Blackwater on The Huffington Post

Erik Prince, Blackwater Founder, Cutting Ties With Company

2009-12-02T11:19:00Z

RALEIGH, N.C. — The man who built Blackwater USA into one of the world's most respected and reviled defense contractors feels that he was thrown under the bus after serving the nation's security interests for years.

Erik Prince's company, which renamed itself Xe Services in February after an uproar over its Iraq operations, has worked closely for years with the CIA, the State Department and the U.S. military. But it became the target of a series of federal investigations and congressional probes, primarily for its Iraq work. Most recently, officials disclosed that the CIA tapped the company to work under a program to capture or kill terrorists.

Blackwater's Secret War In Pakistan

2009-11-23T18:11:28Z

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

Iraqis Probe Blackwater After PAYOFF Charges

2009-11-12T10:46:28Z

A senior Iraqi official said Wednesday that he had ordered an investigation into whether top officials of Blackwater Worldwide approved of bribes to Iraqi government officials after shootings by Blackwater guards in 2007 left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

In an interview with CNN, Iraq's interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, said that his ministry was beginning an investigation that was prompted by a report in The New York Times on Tuesday that top Blackwater officials approved cash payments intended to silence criticism and win support for the company after the shootings in Nisour Square in Baghdad.

Jon Soltz: Paying Peter to Kill Paul

2009-11-12T08:23:28Z

When we began our careers in military service, conflicts were often presented to us in black and white terms. There were good guys and bad guys, clear battle lines and we always knew which side we were on, as well as the side of the enemy. However, our experiences on active duty and in the reserves, as well as overseas deployments has taught us that this is regularly not the case. There are myriad complex relationships that transcend roles of good and bad guys.

Private security contractors are among the most complex relationships we have in overseas contingency operations. Since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001, both domestic and foreign corporations have been contracted to provide security to American bases, dignitaries and logistics convoys. At worst these corporations, such as Xe (formerly known as Blackwater) and Triple Canopy, make our jobs harder through their murky command structure and wild west cowboy attitudes. When Blackwater massacred civilians in Iraq it certainly hindered our counterinsurgency efforts. It wasn't, however, as if they were directly funding the insurgency we were fighting.

No, the private security contractors saved that tactic for Afghanistan.

Writing for The Nation, Aram Roston has uncovered a tangled web of former military and CIA officials, relatives of the Afghanistan President and Defense Minister and various other shady characters who act as a pipeline from the U.S. treasury to the Taliban:

In this grotesque carnival, the US military's contractors are forced to pay suspected insurgents to protect American supply routes. It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting. And it is a deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban. "It's a big part of their income," one of the top Afghan government security officials told The Nation in an interview. In fact, US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon's logistics contracts--hundreds of millions of dollars--consists of payments to insurgents.

Here's how the chain works: The U.S. government pays trucking firms to move supplies around Afghanistan to its rural and far flung outposts. These trucking companies then pay private security contracting firms, operated by drug lords, warlords, the Taliban and relatives of senior Afghan Administration officials, or consortiums of any or all of them, for safe passage to American installations. As one American trucking executive said, ""The Army is basically paying the Taliban not to shoot at them. It is Department of Defense money.""

As part of the Sunni Awakening movement in Iraq, the United States paid Sunni insurgents who previously fought American forces to secure their own neighborhoods from foreign fighters, with the promise that they would later be folded into the Iraqi national security apparatus. That is very different then the way operations are being conducted in Afghanistan, where we are essentially telling insurgents "Here is some money, just don't attack us here. Attack us somewhere else." Then, we give them the money to do it.

Using Roston's excellent investigative journalism as a starting point, the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees must investigate the allegations contained therein. We simply cannot continue to put brave men and women in harms way while are tax dollars are funding that harm.

American and NATO service members deserve better than this. We should not send them to possibly die fighting an insurgency that even American contractors working in the operation admit is being funded by DoD. This is simply another example of the rampant privatization of military operations and the corruption caused by it. If a service can be performed by uniformed military, uniformed service members should perform it. If the forces are not available for that service, then that is a fairly reliable indicator that we have overextended our force.

Crossposted at VetVoice.com

Blackwater Still In Business: State Department Fumbles Effort To Oust Them From Iraq

2009-11-06T09:00:38Z

Your tax dollars at work: as part of their effort to stop doing business in Iraq with companies affiliated with the controversial paramilitary contractor formerly known as Blackwater, the State Department earlier this year hired a rival contractor to fly civilian U.S. personnel around the war-torn country by helicopter. But officials subsequently learned that helicopters the replacement contractor, Dyncorp International, was planning to use for this service didn't meet government safety standards. So as a result, the Department was forced to extend for several months its air-transport contract with an affiliate of ... the contractor formerly known as Blackwater.

Kerry Candaele: R.I.P. Shane Ratliff, Halliburton Whistleblower

2009-10-29T15:25:53Z

Shane Ratliff died on Monday. I met him in Ruby, South Carolina during the filming of Robert Greenwald's film Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers. Shane was one of the many people we interviewed for a documentary about how the likes of Halliburton/KBR, CACI, Blackwater, and other corporations stuck their snouts into the deep trough of the wasted and unaccounted-for-cash that now defines how the Iraq war quickly morphed from "mission accomplished" to fiasco, imperial hubris, and descent into chaos.

But Shane was a favorite of ours, a man with a off-beat sense of humor and a wry southern and, indeed, South Carolinian way of getting at the grit of reality. He was a truck driver by inclination and trade, with the hard rules of the road as his moral compass. On his many trips across the United States he thought he had seen everything. But he had not yet experienced the Alice-in-Wonderland world of Halliburton/KBR in the land of greed, grab, and grin that was Iraq as the CEOs that hired him descended upon this great opportunity to serve their country ... from a golf course in the tony suburbs of Houston.

What Shane saw while working as a driver for Halliburton was shocking at first, but approached the banal by the time his stay in Iraq ended. He saw $80,000 dollar trucks left to rot for lack of an oil filter or spare tire. He saw new commercial heaters and air conditioners, thousands of dollars at a shot, thrown into the "burn pit": "They [Halliburton/KBR] just took a lot of nice reusable stuff and just threw it away, is what they done." He saw padded time cards, people paid to do nothing, a usable car buried in the ground. Halliburton CEOs in Wonderland, slaphappy Mad Hatters with multi-million dollar smiles that conveniently disappeared when they spoke of their love and concern for the troops.

"That don't make sense either," Shane pointed out with complete sincerity, as if still perplexed by the absurdity of the acts, "just to take stuff that costs that much and bury it and do away with it. It don't make sense to me just wasting government money, but that's Halliburton." "But that's Halliburton". My mind's eye sees Shane the spokesperson for the big H in a the world's best anti-commercial: "And big companies will lie to you. Just like some individuals will lie to you. Anything that sounds too good to be true, usually is. Halliburton, Too Good To Be True," a five-million dollar thirty-second jingle on SuperBowl Sunday.

The Mad Hatters worked under a cost-plus contract that guaranteed a profit above what was spent. Spend more, waste more, well, they just got paid more. Compassionate conservatism was the mantra of the day indeed. Shane, a Republican all his life, didn't much care that his team was doing the stealing. The rules of the road dictate that laws must be obeyed, stated and expected obligations attended to, no matter what brand of car one drives, at the cost of lives if they are not.

