Blackwater in deep water again...

Last Septemeber I posted a little article on this blog headlined "Blackwater=The A-Team? I don't think so."

Read it if you want. It's really not much more than some thoughts and a bit of a rant.

(But it still infuriates me that things, as dangerous as this privately owned military force, are scooped under the rug of our active collective consciousness while we prattle on and on about blue versus red and liberal versus conservative. As if any of those labels even fit to begin with.)

Back on point.

Congress's Committe on Oversight and Government Reform under chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) issued a Memorandum regarding "Employment Practices of Blackwater Worldwide" dated yesterday, March 10, 2008.

In that memorandum Waxman says that he has sent letters to the I.R.S., the Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration. The memorandum goes on to explain the reasons for the sending of these letters and the evidence which prompted him to take such action. Among these reasons was that Blackwater, quite possibly the largest private mercenary military operation in the world, passed itself off as a "small business" in order to get "special preferences" reserved for legitimate small businesses!

Yikes! Now get this... they obtained the small business designation by claiming that their security guards were not "employees" for the purposes of determining the size of their staff. Oh... My bad. What was I thinking? I mean of course that army behind you is made up of independent contractors.

This reminds me of the well known Star Wars geek joke that showed up in "Clerks" the movie. The moral question of blowing up the Death Star while it was under construction considering that millions of private "independent contractors" likely met their deaths and paid the price for the evil deeds of the Empire when they in fact were just regular Joe construction workers who needed a job! Well it reminds me of it a little bit.

But again I digress.

Here's a little excerpt from the March 10 Memorandum:

Blackwater has claimed in offrcial communications that its security guards are "in no way directly supervised or controlled by Blackwater"; that they "do not report to any of the Blackwater entities regarding their work in the field"; and that they "do not report to Blackwater regarding their operations in country." Blackwater has also claimed that it "plays no role in the development or planning of the contractors' security missions" and "has little if any knowledge regarding the location or activities of these independent contractors." According to Blackwater, its "only real involvement is to pay the independent contractors."

Well that's pretty scary. That is to say that we are left with only two possible conclusions. These guys are such incredibly cocky & dangerous assholes that they have lied directly to the Federal agencies in order to protect and/or make their money--or--they get paid for supplying mercenaries to the aid of the U.S. military in such "missions" as helping secure New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, or guarding political dignitaries in Iraq, but they don't supervise the guys with guns and high tech helicopters etc. once they send them out into the world.

Not a really great choice is it? Read the entire memorandum in .pdf form if you like.

Personally, I find it ridiculous, even stupid, that Blackwater would think they could convince anyone that they actually let their "independent contractors" run free with their machinery, guns, and pricey contractual obligations without any form of supervision.

Duh... big red truck...

Well it appears that Mr. Waxman and his committee have come to a similar conclusion once they analyzed over 20,000 documents. Now when I read this little excerpt my jaw dropped and I could not help but emit a great big, "Awwww! Oh! Oooouuuch! Now that's got to hurt!" You will quckly see what I mean in this excerpt...

In an appearance on the Today Show in October before Chairman Waxman raised
questions about whether Blackwater is engaged in tax evasion, Mr. Prince asserted that
Blackwater exercised "tight control" over its security guards:

Mr. Prince: We do the most high-profile missions, protecting the high-profile targets, the ones that the bad guys want to kill the most and put it on camera. ... We track the vehicles via satellite tracking devices so we know where the guys
are and where they're not.

Mr. Lauer: So you have tight control over your employees.

Mr. Prince: Absolutely.

The evidence before the Committee substantiates this description. According to
Blackwater's contract with the State Depanment, the company is required to exercise significant
control over its security guards. Under the contract, Blackwater must "ensure that all work
performed under this contract is accomplished in accordance with the applicable
standards/standard operating procedures, general orders and specific orders issued by DS
[Bureau of Diplomatic Security]."

It hardly ends there, but it just about might as well. It will be interesting to see how they wriggle out of this one. Keep your eyes and ears open.

