posts, until Jonah can give us an update.)

OK, so this is the story as I finally got straight.

I was out scrounging scrap metal today, to get enough food money to last us through the weekend.

I came home and Miss Johnnie, my landlady, was crying and showing me a table full of food.

I thought one of our friends or my relatives had come over and bought for us.

But it was bought, according to the lady who owns the restaurant, by Barack Obama over the phone.

After the Obama Campaign Workers came to the door, and were listening to Miss Johnnie describe why she, a registered republican, was voting for Obama.

She showed a picture of her daughter Michelle the Marine who had been deployed to Iraq twice, and is still pending discharge because of the Stop Loss.

All her kids in fact.

And her late husband, who had died of Agent Orange from his service in VietNam.

About that time the campaign workers started making phone calls and she got to talk to Obama.

She was in tears while telling me all this so I got the story wrong at first.

She talked about the War, about the health care bill that got turned down because it was “too expensive” but the Rich Thieves got to take 16 times as much just because they had broken the economy with their wild schemes.

About the VA messing around with the repayment of the medical expenses she had borne by herself over the 12 years since her husband died, over nitpicky paperwork errors on Their Part.

About me being out against doctor’s orders scrounging scrap metal just to make it through til monday.

One of the volunteers was a Marine and a Nam Vet, so much for the notion that Veterans are all voting for McCain, (despite his continued votes to screw the veterans the same way the VA is messing up Miss Johnnie’s paperwork and payments)

Miss Johnnie, understandably, doesn’t talk without a great deal of emotion on those subjects.

So after the Volunteers left, about 20 minutes later a very large order of Chinese food charged to Obama came to the door.

The Delivery man is a recent immigrant and doesn’t speak English, so he called his boss, who confirmed it but said it was supposed to be a surprise.

Enough food to last until Monday.

I came in with this really pitiful half gallon of milk and about a meal worth of food and some cat food.. and she was crying and showing me all the food.

And said that Obama had bought it for us.

I didn’t get the story quite right the first time, so I thought he had been there in person.

Not quite, but you know how in the Churches people say “I’ll be there in spirit”?

He was there in a way that really counts.

McCain has a fake falsified made-up “Joe the Plumber” who turns out to be a white-collar person named Sam and not even a plumber…

Obama now has Miss Johnnie the Viet-Nam Widow and a Real Joe the Ex-Roofer with Busted Feet.

That’s why Obama wins.

He’s Real, his concern for the people is Real, and the people who supporting him, WE’RE real too.

…

Hell, I don’t know where to research it myself.

There’s been a flood of out-of-state volunteers past two days, because Ms Sarah was doing her Schtick at the baseball park to a tame crowd.

Tame as in no Nasty Obama Supporters being let through to ask all kinds of icky-poo questions.

I went in yesterday and mentioned at the welcome desk at Obama HQ about the FreakSquad chalking the death-threat or death-wish either one on the sidewalk essentially directly across the street from them.

The restaurant is “Coal Mine Dragon” at 1720 W Uintah, the Springs. The lady who runs it is Second Generation Chinese. She told Miss Johnnie that it was Obama paying the tab, and that it was supposed to have been secret.

If it was merely the Volunteers calling in the order, and the restaurant owner not getting it out clearly distinguished, that’s still great.

as to was he the one who spoke to her, he identified himself as such.

If he was a clever impostor doing a good imitation that’s more improbable.

Not much reason anybody would, especially as Obama wouldn’t tolerate it.

if he confirms it himself is the best proof I could think of.

…

Who has that kind of pull to hotline direct to Obama during a rally?

Congressman Mark Udall, that’s who.

He told Miss Johnnie about being a Marine himself, I had thought “damn, that sounds a lot like Mark Udall…”

And, sure enough…

…

Run the pack of clowns out of office.

There’s some tidying up to do, seems like a herd of Elephants has gone through the national living room, pooping on the floors, breaking stuff and drinking out of the toilet.

If I’m not mistaken, some poor clerk at the VA in Denver is going to have a rude surprise Monday morning.

Mark Udall is running on Workers Rights, and Veterans Affairs… very large issues here in Colorado.

The “Terror Connection” they’ve been trying to tar Obama with, with Udall it’s “the Department of Peace” and Labor Unions.

His opponent is making big talk from those same National Attack Ads just like with the “Daschle Democrats” Ads with the bobble heads…

Well, Daschle was proven RIGHT about Iraq.