I'd like to think that a bit of the legacy Shane left to his children and wife Rebbecca is in his courage, his audacity, his sense that it was time to step up and tell the honest-to-goodness truth about corporate waste and corruption in Iraq. His story sketched out the coordinates of greed that connected Houston to Baghdad, and ran through Washington D.C., during the Bush reign. But I know that Shane's wife and children, and the many friends who will attend his funeral services today, will remember him not on film but rather in the flesh, as a kind man, a "one-of-a-kind," as Rebbecca told me this morning, and as a guy who knew how the world worked and knew his place in it. He was a fine and generous person.

Shane, thank you for your commitment to honorable and honest rules of engagement during wartime, against the odds and against the powers that were arrayed to your flanks. Rest in peace, my friend.

Judge Shuts Public Access To Blackwater Hearings

2009-10-14T16:33:19Z

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday shut down public access to pretrial hearings in the prosecution of five Blackwater security guards for allegedly killing Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.

The hearings will delve into whether government investigators were tainted by statements the guards gave shortly after the shootings on Sept. 16, 2007, that killed 14 unarmed civilians.

Hardin Jail Deal Delayed Over Controversy With Mysterious Company

2009-10-05T20:08:58Z

HARDIN, Mont. — Plans for a California company to take over this city's empty jail were put on hold Monday, following last week's revelations that the company's lead figure has a criminal history.

The decision came as Hardin's leaders announced the resignation of both the attorney and the economic development official who helped craft the jail deal for the city. Also Monday, a security industry veteran whose name was linked to the project denied involvement.

Kathleen Wells, J.D.: It's Not Just ACORN, Says Congressman Grayson

2009-10-02T14:28:11Z

Freshman Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) is making national headlines with his success in broadening the reach of a bill Congress recently passed that will preclude the controversial community organizing group known as ACORN from receiving any federal money. He believes the bill can and should also be used to stop federal funding of government contractors that he says have earned the title of "crook."

I talked with Congressman Grayson in detail about his efforts to stop the government cash flow to contractors that cheat the government and overcharge the American taxpayers.

Kathleen Wells: What do you believe was the intent behind the recently passed legislation known as the Defund ACORN Act?

Congressman Alan Grayson: I think that the Republicans' intent was to defund ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). But in the process, they defunded crooks all through the military industrial complex and I look forward to their inadvertent efforts in the future to bring about world peace and end hunger.

Kathleen Wells: You're convinced that Republicans were intent on specifically eliminating federal funding for ACORN?

Congressman Grayson: Yes.

Kathleen Wells: But the bill also eliminated funding for other government contractors.

Congressman Grayson: Crooked contractors, yes.

Kathleen Wells: Does ACORN fall into the category of crooked organizations?

Congressman Grayson: Well, it's for the justice system to determine that, not me. I'm not a judge. I'm not a jury. I haven't heard the evidence. I don't know how it would be meaningful for someone who hasn't heard any of the evidence to give an opinion about that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but one is innocent until proven guilty. At least, that's what I thought.

Kathleen Wells: The Congressional Research Institute has indicated that the Defund ACORN Act is likely to be ruled unconstitutional. What are the consequences with your legislative history being attached to this bill?

Congressman Grayson: I think that when the courts decide -- if it comes to whether the bill is constitutional or not -- they [the courts] will take into account the legislative history that I [have] offered.

Kathleen Wells: This bill was introduced and passed after an ACORN employee(s) in Baltimore were/was caught with a hidden camera making incriminating statements to a man and a woman posing as a pimp and a prostitute. Although ACORN has a 30-year history of helping low-income people, many Democrats voted in favor of the Defund ACORN bill. Do you think those Democrats who supported the bill are being short sighted?

Congressman Grayson: I think your question doesn't properly characterize the reason why I voted for the bill. I voted for the bill because it defunds crooks. You have to ask other people why they voted for the bill -- I can't speak for them. I voted because I saw the possibility that we could actually shut off the flow of cash to contractors who have cheated the taxpayers and hurt the troops.

Kathleen Wells: Tell me about the Project Of Government Oversight (POGO).

Congressman Grayson: Sure. POGO was [sic] a long-standing organization. We called them for help after the bill passed and before we put in our legislative history to help us identify all the different contractors who have been found guilty of fraud and are still receiving contracts from the government. They gave us their list and we also went online and received literally hundreds of tips about contractors, along with specific documentation, showing that they had cheated the government. We are in the process of putting that information together and using it. When I say using it, what I mean by that is, defunding the crooks.

Kathleen Wells: How do you specifically intend to do that?

Congressman Grayson: We are going to push to make sure the legislation is signed by the President. We are also going to take the information that we received and make sure that the agency authorities (I'm referring to debarring officials) who are in charge of making sure that contracts don't go to corrupt contractors [will] have the information that we have.

Kathleen Wells: Why is an effort to defund these crooks just being done now?

Congressman Grayson: Because I just got elected.

Kathleen Wells: Why wasn't anyone doing it before?

Congressman Grayson: You'd have to ask them - I don't know. But I've been fighting war profiteers in Iraq for five years. That's what I've been doing. I guess we all have to decide how we are going to spend our time. We have a lot of freedom in Congress to make our own priorities and this is one of mine.

Kathleen Wells: Why are you the only one speaking out on this issue?

Congressman Grayson: I don't think I'm the only one. For goodness sake, look at Congressman Waxman, who is now the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. He has been speaking out about this for literally decades.

Kathleen Wells: Yet, nothing has been done?

Congressman Grayson: Well, I wouldn't say nothing has been done. But now, we are going to finally put the nail in their coffin.

Kathleen Wells: What is your position on Blackwater?

Congressman Grayson: Blackwater, like many other contractors, has already been found guilty of over-charging the government or liable for over-charging the government and I think the problem is pervasive throughout the entire military industrial complex. In the case of Blackwater, they have done far worse. They have seriously undermined the safety of the troops and undermined the [troops'] mission. But the bill, as written, applies to contractors who cheat the government whether or not it has that awful effect [like that created by contractors such as Blackwater].

Kathleen Wells: Approximately how many government contractors are included on your list?

Congressman Grayson: Hundreds.

Kathleen Wells: What does that say to you?

Congressman Grayson: It's says to me that corruption, cheating the taxpayer and hurting the troops and their mission is something that has become pervasive in government contracting.

Kathleen Wells: Tell me how hiring crooked contractors are hurting the troops? Be specific.

Congressman Grayson: I think we've all heard over and over again how that happens. They have electrocuted our troops in their showers. They have feed them poisoned water, dirtier than the Euphrates River. Time and time again, they have endangered the troops and, from time to time, even killed them.

The Army found KBR guilty of homicide. That's the Army's own finding.

Kathleen Wells: What was done about that?

Congressman Grayson: Nothing.

Kathleen Wells: You say this is something that has become pervasive in government contracting?

Congressman Grayson: Don't take my word for it. Just look at the list. Go ahead and attach our list to your report. People can draw their own conclusions. It's not a matter of what I say. That's not important. What's important are the facts that we have already collected. Look at POGO's list. POGO's list has virtually every single one of the top hundred government contractors being found guilty of over-charging the government and cheating the taxpayers. Look at the list - it's documented.

Kathleen Wells: If you are successful in defunding the hundreds of allegedly dishonest contractors on your list, will there be other, honest contractors to replace them?

Congressman Grayson: Of course. This is America. It's not that hard to find honest people.

Kathleen Wells: If it's not hard to find honest people, then why does your list total hundreds?

Congressman Grayson: Because the government has tolerated this and rewarded it by giving these people more contracts.

Kathleen Wells: You paint a picture of the government being the victim. What do you say about the government being complicit?

Congressman Grayson: The government is a big place. You should be more specific. Who are you talking about when you are talking about the government being complicit? Are you talking about the executive branch, the legislative branch [or] the judicial branch? Are you talking about specific agencies? What do you mean?

