Washington Post:
The founder of Blackwater USA deliberately caused the deaths of innocent civilians in a series of shootings in Iraq, attorneys for Iraqis suing the security contractor told a federal judge Friday.
Murray Fromson: Stand Up, Mr. President!
If Obama is beginning to look like a wimp, now's the time to show the American people they're wrong by putting the brakes on the legion of private contractors in Afghanistan.
Doug Bandow: You Know It's Time to Leave Iraq When...
Will Iraq "fail" if America leaves? Perhaps so, but there's no reason to believe that a continued U.S. presence can prevent failure.
Frank Schaeffer: Military Contractors and Our Buck-Stops-Nowhere "Wars"
I have less and less respect for the way our civilian leaders lack the courage to tell the truth about our wars.
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This criminal violater of the human rights of civilians and the constitution of his own nation deserves a fair trial followed by a life sentence. Christ is spinning in his grave to hear that this man considers himself the follower of a man who preached peace and love and goodwill to all.
The pampered Ivy League elite are groomed for positions of influence and power. The establishment assumes or creates myths that these are the people who are the most intelligent and the most capable to serve as leaders in government and industry. Very good, but they're missing one crucial fact: They have been carried throughout without the benefits of the rigors of struggle in life, which according to Plato, would mean deep seated ignorance. According to Plato, they would be unfit to serve as philosopher kings. Take Lincoln, who was despised by the pampered class, who were highly class-conscious, had trouble comming to terms that a man who was born in a shack and self-taught could be their leader. Today, Lincoln's likeness remains the most prominent structure in Washington, D.C.
I know he's guilty 'cause of his Hit.ler hair.
What the people get from government and private power is alot of hot air, nothing more. What Wall Street, Banks, CEO's, Corporations, Agro-Business, Big Oil, Private Defense, Blackwater and others get are no bid contracts, bailouts and subsidies.
We don't control other countries for its resources by occupation like Ancient Rome, Great Britian, and others. What we do is invade, install puppet governments, and open it markets to U.S. and friendly state investors and turn the country into a client state dependent on U.S. loans through the Federal Reserves front man, the IMF.
What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left unfed ? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children ? What law have I broken ?
Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull ignored an important fact: he broke the law by existing on land that the invaders wanted for themselves, and worse, not politely handing it over to them.
Our current policy in Iraq: you can have your land, but we want to control the black gold you are sitting on, and we will make sure you have the government that you want.
Obama the coward will let it all pass as part of the past!!
Let's hear your thoughts on Shrub while you're on your soapbox - you know, the guy who started the whole thing.....
how's the view from the cheap seats.
It takes a lot of courage to critisize from behind a keyboard in your mom's basement.
You are missing the point. What reason do we have for invading a country that did nothing to us. To support the war in Iraq is to support agression and war profiteering.
Obama is continuing the war and has expanded it to Pakistan.
Change you can believe in !!!
Considering that Shrub dropped the ball when it came to Afghanistan, (you know, more of that "Mission Accomplished" cra.p), Obama was left to pick up the pieces afterwards. So unless you advocate just getting the hell outta Dodge and letting the people left behind decimate each other, I suggest you quit mouthing your tired old refrains and suggest some answers to their problems. But that's not your thing, is it? You just like pointing fingers....
Would we be in Iraq, if Iraq were not sitting on the second most, and soon to be richest oil reserve in the world, probably not.
You are right. It's about OIL.
Obama = Bush
Nothing changed !!!!
How did you make that stunning leap??? It is Pres. Obama's fondest wish to shut down as much of our oil dependency as possible. He couldn't care less about Iraqi oil. Or oil from anywhere else. Maybe you missed it, but we've already started leaving Iraq.
This man is a corrupted dirtbag
Obama's Blackwater is Triple Canopy Inc.
"The Iraq contract may come as no surprise. But according to federal contract records obtained by AlterNet, the Obama administration has also paid Triple Canopy millions of dollars to provide "security services" in Israel. In February and March, the Obama administration awarded a "delivery order" to Triple Canopy worth $5.5 million under State Department contract SAQMPD05F5528,"
http://www.alternet.org/world/134594/obama%27s_blackwater_chicago_mercenary_firm_gets_millions_for_private_%22security%22_in_israel_and_iraq_/
Sounds like the judge is already bought and paid for.