Trying to paint Udall as a hippie-dippy doper (seriously, they’ve been using that angle) when he’s a Marine and a Nam Vet, I think they bit off a chunk of the wrong sandwich.

I don’t know what all the names of the meals are, one involved a lot of chicken and broccoli, mushrooms… oh man..

Another same recipe, stir fried, with steak in it.

Cabbage rolls and rice with more chicken in it…

I think I like this restaurant and plan to give them my patronage.

The bill came to just under $40 bux.

If you’re in Colorado, vote no on 47 and there’s two more Blatantly union busting amendments there.

Oh, there’s an attack ad on right now….

These freaks need to be slapped repeatedly, in fact I’ll start a thread about that…

…

I had to reboot the puter, knocked my keyboard connection loose.

We have one cat, Keenan, neutered male.

She built him cat-runs at three of the windows, we can’t let him outside because our next-door neighbor is a Confirmed Cat-Kicker.

Last summer she contracted Leishmaniasis, which is also called the Baghdad Boil, in Mesopotamia it’s spread by the bite of a flea…

They gave her Antibiotics for it, and for the Mycelin Resistant Staph Aureole that goes with it.

This has affected her inner ear, because the antibiotics were so strong.

At the time we thought it was her lymphatic cancer coming out of remission.

After her husband died, she was waiting on getting her Widow’s Pension, the VA wasn’t even acknowledging that her husband had died of Agent Orange.

It took a few years for that. That’s when she had the lymphoma.

She was out on the street while taking chemo.

Last year she started to try for her CHAMPVA benefits, so she could get meaningful health care.

The ones who come to the forum to blast “Socialized Medicine” don’t know the least part of what the hell they’re putting out, or putting down.

We had the paperwork and forms from the VA to take to the Air Force to get her Widowed Spouse ID card, to get the CHAMPVA started.

We rode the bus across town to Peterson AFB, they allowed her onto the base, but not me, made me get off the bus and wait outside.

Which I prefer anyway, when I left the Air Force, I LEFT.

The guards at the gate, they weren’t Air Force, didn’t have any insignia or rank or name tags, but I knew they weren’t SPs because the SPs are stone freaky about maintaining a spit-shined appearance.

Turns out they’re mercenaries, I thought at first Blackwater but it seems it’s a different group of Mercs.

All the same to me.

At the Admin building another Mercenary, not Air Force personnel, clerk told her that the VA was full of shit, everything changed with nine eleven, don’t you know there’s a war on yadda yadda and threatened to have her arrested.

This year we finally got her ID card, got her CHAMPVA started.

Any Vets reading this, be-the-hell-ware because this is what they’re fixin’ to do to YOU next if McInasane gets in power.

So she’s owed 11 years worth of reimbursement for all the medical care she had to pay for out of pocket, even with the next to worthless Colorado Indigent Care Program insurance (Look up “worthless” in the dictionary and right next to it will be a picture of CICP) one of those “Massive Entitlement Programs For Bums” that McCain bitches about.

She got some reimbursement but is owed about 5 times as much more.

They keep bouncing her claims back, saying the forms are “incomplete”.

Utter bullshit, because I went over their claim as to what information was missing, and it was all right there in the papers.

That’s why I believe somebody from Mark Udall’s office is going to give them a Nasty Note Monday.

That’s the status so far.

The Health Care meltdown in Colorado is almost as bad as it was in Texas when I left.

Privatized everything. Well, I can testify, it didn’t work in Texas, and it surely ain’t working in Colorado either.

…

I get SSI and Medicaid. Miss Johnnie gets a Widows pension and CHAMPVA.

I supplement it by repairing computers and selling them, and the Scrap Metal.

I’ve been making more money off the scrap metal than the computers though.

The internet is part of our Cable package.

And, it’s necessary for the repairs I do to the computers, otherwise we would have ditched that part and just used dial-up.

The past month I haven’t been able to scrap, doctor’s orders.

That drop in income brought us near the edge.

We have for vehicles three bicycles, two of them mine, and she can’t ride hers anymore because of some of her injuries.

And ride the bus for further transportation.

I don’t drive anyway, never learned because it would be too dangerous.

Trust me on that.

But I’ve been getting on fairly well using the bicycles.

Until last month.

On top of that, scrap prices are down, way down… and there’s more competition for what scrap there is.

This is what’s happening across America.

I find out on November 5th what exact kind of surgery is going to be needed, for the foot I thought was uninjured 16 years ago.

I do know part of it is going to involve removal of a bone, the Cuboid.