Kathleen Wells: Who is specifically in charge of hiring these crooked contractors?

Congressman Grayson: Well, it's the executive branch and, specifically, the contracting officers. And it's a phenomenon called the revolving door. What happens is: they keep giving contracts to contractors, no matter what their ethics or lack thereof, because, in many cases, they hope that one day these contractors will hire them and, in many cases, they do. In many cases, they hire them for four times their government salary and everybody is happy, except the American taxpayer.

Kathleen Wells: Is the Government Oversight Committee looking at this situation?

Congressman Grayson: Certainly, when Chairman Waxman was in charge of that Committee, they looked at it vigorously and consistently and I think that Chairman Edolphus Towns will do the same.

Kathleen Wells: Would you say there's been a pattern and practice?

Congressman Grayson: Of course. Look at POGO's list. We've reached the point now where the honest ones feel stupid.

Kathleen Wells: There have been rumblings that SEIU (Service Employees International Union) will be the next GOP target for defunding because of the relationship SEIU has with ACORN. What are your thoughts on that prospect?

Congressman Grayson: It's what I [have] said before. We live in a system of laws, not organizations. Every allegation of misconduct should be investigated thoroughly and whatever punishment is appropriate should be meted out. We can't run this country on the basis of a Republican "enemies list." We have to allow justice to take its course. In the case of these contractors, justice has already taken its course. These are contractors who been found guilty or liable for cheating the government already.

Kathleen Wells: Yet, those same contractors continue to receive government funding.

Congressman Grayson: That's right.

Kathleen Wells: Is this something you have been pursuing before?

Congressman Grayson: Government contracting - for sure. Before I was elected to Congress, I prosecuted war profiteers in Iraq and I was a government contract lawyer for 20 years.

Kathleen Wells: So, this is a continuation of that for you?

Congressman Grayson: Well, you could call it that. But really [it] is a continuation to make sure that taxpayer dollars are not wasted.

Kathleen Wells: Was addressing this issue your primary purpose in running for Congress?

Congressman Grayson: No, I specifically ran for Congress, more than anything else, to try and end the war. But I [also] ran for Congress because I thought I could do a better job representing my people, the people of central Florida, than the four-term Republican incumbent who had done nothing.

American Police Force And Hardin: Mysterious Security Firm Gets Control Of Empty Montana Jail

2009-09-30T18:00:49Z

A shadowy private security company that has no known clients but claims to have helped foreign governments combat terrorism and will protect anything from cruise ships to Pakistani convoys has taken over a jail in a small Montana town, with plans to build a law enforcement training facility on the property.

David Segal: Diebold's Demise Bad For Elections Administration

2009-09-30T14:52:24Z

A quiet 2007 re-branding to Premier Election Solutions helped turn down the heat on Diebold, the villain of a thousand conspiracy theories. (The new moniker is bland and vacant, but at least the firm still deigns to make its name pronounceable, unlike Blackwater, their fiendish Bush-era contractor cousin, which is now "Xe.") The voting equipment outfit brought this notoriety upon itself: For instance, its CEO infamously wrote a fundraising letter for George W. Bush in 2003, asserting that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year," even as his company vied for a multi-million dollar contract from Ohio's Republican-run state government.

That Premier/Diebold might be on the verge of disappearing from the American political landscape could be mistaken for reason to celebrate. It was recently purchased by its major competitor, Election Systems and Software; if the acquisition is approved by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, ES&S will manage elections in jurisdictions including 70% of the nation's voters. A small vendor, Hart Intercivic, is suing to block the merger; various election reform advocates are also working to stymie it.

There's a wider understanding than ever of the part private contractors play in the operations of our voting equipment and administration of elections. The popular reaction has been resounding: If the roles of these contractors were put to a vote, they would surely find themselves out of work. Distrust of elections is steadily on the rise, with some polls showing that a strong majority of respondents lack basic confidence that their votes will be recorded as intended.

Potential for malfeasance is not the only cause for concern, as these companies certainly influence our elections in other adverse ways. Voters should chase the vendors out of our polling places, and seize control of elections, once-and-for-all.

In "Privatizing Democracy: Promoting Election Integrity Through Procurement Contracts," Jennifer Nou notes that the Help America Vote Act, with its new mandates and billions of dollars for voting machinery, drove many jurisdictions to upgrade their equipment simultaneously, giving contractors inflated bargaining power and stunting the industry's motivation to make ongoing improvements to its technology.

Limited competition makes it easier for vendors to squeeze state governments for more money: They can stop servicing models artificially early, compelling states to buy new ones. They have reason to meet just the bare-bones requirements of contracts and limit the plasticity of their hardware so that they can compel upgrades on states that want to reform their voting systems.

Vendors keep tight control over their equipment and software, meaning states need to pay for service and programming help when there are problems, and decreasing transparency. When North Carolina's State Board of Elections in 2005 requested access to Diebold's software, following a state law requiring the Board to do so, the company simply refused.

When there is a clear problem with an election's administration, outsourcing allows for an extra layer of obfuscation and finger-pointing: Contractors quickly go on the defensive -- instinctively denying culpability, invoking property rights and striving to prevent scrutiny of software and records. For instance, when about 1,500 phantom over-votes were recorded in Washington, D.C.'s elections last September, the city tried to access the records and source code of the vendor, Sequoia Voting Systems. Sequoia refused, for nine months, finally succumbing in June under threat of a lawsuit.

Like any other corporations, elections vendors will do all they can to maintain their stature and revenue streams. They have discovered the benefits of the "revolving door," and building ties with politicians -- the famous Diebold quote is but one example:

-As he won an upset bid for Senate in a state that overwhelmingly used ES&S equipment, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel failed to reveal that he ran ES&S in mandatory disclosures.

-California Secretary of State Bill Jones began lobbying for Sequoia in 2002 -- the same year he ran for Governor. According to Nou, elections officials in at least four other states have also recently gone to work as lobbyists for the voting machine industry.

Such relationships have heightened the public's concerns and make clear that the contractors are not disinterested in the outcomes of the elections they facilitate.

We should hope that ES&S's acquisition of Premier is prevented, but that it looms so closely underscores that it is time to create an alternative to privatized election management. States should join the nascent movement movement towards systems that are owned and operated by the public. Oklahoma already has: In the 1990s it took ownership of its voting machines and source code. The state updates its own software, and recently developed a statewide optical scanner system, without fussing with contractors. Other states should learn from its experience - and from their own -- and follow suit.

Jeremy Scahill: To the Dems Who Voted to 'Defund ACORN': Where is the Defund Blackwater Act?

2009-09-24T19:25:30Z

Democrats joined Republicans in voting to "Defund ACORN," yet have done nothing to stop Blackwater's ongoing taxpayer-funded crusade in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Republican Congressional leaders are continuing their witch-hunt against ACORN, the grassroots community group dedicated to helping poor and working class people. This campaign now unfortunately has gained bipartisan legislative support in the form of the Defund ACORN Act of 2009 which has now passed the House and Senate. As Ryan Grim at Huffington Post has pointed out, the legislation "could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex:"

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

According to the Project on Oversight and Government Reform, this legislation could potentially eliminate a virtual Who's Who of war contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing and KBR to other corporations such as AT&T, FedEx and Dell.