This guy is guilty no matter how you slice it. The invasion of Iraq was premptive and had nothing to do with terroism or 9/11. Premptive wars are illegal according to us and the world community. If we thought it acceptable in the early 90's, we would have not invaded Iraq when it invaded Kuwait, and used that very same argument to justify our reasons for doing so. So, the message we are communicatinf is: it is okay for us to invade a country without provocation, but not okay for another to do the same. The act of invading the second time around and everything that ensued thereafter was an illegal act and prince and his outfit aided and abetted.
Why hasn't Obama ended the war like he said?
Why did he hire Triple Canopy Inc. to replace Blackwater? Million of dollars of taxpayers money to a mercenary company from Chicago.
Change you can believe in..!!!
http://www.alternet.org/world/134594/obama%27s_blackwater_chicago_mercenary_firm_gets_millions_for_private_%22security%22_in_israel_and_iraq_/
You don't know what you're talking about. We've already started leaving Iraq. In a war where you have destroyed another country for no particular reason, you can't just pick up and leave. You leave gradually to give the INVADED country a chance to gradually learn to control it's own destiny--without us.
Triple Canopy is NOT replacing Blackwater. They were both contracted by Bush, and were in Iraq at the Same Time. However, Triple Canopy was more a security force and Blackwater was a mercenary company, and is now under investigation for torture and murder. That's the difference.
Believe it.
The President is pragmatically winding down our presence in Iraq.
It IS change I can believe in.
What I can't believe in is your faux outrage.
Hidden agenda, much?
Here Com DA Judge
Judge T.S. Ellis III expressed deep skepticism about the claims. "Are you accusing Mr. Prince of saying 'I want our boys to go out and shoot innocent civilians?' '' he asked the attorneys."These are certainly allegations of not engaging in very nice conduct, but where are the elements that meet the elements of murder? I don't have any doubt that you can infer malice. What you can't infer, as far as I can tell, is intent to kill these people.''
Never let the facts get in the way of a good rant.
how does "malice" differ from "intent."judge?
Why has Obama hired Triple Canopi Inc. to replace Blackwater?
Change you can believe in!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Canopy,_Inc.
Mr. Prince (of darkness) runs a mercenary army. The intent is to kill people for profit. The great majority of people killed in Iraq were innocent civilians. Are there any other elements of murder that need to be established?
This guy and his company is everything that wrong with our military and private armies
Obama hired Triple Canopi Inc. to replace Blackwater. According to the article below..
Obama administration has decided on its hired guns of choice: Triple Canopy, a Chicago company now based in Virginia. It may not have Blackwater's thuggish reputation, but Triple Canopy has its own bloody history in Iraq and a record of hiring mercenaries from countries with atrocious human rights records. What's more, Obama is not just using the company in Iraq, but also as a U.S.-government funded private security force in Israel/Palestine, operating out of Jerusalem."
http://www.alternet.org/world/134594/obama%27s_blackwater_chicago_mercenary_firm_gets_millions_for_private_%22security%22_in_israel_and_iraq_/
A
I think I responded to you somewhere else here, to that last bit about "a US government funded private security force in Israel/ Palestine operating out of Jerusalem." My government agency in Washington DC had a "US government funded private security force in the building on Constitution Avenue operating out of Virginia"
SO??
In fact, there are "US government funded private security forces in nearly every government building in DC." There are probably "US government funded private security forces in every embassy overseas." I'm sure that there are "US government funded private security forces in nearly every country that government officials, diplomats and members of congress travel too frequently including Israel.......
Why waste time. You'll post this same thing somewhere else. All we do on these posts is talk past each other.
(BTW Jeremy Scahill is not exactly a reliable source on this issue. His mind has been made up for a long time about Blackwater and Pres Obama. I'd like to see someone else's opinion on this.)
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First Posted: 08-29-09 12:01 AM | Updated: 08-29-09 12:05 AM