I won’t have a leg to stand on.

It would be really really cool, you know, if this situation were anywhere near being unique.

Fact is, it ain’t.

That’s why there’s this:

I’m not dancing with joy that McCain is going to lose…

I’m rejoicing that America now has a chance to WIN.

…

Thanks, but we’re getting there. You might need it yourself soon anyway.

Stocks are tanking like mad.

Gas prices are down to 3 a gallon but that’s mostly because so much business, small and large, has crashed that there’s a huge drop in actual consumption.

First law of economics, supply and demand.

There’s going to be money coming in, just a question of when.

We both know how to make money, just we aren’t going to try doing anything on credit, build from a cash-only base.

Johnnie used to be a business owner, she and her husband did custom printing. Before his illness got to him they had over a million in the bank.

That’s how quick a catastrophic illness can do you down.

“difficult” and “impossible” are two separate equations, if something is difficult that just means it’s possible.

It’s a challenge more than anything. I hope.

I’ve got good skills I can adapt, like these computer skills.

This one I’m using now I built up from parts I salvaged, part of the scrap metal deal.

Here in town there WAS a steady supply of one-off computers, like, HP would come out with the newest mainboard and all the HP employees would get a discount on the new one, and either sell the older ones cheap or donate them to the ARC or Goodwill. Here’s a really good business tip, something you might want to invest yourself into, a new mainboard combination comes out roughly every 6 months and the older one, the one that’s King of the Jungle today, is going to be only worth half of what it is today.
Same with all the parts.

And for all practical purposes, the best there is today, in 6 months will still be able to run any software package there is. Not much point in buying a brand new computer, unless you’re developing software specifically for the newest chipset. so I’m developing a base of people who will want to buy good computers, that’ll do whatever they want, just at an amazingly lower price than they would pay to HP or Dell.
it’s more a matter of timing your purchases than anything else.

Now HP is closing down most of their local operations here, moving some to Albuquerque and some to iirc Little Rock.

But I’ll adapt. Part of it is that I don’t have a huge monetary investment in anything, mostly my investment has been in skills.

At least we have a plan, and are getting, slowly to be sure, but it is building up, the means to implement the plan.

Dire straits are familiar territory for me. At least I know my way around.

There’s good coming onto the horizon.

American death squads and torture in Somalia

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somaliaWhy are Americans so uninterested in what their government does in their name in Somalia? We certainly have shit loads of good liberal folk running around in circles demanding that the US government intervene militarily in Sudan, do we not? But we have a virtually total silence about what the US is doing to the Somali people. More blowback from the war on terror Why is that?

One local example is how the church folk over at the Colorado Springs so-called Justice and Peace Center have never shown any signs of interest in helping fight to stop this US war which is becoming genocidal in nature. It’s off their hypocritical lips altogether. They just received a $1600 grant from a local church, but don’t look to see any of that money put to uncovering the plight of Somalians for people here in Colorado Springs. It will all go to talking about their supposed commitment to ‘non-violence’ and love of Gandhi. Wonder if they would act the same if they were Somalians in their US-Ethiopian invaded Homeland? One rather doubts it.

Here are pictures of All American troops in Somali, in an all Black country, fucking it all up. Now the US government has Black African mercenaries doing most of the dirty work for them.

US government heads toward direct military engagement against Russia

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The US government is moving toward direct military confrontation against Russia as Bush has directed the US military to begin shipping ‘aid’ to Georgia. The Pentagon has already been ferrying Georgian troops back into Georgia from out of Iraq, where they functioned as US mercenaries there in the US occupation of that country. Because of DC’s continued belligerence all over the globe and now its role in destroying South Ossetia’s capital, Russia has little choice other than to stand up to the current Bush Administration and draw the line hard and fast now, and doing that can lead to a nuclear showdown quite quickly.

The Democratic Party has an opportunity to veto this Republican begun war, but so far has remained utterly silent. Correct that. Actually some leading advisers to the DP also are pushing for further dangerous confrontation against Russia. I am talking about Zbigniew Brzezinski in special who is now a Barack Obama adviser. This infamous Cold Warrior who gave Osama bin Laden his start in Afghanistan is advocating more US government aggression against Russia, not less.

What do the latest Rice and Bush communiques signify? Bush orders aid to Georgia, Rice to visit Tbilisi One thing is for sure, and that is that George W. Bush and his neocons are a lot stupider, a lot looser with their power, and a lot more arrogant than John F. Kennedy ever was, and that spells trouble for us all. The Democratic Party’s passive acceptance of the Bush plan to continue attacking Russia is very disturbing.