Perhaps one of the most jarring comparisons here is the fact that ACORN is now being attacked while the Obama administration continues to contract with Blackwater, the favorite mercenary company of the Bush administration, which is headed by Erik Prince, who was a major donor to Republican causes and campaigns, including those of some of the Defund ACORN bill's sponsors, among them Indiana Republican Mike Pence, one of the key figures in hunting down Van Jones. Prince, of course, was recently described by a former employee as a man who "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and whose companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

At present Blackwater has a $217 million security contract through the State Department in Iraq which was just extended by the Obama administration indefinitely. It holds a $210 million State Department "security" contract in Afghanistan that runs through 2011 and another multi-million dollar contract with the Defense Department for "training" in Kabul. All of this is on top of Blackwater's clandestine work for the CIA, including continued work on the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This also does not take into account Blackwater's lucrative domestic work training law enforcement and military forces inside the US at the company's compounds in North Carolina, California and Illinois, nor the private "security" work it does for entities like the International Republican Institute, nor the work it does in training "Faith Based Organizations." It also does not include the contracts doled out to Erik Prince's private CIA called Total Intelligence Solutions, which works for foreign governments and Fortune 500 corporations.

Then there is this fact: Blackwater was paid over $73 million for its federally-funded, no bid-security contracts with the Department of Homeland Security in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, billing taxpayers $950 per man per day, a spending decision the Bush administration called "the best value to the government." ACORN, meanwhile, only helped poor people who were suffering as a result of the government's total and complete failure to respond to Katrina.

Meanwhile, a recent federal audit of Blackwater, compiled by the State Department and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, suggests the company may have to repay some $55 million to the government for allegedly failing to meet the terms of just one federal contract in Iraq, which, it is important to note, is $2 million more than the total money allotted by the federal government to ACORN over the past 15 years. (The company also cannot account for one federally funded "deep fat fryer" in Iraq, according to the audit).

Overall, Blackwater has raked in well over $1 billion since 2003 in security contracts alone -- all of which were kicked off by a fat no-bid contract to guard L. Paul Bremer. Let's also remember that Blackwater was estimated in Congressional hearings in 2007 to earn some 90% of its revenue from the federal government and Prince refused to disclose his salary, but said it was over $1 million. Blackwater has been or is being investigated by the US Congress, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the Justice Department and the IRS, among other agencies, for a range of issues from arms smuggling to manslaughter to tax evasion. One of its operatives pleaded guilty to killing an innocent, unarmed Iraqi civilian, while five others have been indicted on manslaughter and other charges over the 2007 Nisour Square massacre during which 17 Iraqi civilians were gunned down. The company is also facing a slew of civil lawsuits alleging war crimes and extrajudicial killings in Iraq.

Here is a question for those Democratic lawmakers that voted in support of the Defund ACORN Act: How do you justify making this a major league legislative priority while Blackwater continues to be armed and dangerous across the globe on the US government payroll? Where is the Defund Blackwater Act?

Read more from Jeremy Scahill on RebelReports.

Casey Gane-McCalla: Stand Up For ACORN, Cut Blackwater And Halliburton

2009-09-24T16:24:49Z

The right wing is launching an attack on ACORN. Not because ACORN is a corrupt or a negative organization, but because ACORN stands for things that they oppose. ACORN involves itself in issues such as making housing affordable for working class people, living wages for poor and working class people, education, voter's rights and gun control.

ACORN is an organization that represents the interests of poor and minority communities. These are interests that the Republicans have traditionally voted against.

The right wing made an enemy of ACORN during the election, because it registered minority voters in urban areas (voters who typically vote Democrat) and has continued its smear campaign against the organization.

The filmmakers who made the YouTube videos "exposing" ACORN are James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles. Giles' father is conservative Christian commentator Doug Giles and she interned at the National Journalism Center, a training center for conservative journalists.

The L.A. Times reported that O'Keefe said he targeted ACORN for the same reasons that the political right does: its massive voter registration drives that turn out poor African Americans and Latinos to cast ballots against Republicans.

What O'Keefe and Giles did was clearly an attempt to slander ACORN. Their videos are heavily edited and only reflect the character of a few low level employees. Despite the fact that they said that every ACORN office they visited played along with them, the Philadelphia ACORN office filed a police report against them.

Another ACORN worker in California said she quickly saw through O'Keefe and Giles act and decided to play along with them, even making up a fake story about how she killed her husband.

Prosecutors in Maryland are even considering prosecuting O'Keefe and Giles for illegally taping ACORN employees.

In what world does a politically motivated, possibly illegal investigation that was edited to make an organization look bad force congress to stop funding an organization that helps the poorest people in the nation?

If the GOP wants to let a few low level employees' statements taken out of context decide on public funding for organizations, they need to answer for their support of Halliburton and Blackwater.

Blackwater employees have killed numerous innocent civilians in Iraq. They have also been charged with child prostitution in Iraq for bringing in child prostitutes to the green zone. A former United States Marine reportedly filed allegations in a federal court in Virginia that Blackwater CEO, Erik Prince, murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals cooperating in a federal investigation of Blackwater. He also said that Prince "'views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Blackwater encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.'"

Overall, Blackwater has received over $1 billion in government contracts, which accounts for 90% of their revenue.

Another favorite right wing company, Halliburton, has their own scandals from both low and high level employees. Jamie Leigh Jones, a contractor for Halliburton claimed she was gang-raped by Halliburton employees and then imprisoned in a shipping container after she reported the incident. After years of Halliburton trying to seep the incident under the rug, the case is finally going to trial.

Halliburton's former chairman has been convicted of bribing Nigerian officials. Halliburton has also been accused of defrauding the U.S. government. Still, Halliburton has been given upwards of 9.6 billion dollars for work in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While Halliburton and Blackwater are multi billion dollar companies, who have received billions from the government, ACORN has a budget of 25 million dollars a year, of which, only 2.5 million comes from the government. While a few low level ACORN employees have made bad judgments in giving advice to a right wingers posing as a pimp and a prostitute (some in jest, some to keep a white pimp out of jail), Blackwater and Halliburton employees have killed innocent civilians and have been accused of child prostitution and defrauding their own government.

ACORN is a good organization that does good work for America's poorest. It is guilty of having low level employees with bad judgment. None of its workers have been convicted, or even accused of a crime. They are victims of a right wing media onslaught being led by Fox News. If the government decides to cut funding of organizations due to the actions of low level employees, they must apply the same rules to the GOP's favorite government funded organizations. Blackwater owes the government 55 million dollars, which is enough to fund ACORN for 25 years.

The right wing's attack on ACORN has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with votes. If the right was concerned with funding "immoral" organizations, they would've have abandoned Blackwater and Halliburton years ago. Blackwater is still getting money from the government under the name Xe and Halliburton still is receiving money from government contracts. The government funding and the crimes of Halliburton and Blackwater by far eclipse those of ACORN. I propose we use the funding from Blackwater and Halliburton to fund ACORN and other agencies with similar agendas.

Robert Creamer: Time to Get Real About the ACORN "Controversy"--and Republican Double Standards

2009-09-20T23:31:43Z

It's time to get real about the Republican distraction de jour - the great ACORN controversy.

The bottom line is this: if the same standard used to prevent ACORN from receiving federal contracts were applied to many large corporations -- Boeing, financial institutions like AIG and CitiCorp, not to speak of private military contractors like Blackwater -- they would all have been barred as federal contractors long ago. But instead of being blacklisted, many of them actually received billions of taxpayer dollars to bail them out.

ACORN has worked for decades to organize a nationwide grass roots community organization with a mission of empowering poor and moderate income people. ACORN has never been one of those outfits that seeks just to "represent" the interests of the poor. Since its inception it has been made up of poor and moderate income people themselves. Its members pay dues, elect their leadership and choose the battles that they fight. Its executives don't make huge salaries and - in my experience - most of its organizers and staff are true believers who really care about the battle for social justice.