H.R. 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007

WOW. What exactly IS "violent radicalization"? The title of this entry is a link to the full text of this proposed Bill, which is currently sitting in the Senate awaiting some sneaky roll-call vote or other underhanded tactic. As the site www.govtrack.us points out:

The bill passed the House of Representatives by a 'roll call vote' conducted on October 23, 2007 under a 'rules suspension' subsequently noted by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) in a Speech to Congress on December 5, 2007

The bill itself tries to define "violent radicalization" with this paragraph:

(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.

Lovely. Mind you, I don't want to see any violence of any kind, but could the wording here be more vague? "the process of adopting OR promoting an extremist belief system" it says... hmmmm.
Well, as you can see the sentence goes on to say "for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence..." Ok... How does one KNOW if a belief system is one of these "radical" ones that is leading up to violence? More importantly, WHO decides who is a "violent radical" and who is a good citizen?

This is truly scary stuff. We have laws to protect us in this country. They will suffice. We do NOT need an ongoing ever-lasting gob stopper of a witch hunt! This is nothing short of the Gestapo!

And yes I read the whole thing and saw that it said things like "shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, or civil liberties of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents", but why in the name of Thomas Jefferson would I trust these lines to hold true when the Patriot Act has already been passed and IT takes care of that part of the deal pretty well. Pretty much eliminates any worries of that little snag getting in the way.

Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell yourself! There will be no rehearsal dance.

Oh and while you're at it, check out this adorable little story...

Department of Pre-Crime

CIA (among other PTB's) Drug Deals Our Country into the Stone Age

I find myself at a loss for words more and more. I haven't even watched this whole thing yet, but already I am severely disturbed.

Having lived as a member of the lower class (financially) all of my adult life, I have had the opportunity, if I dare call it that, to experience first hand life up against "the man." What I mean by that is that at the bottom of the social pecking order there is no one, or thing, ... there is no buffer or barrier, no level of denial, no amount of fluffy money or luxury to guard you--many are completely exposed, like raw meat. What do I mean? Well, I remember many discussions with family or less savvy friends about drugs in this country and how absolutely prevalent they are, and always have been all the way to the beginning of my knowledge. In fact, they have only gotten worse and more insidious. One point I made on many an occasion was that I seriously believed that all told the economy would likely collapse if it weren't for the cash flow generated by drug trade on our streets and in our neighborhoods.

The truth is that I realize now that you don't have to be poor to see that; the affluent or middle class are riddles with drugs as well, but the damage, the insidious cancer that IT is is so much more visible at the "bottom"--there you can see that most likely all is lost and has been lost for some time now.

Well here is yet another piece of source material that not only supports my gut feelings and conclusions based on my limited experience... but points out that the Powers That Be once again are responsible... NOT for our rescue, or even for letting us down, but DIRECTLY responsible for our society's demise, just as if they had held it's mouth open and poured draino down it's throat.

Watch this and keep a puke bucket handy.

PS. Don't be touchy. Ignore the title of the the page. He doesn't even begin to talk about that until much later in the presentation. The information about the CIA itself should be shocking enough to put you on the edge of your seat.

Alternative News Sources

Mainstream media has failed us at almost every turn. From burying stories early to ignoring or censoring those events that would obviously matter most to the American public and going so far as to malign and demonize those who dare attempt to report the truth, it has become abundantly clear that they do not provide an accurate, complete or unbiased account of ongoing developments abroad and at home.

Here are just a couple of alternative sources.

First I direct you to Project Censorship's

Top 25 Censored News Stories of 2007

Some of the stories here are quite shocking--others are just plain disgusting. Note that Project Censorship has already released a top 25 for 2008--I just wanted to make sure you got to see the 2007 list first.

Also check out Mother Jones. A news magazine I have found to be more truly fair and balanced than most.

I will also, almost begrudgingly, give a nod to Lou Dobbs. Although some stories are glaringly missing from his teams reporting, he does a better job than everyone else on the boob tube and his constant exposure of corporate out-sourcing, immigration issues, and the failure/danger of our federal government are easily in my top ten issues that scream for deeper coverage.

If you find yourself still cuddled up to the warm teat of Fox News, do your self a favor and take a break from it for awhile. I challenge you to quit watching that propaganda machine for just 2 weeks while you actively follow the news through non-mainstream sources. Hell, even 2 weeks of Lou Dobbs might open up your eyes a smidge.

What is democracy without comprehensive, relevant and vigilant reporting of information?