Risks?

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US Gov does not condone torture
…..Risks Incorporated,
US firm, ………… has been doing US government torture training for instructing police in Leon, Mexico. This US company is now embroiled in a scandal in Mexico because one of its how to torture training clips was exposed to public scrutiny.
 
Next time you want to get tough on undocumented Mexican workers in the US, think a little bit about this US company and what it is doing in Mexico. It is a US firm training Mexican police on behalf of the American government on how to torture Mexican citizens. This government doesn’t practice torture, its employees do! That would be both the US and Mexican governments which use torture on people…

Corporate Welfare Queens demand more war at Keystone family picnic Jun 23-25

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“Integrating Air, Space, and Cyberspace Domains” is the theme of this year’s War in Outer Space crowd. Yes, these corporate Welfare Muthers will be bringing the kids to the summer picnic in Keystone Colorado next week. There’s so much to do at this Vail Resort property! I hear the food will be just marvelous! Space Warfare Symposium And the scenery!

My favorite Welfare Queen of them all is ATK where they give you a visual show at their web site that includes Space War craft, Pentagon sold fighter bombers buzzing The Statue of Liberty, and huge belts of ammo (their specialty in sales) for the hired mercenaries.

These Pentagon-fed Welfare Queens like to make you think that they are protecting ‘homeland security’, but they really are just selling the idea that they deserve to continue to be welfare recipients ….all the way to Mars and back! They are just pigs feeding at the trough.

Where’s the Justice and Peace paid staffers, too? The ‘Space War Symposium’ picnic will probably be able to hear their snoring all the way to Keystone! Another no-show for the paid supposed agitators it seems? They may well be too busy to come while occupying themselves trying to downsize the group, without giving up any of their own salaries, of course.

Blackwater Thugs: Fallujah “heroes”?

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There’s a War-drum-beating propaganda special coming on this evening on one of the cable history channels… The teaser says “When four Blackwater private security contractors were brutally murdered and their bodies hung up for everybody to see” BULLSHIT…

They went into Fallujah to pick a fight, knowing that neither the Iraqi government nor the United States Government would prosecute them for their CRIMES, …but the Sunni Militia DID, under THEIR laws.

Our newly moderated Troll said the Private Contractors were “doing security work (at Pete Field) so American Troops could be freed up to fight for your rights in Iraq”…

Except Air Force SP’s aren’t exactly a combat unit. Of course, sending cops over there to enforce Imperial Martial Law is really really fighting FOR freedom.

And of course, sending mercenaries over there to back up those cops, who only truly want to imprison, torture or kill ONLY those naughty Iraqi people who object to the Invasion Liberation of their country… and fail to greet their liberators with flowers… and fail to bow before the Natural Superior Culture of the Empire Liberation Forces… and fail to lick their goddamned jackboots…

What are our US backed troops in Somalia up to?

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I know, I know, Tony, we don’t have troops in Somalia so what the Hell are you thinking? Well, GI Joe, we may not have you there at this very minute, but the US government you serve does have paid mercenaries there doing the fighting.

Hey, I’m not talking about Blackwater, though that company of mercenaries is already in Sudan doing …. what? ‘Peacekeeping’? How noble. But I am writing about those other US mercenaries that are doing the fighting of a US war in Somalia, the Ethiopian troops. What are these US government backed troops up to?

Army slit throats in mosque, says Amnesty Now let’s see? The US government says it is not fighting a Neo-Crusade in Muslim lands, but has an Ethiopian army, made up of Ethiopian Christians, supported by America, the Christian Empire, cutting Muslims throats inside mosques! Certainly, America’s war against Somalia must be winning the hearts and minds of Muslims world wide, don’t you think? Dubya and Dick, Donald, and Condi, all so respectful of religious freedom and so careful to not make the Iraq War and all their other wars out to be religiously motivated by Christian zealotry and what not. They love ‘good Muslims’ and all.

So what are our US backed troops in Somalia up to? They’re out their cutting the throats of Muslims in their churches (mosques), that’s what?