The Right wing has always hated ACORN. Partially that's because the organization has been effective - especially when it comes to its battles for better housing and its campaigns to empower the poor the way we should do it in a democracy - registering people to vote. The Right wing hates it when poor people vote.

During last year's election campaign the Republicans did everything they could to discredit ACORN by exposing "irregularities" in some of its voter registration programs. They pointed to a number of instances when ACORN canvassers - who were being paid to register people to vote - registered non-existent voters like "Mickey Mouse".

It was absolutely wrong for some ACORN employees to fake registrations to meet their quotas and keep their jobs. And ACORN's voter registration operation should have caught these fake registrations with better quality control. But there was never any danger that there would be a parade of cartoon characters out of Disney World and "Mickey Mouse" or "Donald Duck" were going to show up at a polling place and cast a ballot. To hear the right wing media tell it, ACORN was engaged in a great voter fraud scheme. In reality, a handfull of its canvassers were defrauding the organization itself - and also creating a public relations nightmare.

The Republicans knew full well that there was no danger of "Mickey Mouse" voting. But they milked the "controversy" for every ounce of bad publicity they could deliver - and did their best to paint the former community organizer Barack Obama with the same brush.

Now we have a new controversy created when two aspiring Right Wing "journalists" posed as a pimp and a hooker and toured the country trying to coax an ACORN mortgage counselor to say something outrageous for their hidden camera. Their motive was not to expose any "bad advice" being doled out by the mortgage counselors. They admit it was to "bring down" ACORN. They failed in their quest at most ACORN offices. In one, the mortgage counselor actually called the police when they asked for help figuring out how to create a scheme to get tax deductions for fictitious underage prostitutes. But they finally hit the jackpot in Baltimore, where the local credit counselor gave them - and their camera -- unbelievably stupid advice.

As soon as the behavior of their employees came to light, ACORN fired the offending employees and soon thereafter closed ACORN counseling offices for several days of retraining to prevent a similar infraction in the future.

Bear in mind, as outrageous as the employee's conduct was, no one was injured, no money was stolen, no deal was fixed. There was no victim of their acts. No matter, within days the Right Wing noise machine went into full "fury" mode. Republicans used their procedural prerogatives in Congress to force votes cutting off any federal funding for ACORN. Enough Democrats went along, and the motions passed both Houses.

Compare that to what happened when Boeing was caught fixing bids for a giant tanker project, or AIG created the massive Credit Default Swap scheme that helped sink the entire financial system, or the greed of traders who received tens of millions in personal compensation caused millions of retirees to loose half of their 401K plans. Remember the hundreds of millions of dollars in overcharges for fuel in Iraq by KBR, the subsidiary of Haliburton. Or compare it to what happened to the security contractor Blackwater when its personnel opened fire and killed 14 civilians in Nisoor Square in Baghdad.

No Republican demanded that these firms be "defunded" by Congress. No, instead AIG and the banks that were "too big to fail" received billions in bail-out money. The brilliant traders who sunk AIG got multi-million dollar bonuses. KBR, Haliburton, Boeing and even Blackwater still have huge government contracts.

Think about it. An amateur Right Wing journalist finally finds an ACORN employee who provides him and his faux hooker cohort with some outrageous advice, and the Republicans get Congress to pass legislation cutting off funding in little more than a week. Blackwater employees kill 14 Iraqi civilians, endangering America's mission in Iraq and the Republicans don't utter a peep.

Then again, what do you expect from the political party that last week promoted a "values summit" and is lead by philanderers like former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Senator David Vitter, Governor Mark Sanford, and Senator John Ensign. The Republicans have always been the kings of the double standard.

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win," available on amazon.com.

Former Iraq Security Contractors Say Firm Bought Black Market Weapons, Swapped Booze For Rockets

2009-09-18T11:54:55Z

"We're spending a lot of money on these rifles, millions of dollars -- where do you think that money is going to?" [1] Ronald Boline, a former Triple Canopy manager, said in a lawsuit deposition videotaped [2] in June 2007. "Who are we supporting in doing that? We're supporting people who are trying to kill Americans is the logical conclusion."

Robert Creamer: Time to Just Say No to Giant Corporate "Parasites" -- and Recognize Them for What They Are

2009-09-18T09:04:07Z

Sounds like a movie script. Giant parasites stalk the American landscape disguised as benign upstanding participants in the "free market."

The dictionary defines parasite as:

"An organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment."

In fact, there are a number of major corporations in America who do very little productive work -- never making products or delivering services that benefit their consumers. Instead, the profits they earn and the big CEO salaries they pay are derived by sucking or skimming a portion of the dollars they have convinced the Government to send through their corporate accounts -- generally to perform a function that is or ought to be an inherently governmental function.

Ironically, many of these corporate parasites are the loudest defenders of "free markets" and the most vociferous opponents of "government takeovers," when in fact they exist by feeding off the taxpayers.

Three examples have been in the news of late:

1). Banks that provide government guaranteed student loans. The house voted yesterday to end its four-decade practice of subsidizing private lenders to make student loans. Since the 1960s, the government has subsidized banks to lend students money and guaranteed lenders against loss if students defaulted.

But since the early 1990s the government itself has done direct lending for many student loans and avoided paying the subsidy to the banks. Why, after all, should banks take a percentage of every dollar to generate loans if the taxpayers guarantee the loan in full? In fact, it turns out that the government - which, after all, has a responsibility to provide higher education to its citizenry -- can provide loans directly at a much cheaper price than it can through the banks.

In fact it's estimated that eliminating the subsidy to the banks will save $40 billion that can be transferred into the Pell Grant program that provides college grants to moderate and low income students.

2). Private military contractors that provide security services. One of the things that defines civilized society is that the government has a monopoly on the use of lethal force. Yet over the last decade private military security firms have exploded. They have been hired with increasing frequency to do essentially governmental security functions. We've seen the results in the murders of civilians by Blackwater operatives in Iraq. And the growth of free-standing, mercenary armies that are available for hire by governments around the world is a danger to international security.

But these contractors are also economic parasites, since they charge a great deal more to do functions that could otherwise be performed by the government. In fact, most of their personnel are trained by the American military. After they leave the service and go to work making much more than they would if they re-enlisted for another turn with the Army or Marines. Then, the Blackwaters of the world turn around and bill their people out at huge markups so that the taxpayers -- who paid for their training in the first place -- have to pay a corporation for the privilege of hiring them back at much higher rates.

3). Private health insurance companies. These are the granddaddy of all parasitic operations. Remember that every other industrial society has long since decided that financing the health care of its citizens is an inherently governmental function -- that it is cheaper and much more consistent with our values -- to provide health care to all as a right.

With that approach, every other industrial society pays 50% less than we do per person for health care and, according to the World Health Organization, 36 countries have better health care outcomes than we do in the U.S.

Remember that health insurance companies don't provide an iota of health care services. They do hire an army of claims agents to deny claims for coverage, and another army of salesmen and admen to sell you policies that you would automatically have in most other countries. They simply take your money, skim off profits and CEO salaries and then -- once they get their end -- pay for your health care.

We know that the one thing government does very well is managing insurance pools. Medicare and Social Security are two of the most successful programs in history. And the health care financing authorities in countries like France and Spain are pretty good at it too.

The so-called "Medicare Advantage" program is a great example of a side-by-side comparison of how the private insurance companies compare with government run insurance programs. Medicare Advantage was set up by the Bush administration and Republican Congress to allow private insurance companies to skim off a share of Federal Medicare dollars. Originally, the private insurance companies claimed they would provide these services more efficiently than the "government." But it turned out they required a 14% to 19% subsidy above the normal costs of Medicare.

