Blackwater Contract Renewed

So much for the myth of Iraqi sovereignty.  The U.S. State Department is renewing its contract with Blackwater USA.  This is being done despite demands by Iraq's government that these cowboy mercenaries be banished from their country.  We now know exactly how much sovereignty Iraq has:  none.  We call the shots there, quite literally from the barrels of our guns.  The Blackwater private soldiers do this frequently killing Iraqi civilians for sport.

The larger issue here is the privatization of government.  In this case we have privatized much of our military infrastructure.  Almost all traditional logistical and support services have been privatized.  These contractors and their companies are above the law, there is little or no legal accountability for them in Iraq, and no justice for victims.  These war profiteers are receiving no bid contracts, there is no auditing or prosecution of them for fraud, employees are being raped with no consequences, and there is nothing the Iraqi government can do about the abuses to their citizens.  See, in reality they have no sovereignty.  They do not control their own country, they are not a real nation.  They are what we allow them to be.

Blackwater is merely a symptom of larger problems, bigger issues.  GI's no longer peel potatoes, do laundry, drive trucks or make their own camps.  This is all privatized and done, for profit, with your tax dollars.  The corporations getting this work all contribute generously, surprise, surprise, to Republicans who privatized the work to their corporations.  It's a very cozy relationship.  The profits get recycled into dividends to people like Dick Cheney who try and start more wars for more profits, into more campaign contributions to Republicans in Congress and the White House who award more war profiteering contracts, into more corrupt payoffs to the likes of Duke Cunningham, into everything but veteran benefits for our returning wounded or armor for their vehicles.

Meanwhile Blackwater was allowed to roam Baghdad's streets gleefully slaughtering Iraqi civilians who got in their way.  This is what has been fueling the rebellion against our occupation and resulting in more American GI's being killed and wounded.  The end result?  Renew their contract.

Comments

[Peter Bonny, Jr.]

Aggravating! Erik Prinze's Bush-worshipping monstrosity of a cronyist corporation is back out there slaughtering women and children for imperialist wet dreams for murderous conquest and oil.

[Dave M.]

""The Blackwater private soldiers do this frequently killing Iraqi civilians for sport. Blackwater was allowed to roam Baghdad's streets gleefully slaughtering Iraqi civilians who got in their way.""

Do you really, really believe this? Come now. Open your mouth and remove all doubt as they say? Here's some facts you don't mention about Blackwater..

In 2004, Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah attacked a convoy containing four American private military contractors from Blackwater who were conducting delivery for food caterers. The four armed contractors were attacked and killed and their bodies were hung from a bridge crossing the Euphrates.

In April 2004, a few days after the Fallujah bridge hanging, a small team of Blackwater employees, along with a fire team of U.S. Marines, held off over 400 insurgents outside the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Al Najaf, Iraq, waiting for U.S. troops to arrive. The headquarters was surrounded and it was the last area in the city that remained in coalition control. During the siege, as supplies and ammunition ran low, a team of Blackwater contractors 70 miles away flew to the compound to resupply and bring an injured U.S. Marine back to safety outside of the city.

In April 2005 six Blackwater independent contractors were killed in Iraq when their Mi-8 helicopter was shot down.

Five Blackwater contractors were killed on January 23, 2007 in Iraq when their Hughes H-6 helicopter was shot down. A U.S. defense official has confirmed that four of the five killed were shot execution style in the back of the head, but did not know whether the four had survived the crash.

Hope those guys get combat pay, because they deserve it. Besides, I don't want my soldiers peeling potatoes and doing laundry, do you? KP duty was always frowned upon by soldiers throughout history.

[John Morgan]

Yes, after watching the numerous videos of Blackwater personnel in Iraq. These are readily available at YouTube.

[Dave M.]

Saw some videos, couldn't find anywhere where they did it "for sport" and did it "gleefully". Care to provide evidence for your claim?

[John Morgan]

If you do a search for Blackwater at YouTube there are quite a few videos of Blackwater men hurling racist epithets at Iraqis and behaving as if these people were subhuman and treated their whole mission as if it was a hunting expedition at home. Watch the videos of them going through the street pushing and forcing Iraqi vehicles out of their way and loving the experience. Of course every time they did that they were fueling the insurgency and motivating more locals to hate us. They didn't care because they didn't see the Iraqis as people.

[Dave M.]

So, when you are called on to provide proof of your claim of murder for "gleeful sport", you can't back up your claim. You can only say that you are providing videos of people saying racial epithets, and that's it! And even then, you can't even provide a link to back up your now greatly reduced exaggeration. Sad.

Surely you can provide me with better debate opposition than this. But, history shows I am undefeated in debating Bush bashing liberals. They think with emotion and propaganda, while I debate with facts.

[John Morgan]

The articles and videos are in my blog archives Dave. It isn't my responsibility to do your searches for you. I found them once and published them once. That's enough. Have you heard of something called Google?

[John Morgan]

Dave, where were you when I originally posted all these? They are already on this blog, what part of that don't you comprehend? Go watch them.