Global Patriot thinks she’s a white SUV

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Container ship under contract with the US Navy
While negotiating the Suez Canal in Egypt, the ship GLOBAL PATRIOT fired on enterprising Egyptian merchants who’d approached too close, who did not know perhaps, despite its GWOT themed name, that the container ship was under contract with the US Navy. The Egyptian traders may not have predicted the ship was manned by gun totting mercenaries, operating under Iraq privateer rules of engagement, shouting and shooting out the porthole as if everyone outside was an unlucky Iraqi. It’s reported that one Egyptian was killed and others wounded. Global Container Lines explained their people were wary of a USS Cole type attack, the usual contractor justification for preemptively strafing civilians. But US private soldiers aren’t above the law in Egypt.

Iraq contractor deaths counted in digits

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Revealed: two more US contractors were killed in Iraq. Their bodies discovered after they had been captured last year. The FBI has asked the families not to comment publicly. Plus, this latest report came with more gruesome detail than Americans are accustomed. Something about severed fingers.

Family members blabbing would certainly mar the news blackout under which our contractor mercenaries are concealed. Americans are told nothing about private warrior activities or casualties. Only by researching the number of US life insurance claims filed, listing Iraq as the place of death, was the Boston Globe able to tally 1,123 deaths in the Iraq private sector.

Though the condition of the two bodies are not being revealed, one of the bodies had been alive recently enough to provide a finger which his captors sent to expedite negotiations. Enclosed with it were fingers from three other captive contractors, whose bodies have not yet turned up. Perhaps the fingers were the proof our investigators asked for, that the captors held who they say they held, and that their captives were still alive.

Separating combatants from their fingers has a long precedent in war, in particular the index and middle finger, aka trigger fingers. This ensured that if your captive was released, he would no longer be able to wield a rifle against you.

Except for today’s report, severed fingers in Iraq hadn’t made the news. We don’t know, for example, which finger, or if this had been the first for Crescent Security Group Guard Paul Johnson-Reuben. Only FBI agents would know if hostage fingers arrive on a monthly basis, as a reminder or status check on the lives being negotiated. Do ten digits mark a captive’s expiration date?

Isn’t it interesting that the FBI is handling the case? Why not the CIA, nor INTERPOL, who handle international crimes, instead of our domestic investigators? To me this suggests something about the international jurisdiction of sovereign Iraq.

The contractors losing people in Iraq

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We’ve all heard of Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, Custer Battles et al. Who are the other contractor / profiteer / mercenaries in Iraq? Here’s a partial list, sorted by most recent fatality.

Prolog Middle East, Wackenhut Services, Tetra Tech EC, DynCorp International, Armor-Group, L-3 Communications, Erinys International, Aegis Defence Services, CSS Global, BLP International, Odebrecht, Unity Resources Group, National Democratic Institute, The Sandi Group, Blue Hackle, Securiforce International, ECCI, Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group Inc, The Olive Group, Falcon Security, Lear Siegler Inc, EOD Technology, Inc., Cochise Consultancy, Inc., AIM Group, MPRI, Tetra Tech, Genric, SOC-SMG, Hart Security Company, Torres International, Danubia Global Incorporated, Kroll Incorporated, MVM Inc., Triple Canopy, Inc., Lucent Technologies Inc, Titan Corp, GRS Security, Control Risks Group, USA Environmental Inc., Lloyd-Owen International, CTU Consulting, Kuwaiti company, Edinburgh Risk Inc, Qatar International Trading Company, Janusian Security Risk Management., Steele Foundation, Bearing Point, Inc., CLI USA, Global Risk Strategies Limited, Taehwa Electric Co, Gorkha Manpower Company, Eurodelta d.o.o, Omega Risk Solutions, Gulf Services Co., MayDay Supply, Morning Star Co., Soufan Engineering, Siemens, Ulasli Oil Company, Bilintur, Al Tamimi group, InterEnergoServis, United Defense Industries, Readiness Mgmt. Svcs., Johnson Controls, Gana General Trading Co., Al-Atheer, Granite Services, Inc., General Electric, Titan National Security Solutions, Environmental Chemical Corp. International, Control Risks Group, Yuksel Construction, Prime Projects International, Meteoric Tactical Solutions, Bidepa, SOMAT, Chemoprojekt, Ensto Utility Networks, Air-Ix, SAS International, Ultra Services.Irex Corp., Omu Electric Co., Washington Group, Proactive Communications Inc, ToiFor Kft, IAP Worldwide Services, Sub-Surface Engineering, Bechtel, National Response Corp. of Long Island, Tetra Tech EC.

Why rent-a-cop if you can rent-a-killer?

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The city clerk has been working on a proposal to the Colorado Springs City Council to authorize private security firms to carry semi-automatic weapons. The New Life Church shootings raise the issue, apparently, that security personnel should be better armed, although there were no private security firms present. The mayhem was averted by volunteer church members assigned to security, who made do with a handgun.