As the Economic Policy Institute has pointed out, "In a nut shell, Medicare Advantage plans are private plans funded through Medicare to provide similar benefits, but at a 14% higher cost on average, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), an independent Congressional agency. Eliminating these overpayments would free up $157 billion over 10 years, a substantial down payment on health care reform."

Now the private insurance industry is battling tooth and nail to prevent a public health insurance program from competing for its non-Medicare business. They want to continue to skim their share off of every health care dollar they can.

In fact, they hope that the final insurance reform bill will require people to buy their products without any competition from a public plan or rate regulation to limit the amount they can skim into the hands of Wall Street investors and CEO's.

That's why President Obama has proposed that the final health insurance reform bill include a robust public health insurance option that doesn't leave us with a mandate to buy insurance from a monopoly of private insurers (that are, by the way, also exempt from the anti-trust laws). That would just guarantee a government-mandated stream of revenue on which the private insurance companies can feed.

Of course, corporate parasites like these have always existed. But they have burgeoned over the last several decades as some of the best and brightest graduates of our universities have been convinced that they would be "chumps" to go out and create products and services that provide value to the economy. Much better to work for a corporate parasite that can make huge sums of money simply by convincing government to keep directing huge streams of revenue through its corporate coffers and then slicing off its share as the money comes by.

It's time for the age of the corporate parasite to come to an end -- otherwise, we're the "chumps".

Robert Creamer is a longtime political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com.

Blackwater Offers Training To 'Faith Based Organizations'

2009-09-16T17:53:42Z

In its ever-evolving re-branding campaign, Blackwater has created a new alter-ego for part of the company's business. Meet the "Personal Security Awareness" program, which appears to be an off-shoot of Erik Prince's Greystone, Ltd., a classic mercenary operation registered offshore in Barbados.

Frank Naif: The Discreet Charms of CIA Morale

2009-09-14T15:03:23Z

Opponents of accountability for intelligence excesses, such as former officials and media commentators, speaking out against Attorney General Eric Holder’s recently announced inquiry into CIA’s torture and detention program, complain that scrutiny hurts CIA morale. Such a stance betrays a simplistic, overgeneralized, and idealized view of CIA culture, and the most recent appearance of the CIA morale canard is political cherry-picking: before Holder announced his preliminary probe, even before Obama promised an end to torture and detention, morale at CIA was sagging.

For anyone who’s ever worked at CIA, or even paid attention to the news about CIA, that morale problem thing has been around a long, long time, which kind of takes the punch out of the claim that more investigation leads inexorably to less effective, lower quality intelligence and frowny-faced spies.

The latest sky-is-falling assessment of CIA morale appeared a few Sundays ago in the Washington Post, in an article that extensively quoted Buzzy Krongard, a bigwig at CIA sweetheart contractor Blackwater/Xe and former CIA executive director. Krongard was a curious source for the Post article, and reporters Walter Pincus and Joby Warrick irresponsibly chose not to disclose a couple of glaring facts about Krongard, such as his cronyistic association with Blackwater/Xe, and that he hardly can be characterized as a CIA insider.

Melvin Goodman, former senior CIA analyst, helpfully points out in the Public Record that Krongard’s short, detached tenure at CIA amounted to ‘stunt casting.’ Krongard was a banker who parachuted into CIA at the most senior level, where he became known as an aloof and detached executive director, rarely seen by actual CIA employees.

As executive director, his focus was on support activities like security and contract management, not on core CIA missions of intelligence collection and analysis. Indeed, if he can be credited with any one lasting achievement at CIA, it would be CIA’s outsourcing boom, a trend kicked off by Krongard’s privatization of intelligence support. Small wonder that Krongard ended up with a sinecure at leading CIA contractor Blackwater/Xe.

The out-of-touch Krongard and his Washington Post stenographers would have the world believe that morale at CIA was excellent until Holder announced his inquiry, or maybe until Obama announced that Leon Panetta would be the next CIA Director.

The Post doesn't mention that happy warriors don't really fit in at CIA, where long faces are a way of life.

When I reported for duty as lowly CIA intelligence analyst in the final months of the first Bush administration in 1992, retirement buyouts and a ‘share the pain’ approach to post-Cold War, post-Gulf War, peace dividend downsizing were crushing spirits in CIA hallways. My senior analyst mentors and managers mourned their glory days, when Bush and Reagan administration lapped up their intelligence papers and reports.

The rest of the nineties weren't much better. CIA Directors Jim Woolsey and John Deutch continued to do a number on CIA morale by allowing the agency to recede to the very margins of Clinton policy making, and letting Congress micromanage responses to various CIA screwups. Deutch's nod to CIA's then-widely acknowledged morale problem was his former DoD aide Nora Slatkin, who focused morale-fixing efforts on remodeling CIA’s cafeteria and gyms, but who is now remembered by veteran CIAers for her Diana Ross-like penchant for dressing down junior CIA employees and demanding VIP treatment while traveling overseas, even when visiting primitive, hush-hush locations in the deepest third world.

The well-liked George Tenet buoyed CIA morale for a time, but ended his tenure with CIA's spirit all but broken: 9/11 was viewed as an intelligence failure, as was CIA's misunderestimation of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction capabilities, and the advent of the Office of the Director on National Intelligence effectively demoted CIA from its former perch at the top of the US intelligence community. Tenet's successor, Porter Goss, implemented an aggressive agenda of alienating top CIA career officers and a politicized new order via the 'Gosslings,' haughty aides brought with him from his Congressional staff. Goss left CIA under a cloud as well, with his hand-picked executive director, Dusty Foggo snared by the FBI for contract fraud.

Michael Hayden succeeded Goss and fared somewhat better in cultivating better morale, but he faced some tough sledding, the result of nearly two decades of bad morale. One disturbing artifact of the bad morale legacy: CIA's current work force is probably its youngest and least experienced in its history.

One sure sign that morale problems continued through Hayden's tenure: sharply worded statements from CIA spokespeople denying that there's a morale problem

This recap of two decades of bad morale at CIA offers two insights into the current fretting over how awful for national security an inquiry into torture-related crimes would be.

First, CIA employees are a whiny, dramatic lot, prone to bemoaning their leaders and policymakers, and expecting to get a hearing for their grievances that the cultures at other Federal agencies could only dream of. Ever heard of widespread, decades-old morale problems over at the Centers for Disease Control or the Social Security Administration threatening to disrupt national life, or even getting major play in the New York Times or Washington Post?

Second, the much ballyhooed current morale crisis at CIA is actually a couple of different morale crises.

Sure, there are a few CIA officers and managers who participated in detainee mistreatment, and they are afraid of prosecution for what they believe were their authorized official actions.

Then there's the morale problem that senior CIA managers have inflicted on the agency. Many CIA officers -- including almost all that I know -- are disgusted and disappointed that their agency engaged in torture and extrajudicial detention in the first place. They are disgusted and disappointed that senior Agency officers didn't refuse or protest the orders to torture and imprison possibly innocent men. They are disgusted and disappointed at how senior agency managers and policy makers didn't do a better job of ensuring that CIA operations were backstopped by robust legal authorizations, while these same leaders bemoan investigations and shun responsibility and accountability for their decisions. And they are especially disgusted and disappointed that their fellow CIA employees who actually messed up renditions and detentions, such as the officer who presided over the altogether erroneous rendition and five month imprisonment of German national Khaled el-Masri, have actually been promoted, despite such naked incompetence.

CIA morale had already been damaged, long before Obama, Holder, or the current inquiry over torture and detention. It was damaged when CIA turned its back on ideals that it teaches in its own classrooms and new employee orientation sessions. And morale won't improve by hoping the torture and detention issue just goes away. It must be put cleanly and completely in CIA's past, and only a full accounting will keep tomorrow's agency from being plagued by more doubt -- and more bad morale.

