Blackwater Mercenaries Invade Event Honoring U.S. Veterans

If there is one issue that unites Left and Right in the United States today, it's respect for those who serve in the Armed Forces. Blackwater's mercenaries, on the other hand, pull down six-figure incomes and serve only their self-interest.

Our soldiers perform their duty with courage and discipline. But Blackwater's employees act like the Wild Bunch did when William Holden wasn't around. They endanger American troops with behavior that inflames local hostility toward the occupying forces. They claim exemption from military and civilian law, shoot Iraqi civilians, and run cars off the road without provocation.

Most importantly, Blackwater mercenaries aren't American soldiers. So what are they doing participating in Fleet Week Celebrations intended "to honor the men and women serving in the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps"?

Lucas O'Connor reports on San Diego State's Fleet Week Football Classic in Calitics:

For at least the second year in a row (probably all three), the halftime show included an American flag being parachuted onto the field by members of a nation parachutist team...who happen to work for Blackwater and use parachutes emblazoned with the Blackwater logo.

Our citizen-based military is an essential part of who we are as a republic and a people. But this Administration uses mercenaries in unprecedented ways: to skirt military and civilian law, and to help its supporters and donors to get rich at public (and soldiers') expense. And while this Administration has cut corners on soldiers' health, safety, and pay, it has no problem letting Blackwater and other companies pocket fat profit margins from the same military budget.
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Patriotism isn't like professional sports or pop music. It shouldn't have a "corporate sponsor" - especially one that profits from the same conflicts that take the lives of our citizen-soldiers. So what, exactly, is the Fleet Week organizing group trying to accomplish? Should football fans salute the Blackwater logo along with the American flag? If not, why is it there?

(And which logo was used this year - the aggressive black one, or the more tranquil white one it adopted shortly after Blackwater used a Burson Marsteller subsidiary to soften its image?)

Blackwater's participation in a patriotic event like this one reflects badly on the event's organizers. They should send the mercenaries home from Fleet Week. Guns-for-hire have no part in a celebration of American heroism.

A Night Light
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Future-While-U-Wait
RJ Eskow at the Huffington Post

Comments

[Dap]

Dear Brother RJ,

Seems you and I are in the exact same stream of consciousness on this one. Agape.

[Tellmethetruth]

Joe Biden has stated he will stop the use of mercenaries immediately. American taxpayers have paid for this according to Biden because Bush has never leveled with the American people about how much the war would cost in terms of human lives and effort. Bush has not wanted to have an unpopular draft so has used the 100,000 mercenaries who do not abide by any rule of laws, yet on the American taxpayer's payroll, not subject to US law or International laws.

I listened to him on C-Span and wow - Biden is extremely sick to death of Bush, but even more so than some of the bloggers here.

http://www.planforiraq.com/

[mamacita]

A mercenary is a paid soldier, and does the job he was paid to do--for the one who paid him. They are currently immune from any conviction of wrongdoing. What happens when they start using them in the US?

[Pdubya]

this is to familiarize the public with blackwater and gain their trust, so that when they start enacting the homeland security under HR1955 and the Internet Regulation Bill and others....we'll placidly give up our arms and privacy.

[GenXer]

I still have not read in the Constitution that the President gets his own private army. If they are captured by the Iranian soldiers, are they( the Blackwater people) illegal enemy combatants?

[lungfish]

What are these guys thinking... mercs are now working alongside regular military, torture is ok as long as you don't talk about it, CIA secret prisons are acceptable. Secret legal briefings confirm and support extraConstitutional/Dictatorial status to the Executive Branch...

Cows whinny, horses moo, up is down and sideways is straigt ahead...

Just can't get my head around it...

[Balzac]

Down with Blackwater and Bush-boot-licking, Defeatocrats and Surrendercrats who gave Bush and Blackwater everything they wanted.

These Democrats would grovel at the feet of young Hitler.

Will these grovelers fight with us or continue to fight against us once Bush pulls his mask off and reveals he wants to be a full-blown mass-murderer of Hitlerian proportions?

[Dandy12]

The Bilgewater people are Bush's praetorian guard. Therefore, they can do as they please.

[Marlyn]

"San Diego State's Fleet Week Football Classic in Calitics:
... an American flag being parachuted onto the field by members of a nation parachutist team...who happen to work for Blackwater and use parachutes emblazoned with the Blackwater logo."

YES that is how it is here in San Diego, corporate control of everything, gung ho for war. USA! USA!

[leftbehind2000]

That is absolutely outrageous. I cannot understand how this crap is allowed. Weren't they booed right out of the stadium? Probably not is my guess.

Somewhere along the way, we traded a country founded on Democratic principles for one where Capitalism is king. Now it seems, patrioti$m is represented by advertisements on everything from football jerseys to military parachutes.

Democracy will finally be deemed a success in Baghdad when there's a Disneyland park there, a Walmart on every corner and one Fast Food outlet per every 50 residents.

[Joeblue]

I am a vietnam vet and I have nothing against those people you refer to as draft dodgers. To me they where war dodgers which is what we should all be.

[xenubarb]

Write to the Fleet Week Director here:
[e-mail]

Or, view the San Diego Fleet Week website:
http://www.fleetweeksandiego.org/index.html

Make it clear we do not support the inclusion of paid mercenaries in our celebration of those serving their country.

[MRb1000]

These guys are going to get our military men and women killed because of their unprofessionalism. We do not need cowboys as a military force. We need the Arms forces. Also, the Iraq people have to police their own country. Our troop are not policeman. The are fighting men and women. When they win the fight it is time to come home. We beat the Iraq Army now it is time to come home. That was the mission!!!!!!!!!

[ljsfolly]

Who invited them and their Blackwater sewage symbols? That we are forced to have them in the middle east putting our troops in more danger is hard enough to stomach without a display when we are homoring those who choose to serve in our military. A black eye such as this group is has no place when we honor those servving or have served with honor. Again who invited them?

[akhmed]

I thought most of Blackwater were former soldiers returning to Iraq for at least three times their old pay. So, technically, they are veterans.

The only Blackwater employee I knew personally was in the Special Forces almost immediately prior to his employment in private security. I'm not sure he'd show up to a veteran's event in Blackwater duds, but there's not such a clear dividing line between Blackwater employees and soldiers.