Has there been a call for an escalation of firepower in property protection skirmishes? Are marauding bands of drug dealers challenging malls and warehouses with overpowering force? Are rent-a-cop and house alarm responders finding themselves out-gunned by burglars and mischievous teens?

Private security firm owners claim the current limit of .38 or .45 caliber handguns is too restrictive for their new hires who are often coming from the military war zones and are used to patrolling with automatic weapons. Oh, and to what else are they accustomed? Shoot to kill orders? Shoot anything that moves “kill-zones?” After an I.E.D. ambush, shoot all living beings in the vicinity? Shoot women and children if suspicious? Shoot cars that do not heed shouted commands? Shoot through walls, into doors, around blind corners? What percentage of vets are coming back with PTSD? Aren’t they unsuited to most jobs except to be lonely night patrolmen?

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina we saw assault-rifle bearing Blackwater blackshirts unleashed on the traumatized population. The only thing keeping Blackwater and Aegis type goons out of our city would be weapons restrictions such as we have, as are common to all civilized population centers. Many British Bobbies still are not permitted to carry guns at all. That’s the kind of change we need. Stand down, don’t gear up.

Jamie Leigh Jones is still locked in a box

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Jamie Leigh Jones KBR HalliburtonWhen they teach in math class about the square roots of numbers, you invariably encounter the paradox of negative numbers. Since neither two positive factors nor two negatives can produce a negative, you’re told the square root of a negative is “irreducible” and you must leave the equation be. It turns out that this explanation was really a matter of convenience, because later in the year students revisit the square root of -1 and learn it can be called an imaginary number. Now you were expected to solve the equation, and zoom, math took off from there. I remember feeling betrayed that math had become an abstraction, so comfortable was I to be stuck at the simpler impasse.

I use this analogy to contemplate some oversimplifications about law which are being used to temper moral indignation at the machinations of our government. We’re told, for example, that we’ve subverted the rule of law in Iraq, that enemy combatants are not covered by the Geneva Conventions, that Guantanamo Cuba falls neither under Cuban law nor our dominion. We’re told the International Criminal courts do not have jurisdiction over Americans and we’re told our contractor-mercenaries are exempt from anyone’s prosecution. Those legal impediments to justice are not only imaginary, to say it in legalese, they’re balderdash.

My math teacher had a educational reason to maintain that the square root of -1 was unsolvable. Whatever motive does anyone have to keep the American public in the dark about the suspension of human rights?

NBC has just trumpeted the tragic case of Jamie Leigh Jones, but presumes simultaneously to reinforce the aforementioned balderdash. Two years ago Jones was gang raped by KBR coworkers in Iraq and kept in a shipping container until she was able to convince one of her keepers to lend her a cell phone. Her father then called a congressman who called the State Department who sent agents over to KBR’s compound in the Green Zone to set her free. Since that time, the feds have dropped the case, the rape-kit evidence has gone missing, KBR claims it has been ordered to conduct no investigation, and Jones is left with no recourse but to file a civil suit. Now she is being told that an arbitration clause in her contract prevents her from doing even that.

The truths being asserted, as indignant as they might make us feel, are that contractors in Iraq are outside the reach of any law. Specifically Iraqi law, as dictated by Viceroy Bremer’s famous contractor indemnity clause, but by inference, US law, because Iraq is a “sovereign nation,” and International Law, because otherwise our whole country could be held accountable for what it’s perpetrated there.

I’ve even read it asserted that two years marks the expiration of Jone’s right to redress from her attackers. Wherever have you heard of so short a statute of limitation for rape?

Another assumption attempts to bolster the impregnability of arbitration clauses which have become de rigueur in corporate employment contracts. Such clauses may forbid civil litigation, rightfully, but do not preclude responsibility for criminal acts. The supposed ambiguity that Jones’ rape cannot be considered a crime is to build a crock upon a sham. No contract may dictate that a assignee consents to be the victim of a crime. Sorry boys.

Likewise, the concept of Iraq being a lawless state is our Defense Department’s wet dream. We may administrate Iraq like the Wild West, as it may for now be under our screws, but like everywhere else on the globe, Iraq is protected by international law. You might also find lawyers who will argue that any lands under the authority of our government are bound by the US constitution period.

The only thing standing between the KBR miscreants and fair judgment is our government’s determination [not] to apply the law. If the media wanted to report that all Blackwater KBR killer rapists are indemnified exclusively by Bush decree, that would be the truth.