Blackwater Contractor Saw Killing Iraqis As 9/11 Payback: Justice Dept

2009-09-08T14:25:39Z

One member of the Blackwater security team known as Raven 23 regularly bragged about his body count and viewed killing Iraqis as "payback for 9/11."

These allegations are contained in court records filed on Monday by Justice Department lawyers prosecuting five Blackwater contractors for the September 2007 shooting frenzy in Baghdad's Nisour Square that killed 14 Iraqis and wounded 20 others.

Barrett Brown: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Oliver North is a Nut

2009-09-08T13:33:47Z

Oliver North is upset. It seems that the Pentagon's increasing reliance on civilian contractors is to receive a minor degree of scrutiny, a development he characterizes as involving "threats of inquisitions," which is literally true insomuch as that Congress will perhaps make some inquiries into the matter. Naturally, North has been adverse to congressional oversight ever since Congress forced him to lie about the crimes he had committed in service to what he once referred to as the "neat idea" of selling weapons to Iran. He is not keen on the media, either; both, North says, are today motivated by some sort of sinister, fifth column pacifism. "Disparaging and de-funding civilian contractors is just one more way of disarming America," he explains in the pages of Human Events, itself reportedly the favorite magazine of the president who once had to fire him.

One might point out that objections to private suppliers of men and arms are nothing new and have in fact been made by several prominent American statesmen who obviously had no desire to see American disarmed, and that this would certainly seem to refute the argument that those who make such objections are necessarily seeking to disarm America. In fact, I was about to make this very point when I found that North had, bizarrely, made it himself:

In the opening days of World War II, then Sen. Harry Truman became famous for threatening to "lock up" civilian contractors for producing sub-par munitions, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower ominously warned against the threat of a "military-industrial complex."

So after setting out to establish that those who criticize contractors are wacky peace creeps, North cites the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and the fellow who dropped two atom bombs on Japan as having criticized contractors. This is a very interesting strategy, akin to claiming that all fish are red and then backing up one's assertion by pointing out two fish which are blue. But North, who no doubt thinks his argument is going very well at this point, suddenly decides that what he's actually arguing is that the two blue fish were only somewhat blue and thus don't count, but that other, bluer fish may be found today.

However, [the anti-contractor rhetoric of Eisenhower and Truman] is pale by comparison to the viscera now being aimed at civilian contractors supporting the campaigns in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates and in the shadow of the Hindu Kush.

Our colonel does not cite any examples of these mainstream objections, which he deems so much more critical than Eisenhower's characterization of the military-industrial complex as something we must guard against lest "the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes," itself about as critical as critical gets. He doesn't cite any mainstream objections of a more critical nature because they don't exist; in order to top Eisenhower's warning, a fellow would basically have to claim that civilian contractors are secretly assembling a nuclear arsenal with which to destroy the world in service to some ancient Sumerian deity. Though he can't actually identify any of these terrible things that have been said about our nation's apple-cheeked mercenaries, North knows exactly who's been saying them.

"Contractor" is the new "dirty word" in the so-called mainstream media -- and in Washington.

Of course, contractor is also a dirty word among some military men, including several I've spoken to, particularly those who've been on duty over the past couple of years, but North's policy has always been to portray Washington and the media as being in effeminate opposition to members of the armed services, who must always be in agreement with himself. At any rate, North claims that these non-existent objections, which are somehow more serious than Eisenhower's meta-objection, are leading to some unprecedented and disheartening trends at the Pentagon.

In April, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to hire 30,000 additional DoD employees to cut the percentage of work being done by contractors. The FY 2010 Defense Budget request replaces nearly 14,000 contractor personnel with government employees -- even though the "lifetime cost" -- counting government benefits and retirement -- will more than double the expense to American taxpayers.

So, in the midst of two wars and numerous operations elsewhere, the Department of Defense hires 30,000 employees who will be entirely accountable to the Department of Defense and our nation's rules of engagement rather than to Blackwater (which, of course, has now changed its name to "Xe" lest it be associated with itself), and suddenly North is worried that too much money is being spent on the military. Here's a fun little parlor game: try to find an instance besides this in which North has expressed concern about excessive military spending. And here's a fun little parlor game that you can actually win: Google "Oliver North military spending" and click on the first link that comes up, which itself turns out to be a Fox News op-ed North wrote just a few months ago in which he calls on the federal government to increase military spending:

But the Obama administration and their supporters on Capitol Hill need to understand that when it comes to spending, there are few things government can do that has a more immediate, positive effect on jobs and the overall the economy than expenditures on national defense.

Good point, Ollie. Maybe the DoD could hire 30,000 new employees to assist with the national defense. It just might be crazy enough to work!

Like any truly mediocre thinker, North does not anticipate the obvious counterpoint to his sudden and disingenuous call for fiscal restraint via increased mercenary deployment -- the counterpoint that price-gouging, late deliveries, and shoddy worksmanship on the part of his beloved contractors have already cost the American taxpayer billions in wasted dollars, with several incidents having resulted in injuries and even deaths among our troops and Iraqis alike. Here is a man who cannot see two steps ahead of his own argument and who does not seem to recall things he himself wrote months ago or even just a few sentences prior, as if he were a goldfish with thumbs and a keyboard and a crack pipe that somehow works underwater.

North is not content to assail the federal government for doing what he recently told it to do or to blast the mainstream media for things it hasn't actually done -- he is also compelled to attack the media for failing to report things that it has in fact reported countless times:

Though it's unlikely to make the lead story in any of the mainstream media, contractors are performing tasks that U.S. government entities either cannot do -- or that cannot be done as economically.

Ready for another parlor game? Google "civilian contractors Iraq" without quotes and read the two mainstream news stories that immediately come up. The first of these is a CBS report from 2006 in which several contractors are interviewed about the risks they faced in Iraq and the injuries that their swell employers have refused to treat. The second is a CNN piece from 2004 that explains everything North says is unlikely to be explained about the important role that contractors can serve in U.S. military operations, and does so without a single word of criticism. Spend a few more minutes searching and you'll find other stories in the same vein, all written and published within the purview of the mainstream media, no doubt by accident.

There are legitimate reasons for the Pentagon to employ civilian contractors and outside firms to assist with a variety of tasks both at home and abroad; there are also legitimate reasons to call attention to the problems that have come up as a result. But there is no legitimate reason to accuse large swaths of the American citizenry of seeking to disarm America each time serious concerns are voiced by the media, our elected representatives, or members of the military; to deem such objections as being motivated by hatred for the armed forces or by a desire to see America disarmed, one would have to be a hyperactive crypto-fascist like Oliver North. That lets Oliver North off the hook, of course.

Read more at True/Slant; e-mail me.

CIA Wants DOJ To Investigate Assassinations Leak

2009-09-04T13:28:46Z

The CIA is none too happy about the recent disclosure of apparently inchoate "significant actions" canceled by Director Leon Panetta. After the activities' initial disclosure to Congress in late June, additional reporting determined that these actions were a never-operational effort at assassinating members of al-Qaeda and were contracted to the controversial firm Blackwater. Now, Eli Lake and Sara Carter report for The Washington Times that the CIA has requested that the Justice Department open an inquiry into the expanding leaks. Both the CIA and Justice neither confirm nor deny an investigation is taking place.

Murray Fromson: Stand Up, Mr. President!