Thank you Miss Jones for pressing on with your accusations and lawsuit. Please don’t let the disinformation discourage you.

“How awesome and powerful God is.”

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      Allah Akbar – God is Great.
After the recent attempted rampage at New Life Church, officials no longer have to explain their church’s unusual need to assign a dozen guards, half of them armed, and several policemen every Sunday to look over their members.
Assam gunned down Matthiew Murray on December 9They are quick to add “these are not mercenaries that we hire.” Onward Christian soldier.

Matthew Murray, disgruntled aspiring missionary and product of devout Christian home-schooling, returned to the Youth With a Mission training center with which he’d been affiliated in Denver and went postal. After killing two and wounding another two, he headed to their satellite office in Colorado Springs.

Meanwhile, alerted that a killer was not yet apprehended, and apprised that they might be potential targets, the New Life Church management raised the alert and took extra security measures. One of which was to reassign Jeanne Assam, usually the personal bodyguard to their church leader, to a position with a higher vantage point over the congregation. An ex-policewoman, Ms. Assam is currently employed working security for Messenger International, a husband and wife writing team traveling the Fundamentalist Christian self-help circuit.

Sure enough the black-clad avenger showed up and started shooting. Ms. Assam rose from her concealed position and fired repeatedly at the shooter as she closed in, leading reports to describe Murray as having been “gunned down.”

(In a bizarre turn, some news accounts are quoting police investigators as suggesting that the gunman may have died of self-inflicted wounds.)

At a press conference Ms. Assam said she was thankful she’d saved the congregation and “honored” that God had selected her to do it. Asked what went through her mind as the young man fell to the ground, Ms. Assam’s words reminded me of a soldier rationalizing his omnipotence: “how awesome and powerful God is.”

When Muslim insurgents successfully detonate an I.E.D. in Iraq they cheer “Allah Akbar.”

United Nations pedophile ‘peacekeepers’

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Everywhere in the US liberals want the United Nations to get involved and send in the ‘UN peacekeepers’, even though the UN Security Council is totally controlled by the American government.

And let’s face it, at times the UN troops act in some ways like the US troops do in Afghanistan and Iraq. And in some ways even worse! Like many of the ‘peacekeepers’ having sex with minors in areas under their control.

This has happened over and over in Liberia, Congo, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Haiti, East Timor, Bosnia, Kosovo,and yes, Sudan, too. See UN Child Sex Slave Scandals Continue and the latest S Lanka troops ‘abused Haitians’ .

Why are liberals so enchanted about having UN troops being sent into a country? The UN is a total mess and totally under the control of the US. Isn’t it time to stop calling or desiring for the UN to do the US’s mop up operations?

Silencers

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Did Blackwater sneak silencers into Iraq? That’s a good question, because silencers are used mainly by snipers. Is this the true face of bringing ‘democracy’ to Iraq?

Is sniping using silencers done by a private Pentagon- contracted corporation of death squad personnel what Iraq is all about for the US government at this point? Yes, it is certainly so. What else can one expect from a government that loves ‘water-boarding’ its captives so?

That and rendering. Dictionary meaning of ‘to render’ is ‘to try out oil from fat, blubber, etc., by melting.’ ‘Rendering’, a favorite phrase for US government death squad work. Yes, the US government, Pentagon, and Blackwater would be using silencers, too. America’s face to the world.

Musharraf vetoes US negotiated deal with a bang

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Oh my! Dubya so wants these 2 kids to get along but that all got blown away with a Big Bang yesterday. Generalissimo Musharraf just doesn’t want to share power with a prettier face it seems.

Benazir Bhutto’s husband, Zardari, blurted out the truth about Washington’s man in Karachi instead of playing along with The Blame It on Evil Terrorists game Musharraf wants to play.

Send in Condi immediately, Jorge! And better shut up Zardari fast before he reveals more of the plot to the world. Poor Pervez…

Unlawful Combatant Private Contractors

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Private contractors illegal enemy combatants
Here’s a rare photo of some private security contractors in Iraq. In the wild west they were called guns for hire. Incorporated they became Pinkertons and so continued a long tradition of reviled professional soldiers, Hessians, Swiss Guards, Gurkhas, usually associated with totalitarian regimes, not democracies.

Our government and media won’t use the term mercenaries, but they do perseverate on not having any official means to restrain their dogs of war. APPARENTLY Iraq law doesn’t touch them, ALAS, neither does American military law. We benefit from their ruthless methods but bear no responsibility DEAR GOD when someone catches them/us at it.

Bush and Co are eating their cake and having it in everybody’s faces as well. No accountability for our private contractor mercenaries? What is our own definition of UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANTS? Not that it’s any excuse to lock irregular soldiers away without due process, or to deny anyone their human rights, but certainly asymmetric warriors fit the bill for illegal combatants.

Can you believe that our diplomats and upper echelon will not go anywhere without these mercenary escorts? They’re confined to the Green Zone until Blackwater is cleared of its latest shooting spree. What about US soldiers as escorts? Our generals and statesmen do not trust our own troops for their safety. These private hired killers are the US Praetorian Guard, and our leaders claim they fall under no one’s authority?

What this administration and the press and every talking head war monger pay careful attention to ignore is that international law has jurisdiction over all their crimes. When you hear some military expert pensively mulling over with great dismay the untread gray area of indemnified private contractor actions. It’s silly subterfuge. International war conventions, Geneva Article 47 for example, have without ambiguity codified and condemned mercenaries and war criminals alike.

Blackwater, Aegis and the body of Khan

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Contractor mercenaries in their white SUVs
When Genghis Khan died, his body had to be returned from the battlefront to his birthplace in Outer Mongolia. Two factors determined how the Mongols decided to accomplish this. First, his successors hoped to keep word of the great Khan’s death from spreading panic across his empire, lest recently conquered vassals fall to the temptation of insurrection. Second, the Mongols were concerned not to be observed choosing their leader’s final resting place, to circumvent thieves trying to retrieve the treasures to be buried with him. Here’s the plan they developed: don’t let anyone see you.

But Genghis Khan’s escort could not disguise a cortege befitting the ruler of the then known world. Whoever came out of the woods or over the hill or out of the garden or along the trail to see the fantastic procession, was killed on the spot.

It’s thought that envoys were sent out to warn villagers away from their path. The Mongols also took care to pass through back roads where they would attract the least attention. They had no interest in a scorched earth policy on lands which belonged to them, whose prosperity paid their tribute and enhanced their Khan’s wealth.

IRAQ
American modern-day mercenaries in Iraq, sent out on missions in barely-armored white SUVs, face a similar imperative to quash witnesses who could report what they saw to forces better prepared to lay in ambush. To this end, the mercenaries post a warning on their vehicles that anyone coming too close will be shot. Trophy videos have found their way to the internet showing the shooting sprees this task sometimes has entailed. Men from AEGIS or BLACKWATER shoot approaching cars, even if their Iraqi drivers have not gotten close enough to read the printed warning.

It speaks to the volatility of Iraq, that our occupation forces, through the mercenaries they employ, find it better to annihilate bystanders sooner than administrate the lands and reap the rewards of protective stewardship.

Call out Alliant Techsystems & CACI too

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ATK is chief supplier of poisonous Depleted Uranium
Other military industries complicit in war crimes in Iraq have offices in Colorado Springs at Academy and Fountain Blvds.
 
ATK Alliant Techsystems is the leading supplier of Depleted Uranium, which is poisoning the Iraqi populace as well as our soldiers. Ft Carson vets who father children with birth defects will know whom they can hold responsible.
 
Interrogators at Aby Ghraib were supervised by CACILikewise, CACI International provides “security solutions” to our boys overseas. Celebrated, ie leaked, examples were the torture methods employed at Abu Ghraib.
 
To be fair, abuses at Abu Ghraib were also administered by Colorado Springs neighbor TITAN CORP, now L-3 Communications Titan Group.
 
Isn’t it amazing that so many culprits of Iraq atrocities are represented in Colorado Springs, at ACADEMY AND FOUNTAIN?! Our visit on Tuesday will be straight into the midst of these callous profiteers.

Iraq in large even numbers

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A common scene unseen by Americans
An uncelebrated milestone: this week marked the 1,000th mercenary death in Iraq. The casualty figure for US military soldiers moved up four in one blast to 3688. This week also saw the highest number of US troops in Iraq, 162,000. Counting the estimated 180,000 contractor-mercenaries that figure is 342,000.
 
Also this week: extrapolating from last year’s Johns Hopkins estimate for Iraqi deaths due to the US invasion, the current number of Iraqi casualties is estimated to be rounding ONE MILLION. One million Iraqi lives lost, in violent deaths, as a result of the US illegal war. One million Iraqis definitely better off with Saddam deposed.