2009-09-04T12:32:20Z

The United States has never before had a Foreign Legion like the hired guns the French used as enforcers during the days when the tri-color flew over their colonial empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. They were soldiers of fortune, cherry-picked from some of the most ruthless military resources anywhere in the world. In short, many of them were scumbags for which the French took little public credit. The less they knew of these recruits, the better.

If President Obama is beginning to look like a wimp, pre-occupied with bi-partisanship, now's the time to show the American people they're wrong. He can do that immediately by putting the brakes on the legion of private contractors recruited by the Pentagon to do the kind of work it would not dare assign to American GIs in Afghanistan. According to the New York Times there are far more of these hired guns doing America's bidding than soldiers who would be under stricter constraints if they were in uniform. From what we know of President Obama, we cannot believe he wants to have anything to do with a legion of foreigners who are not answerable to U.S. military commanders.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the Times reported Wednesday, 57% of the Pentagon's force in Afghanistan consist of private contractors. They may be from the notorious Blackwater company, now known as Xe Services recruited by the Bush/Cheney administration that made its name during the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq. It is not clear whether or not companies like Dyncorp International or ArmorGroup which is owned by Wackenhut Services are spinoffs from Blackwate/Xe or in some way are affiliated with them. For sure, the private contractors over the past two years consist of 65% of the non-military on duty in Afghanistan. Over the past two years, the figure would be even higher. What's clear is that each of these contractors is being paid six figures that are difficult to track down.

Some of the recruits are Afghans themselves, but apparently answerable to any American authority. Once and for all, President Obama needs to clamp down on the Pentagon. Its onerous policy of circumventing the Congress or any other body that would have the authority to investigate how and under what circumstances these hired guns go about their business without any apparent oversight borders on scandal, if not illegality.

It is rather startling that the president has allowed himself to be drawn deeper into Afghanistan with a questionable election and probable instability hanging overhead It increasingly takes on the appearance of a quagmire. From the moment that General Stanley McChrystal assumed command of all U.S. forces there, you could wager on the likelihood that he would be asking for more troops to accomplish stability or achieve victory over the Taliban.

Given the record of the past eight years, the casualties may seem insignificant. Nonetheless, they are steady and numbing. The same principle that has hounded every impressive three-or four-star general trying to earn his spurs in combat and every president who seems unable to resist the appeal for more troops to rescue the United States from the latest snakepit with honor. We have no substantive proof that Osama bin Laden is still alive or that the Pakistani army is willing to hunt him and his terrorists down ruthlessly. The American people have yet to be shown the extent to which Al Qaeda controls the insurgency in Afghanistan or Pakistan. We need proof, not conjecture, that we are involved in something other than an insoluble civil war. Unless President Obama is willing to offer the American people the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it is time to extricate ourselves from a hopeless mess.

There's little to be gained in asking the Republicans to share in a joint Congressional investigation of the U.S. role in Afghanistan. The GOP is so politicized, so bitter and determined to embarrass and undermine President Obama. As a result it has forfeited a place at the table for a meaningful, bi-partisan discussion' to extricate the United States from yet another foreign policy mess. It is time for a senior senator like Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to step forward and summon every expert and every premise as Sen. William Fulbright of Arkansas did in 1966 on nationwide television to examine the premises of the Vietnam War.

US Extends Iraq Contract For Blackwater Firm

2009-09-02T17:28:49Z

WASHINGTON — The State Department said Wednesday it has extended a contract for protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq with a subsidiary of the security firm once known as Blackwater USA even though the company doesn't have a license to operate in the country.

Spokesman Ian Kelly said the contract with Presidential Airways to provide air support for U.S. diplomats had been temporarily extended because the firm chosen to replace it is not yet ready to take over. The contract had been due to expire on Sept. 3 and be taken over a day later by DynCorp International, he said.

Tom Alderman: Current Best Sellers: Buyers Beware

2009-09-02T16:41:19Z

If you're the kind of reader, or listener, who must finish a book no matter how disappointing, or keep going hoping it'll get better, you might want to save time by simply avoiding these current offerings from three marquee-name writers.

VANISHED, by Joseph Finder
Genre: Corporate thriller
Print edition: 400 pages
Audio edition: 10 hrs and 42 minutes
Narrator: Holter Graham
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Audio edition: Macmillan Audio

LOG LINE
Unfaithful husband and the estranged brother of the hero, goes missing from his high finance corporate job. Has he been kidnapped or is he scamming an all powerful Blackwater-type security firm?

COMMENT
Joseph Finder has deservedly cornered the corporate thriller niche with books like Paranoia, Company Man and Killer Instinct. His successful formula: ordinary company guy gets immersed in deep doo-doo and must face powerful forces well above his pay grade. In Vanished, the writer drops this game plan and goes with more for a Jack Reacher, Mitch Rapp, John Wells approach with a 6-feet, 2 inch, former Special Forces, Bosnia and Persian Gulf veteran named Nick Heller, who grinds up three beefy thug-mugs in one sitting with great ease and a few flip lines. Unfortunately, in Finder's hands: the thrill in this thriller is gone. Hero Heller is derivitive. There are several bad guys but none with any sustaining drive throughout and the ending just limps off.

The audio edition of the book is not helped by actor/narrator Holter Graham whose vocal timbre doesn't quite sync-up with the big muscular, good-guy and who also portrays the female lead, and her teen-age son, as annoying whiners.

BOTTOM LINE
If this is the beginning of a new Finder series starring Nick Heller, we all might benefit from a stronger editing hand and alternate narrator the next time out.

RENEGADE: THE MAKING OF A PRESIDENT by Richard Wolffe
Genre: Non-fiction Contemporary History
Print edition: 368 pages
Audio edition: 15 hrs and 49 min (Unabridged)
6 hrs and 13 min. (Abridged)
Narrator: Arthur Morey (Unabridged)
Richard Wolffe (Abridged)
Publisher: Crown
Audio edition: Random House

LOG LINE
How Obama Won the Presidency

COMMENT
Author Wolffe acknowledges this book was suggested by candidate Obama as a Theodore White-style account of the presidential campaign. With extended access to the candidate and staff during and after the election, Wolffe had a ripe opportunity to deliver a 2009 version of The Making of a President. Mission UN-accomplished. The writer jerks back and forth between pre-and-post election events creating a significant obstacle in the narrative flow. He, also, doesn't include much of the McCain campaign as necessary counter-point friction. Perplexing.

For the unabridged audio edition, Arthur Morey does an adequate job with narration. The abridged version is voiced by the author, whose flat delivery suggests he should stick to writing.

BOTTOM LINE
Someone, somewhere will offer a detailed 360 of this momentous election story. Renegade isn't it.

FIRE AND ICE: A BEAUMONT AND BRADY NOVEL, by J.A. Jance
Genre: Cops and Killers
Print edition: 352 pages
Audio edition: 10 hrs and 39 min
Narrator: Hillary Huber and Erik Davies
Publisher: William Morrow
Audio edition: Harper Audio

LOG LINE
A series of grisly murders across Washington State and a homicide in Arizona intersect to create danger for Beaumont and Brady.

COMMENT
J.A. Jance brings together her two popular police procedural series regulars, Seattle investigator J.P. Beaumont and Cochise County, Ariz, Sheriff Joanne Brady to solve seemingly unrelated murders. If you're a fan of these series, this might work for you. Newcomers and ADD listeners will have a hard time getting past the first two discs of the audio edition which is more like a report from the HR department about which series personnel are appearing, and which are not.

BOTTOM LINE
Pass.

Blackwater Gets Iraq Contract Extended by State Dept

2009-09-01T19:49:59Z

The State Department has extended a contract with controversial private security firm Blackwater, ABC News has learned. The contract was due to expire this month.