Who's Done America More Damage, Betsy DeVos Or Her Brother, Erik Prince?

The video above is a brand new historical document that you really, really ought to take the time to look at. It's an interview-- a masterclass interview that every would-be journalist should study-- that Mehdi Hasan did with Erik Prince at the Oxford Union for his English TV show, Head To Head. Based on the interview, Ted Lieu has already tweeted that it "looks like Erik Prince committed perjury," when he lied to Congress about a Trump Tower meeting. In fact, it looks like he implicated Trump Junior in the same lie.

Aside from being DeVos's younger brother-- and the guy who founded (in 1997) and ran the world's most notorious mercenary operation, Blackwater-- Prince bought his way into Trump's inner circle with a quarter million dollar "contribution" to Trump's election campaign (and another $100,000 to the shady Make America Number 1 SuperPAC headed by neo-fascist billionairess Rebekah Mercer). Prince spent election night with the Trump family watching the returns. Yeah... that close. Why he did that interview with Mehdi is beyond reasonable comprehension. What could he-- or his people-- have possibly been thinking? Could it have been just pure, unadulterated chutzpah? Stupidity?

First a little background. Almost a year ago, the NY Times reported that in August 2016 Prince had arranged a Trump Tower meeting with Trump, Jr., notorious Lebanese pedophile George Nader (both a Prince consultant and a senior advisor to Emerati crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan), neo-Nazi Trump advisor Stephen Miller, and Joel Zamel of the Israel Psy-Group and himself, during which Nader told Junior than the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE were willing to held defeat Hillary and install his internationally naive father as president. When Prince testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee, then run by Trump agent Devin Nunes, he claimed he didn't know anything about anything. The reason Mehdi's interview is such a big deal is because Prince virtually admitted he was lying-- for which he will be going to prison-- and claimed the House transcription of his testimony was wrong. Mehdi wrote this all up for The Intercept, starting with the big question: "Did Erik Prince perjure himself in front of Congress?"

For much of the hourlong interview, in front of a 300-strong audience in Oxford, I pressed Prince on Blackwater’s murderous record in Iraq, his own racist remarks about Iraqi “barbarians,” and his latest “garbage” proposal to privatize the NATO-led war in Afghanistan. (The Pentagon isn’t keen on the latter, though national security adviser John Bolton might be interested.)

Prince, I discovered, seems to have a Trumpian relationship with the truth. He tried to suggest that a car bomb exploded at Baghdad’s Nisour Square “five minutes” before Blackwater guards shot and killed 14 innocent Iraqis on September 16, 2007. I reminded him that there was no such explosion at Nisour Square. He denied that his current company, Frontier Services Group, is planning to build a “training facility” in Xinjiang, China, where more than a million Uighur Muslims are being held in Chinese detention camps, dismissing a press release confirming the news as a mistranslation from Mandarin. I had to inform him that the press release was issued by his own company, FSG, in English.

Toward the end of the interview, I raised the issue of “Russiagate” and the special counsel’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Putin government. Prince was grilled by the House Intelligence Committee over a secret meeting he had in the Seychelles with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian oligarch described as a “messenger” to Putin by Prince’s friends in the UAE; the meeting was on January 11, 2017, nine days before Trump’s inauguration. “It lasted one beer,” he told me flippantly, in reference to the Dmitriev meeting, which has been described by U.S., European, and Arab officials as “an apparent effort to establish a backchannel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump.”

But why didn’t Prince tell members of Congress about his other secret meeting, in Trump Tower in August 2016? Especially if it was about a sensitive foreign policy issue like Iran?

“I don’t believe I was asked that question,” he replied.

Not true. I reminded him that he had been asked by a member of the House Intelligence Committee whether he had any “formal communications or contact with the campaign.”

The Blackwater founder then switched tack. He “did” inform the committee about the meeting, Prince told me. Why wasn’t it in the transcript of the hearing then, I countered? “I don’t know if they got the transcript wrong,” he said. Later in the interview, in response to a question from the audience, he doubled down: “Not all the discussion that day was transcribed, and that’s a fact.”

Got that? First, he said he wasn’t asked; then he said he told them about it; then he claimed that they made a mistake with the transcript; then he claimed that it was said off the record.

My understanding-- based on a conversation between one of my Al Jazeera English colleagues and a staffer connected to the Intelligence Committee, and also based on public comments made by Rep. Eric Swalwell about Prince being “not truthful” with Congress-- is that the off-the-record sections of the transcript contain zero references to the Trump Tower meeting, which was later revealed by the New York Times and (reluctantly) confirmed to me by Prince on Head to Head.

This is a major problem for this major ally of the president. It is, of course, a crime to lie under oath; it is also a crime to lie to a congressional committee, whether you are under oath or not. “Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell,” Vox notes, “was convicted of lying to a Senate committee during the Watergate scandal.”

So I couldn’t help but ask the defensive Prince: Did he not worry that Mueller might send him to prison for not telling the truth, as he did with Gen. Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, and others?

“Nope,” he replied, giving me that dead-eyed stare once again, “not at all.”

This is far from over, however. Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee under its new Democratic chair, Rep. Jerry Nadler, sent out requests for documents to “81 agencies, individuals, and other entities tied to the president”-- including Prince-- as part of its sweeping investigation into alleged corruption and abuse of power by the president and his associates. In December 2018, Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee told the Daily Beast that the former Blackwater boss had been “discredited” and that they planned to recall him before their panel “even if we have to subpoena him.”

Will Prince have better answers for them than he had for me?

The former Navy Seal, lest we forget, has made plenty of enemies over the course of his career in private security and his role in the U.S. conservative movement. Hawkish Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham mocked his proposal to privatize the war in Afghanistan as “something that would come from a bad soldier of fortune novel.” Fellow mercenary Sean McFate dismissed Prince as an “amateur” with a “dangerous” plan. The former Blackwater CEO has also been denounced as a “war criminal” (Code Pink), a “Christian supremacist” (The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill), and a “super mercenary” (Rep. Jan Schakowsky).

Remember: The authorities famously got mob boss Al Capone on charges of tax evasion. Will they end up getting “super mercenary” Erik Prince not for alleged war crimes, money-laundering, or sanctions-busting but for … perjury?

Four former Blackwater guards in Iraq are sentenced to terms ranging from 30 years to life in shooting of 31 civilians

The four former Blackwater guards sentenced today are (l-to-r): Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten, and Paul Slough. Slatten, the only defendant convicted of murder, was sentenced to life; the others, convicted of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter, were sentenced to 30 years plus a day.

"You can't just shoot first and seek justification later."

-- federal prosecutor T. Patrick Martin

by Ken

Oh, you can't? You know, just shoot first and seek justification later? Any chance this new rule may be applied elsewhere in our criminal-justice system?

I suppose it's wrong to be cynical and snarky on a day that witnesses one small blow for accountability. This afternoon, a mere seven-plus years after the fact, a Reagan-appointed federal judge has given a life sentence to a Blackwater Worldwide contract guard in Iraq who was found guilty of murder, and sentenced three other Blackwater employees convicted of assorted counts of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter to terms of 30 years plus a day.

Four Blackwater guards sentenced in Iraq shootings of 31 unarmed civilians

By Spencer S. Hsu and Victoria St. Martin
Washington Post
April 13 at 4:05 PM

A federal judge in Washington handed down prison terms of 30 years to life behind bars to four Blackwater Worldwide guards convicted in a deadly 2007 shooting that killed 14 unarmed Iraqis and injured others in a Baghdad traffic circle.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth sentenced Nicholas A. Slatten of Sparta, Tenn., to life in prison. Slatten is the only of the four guards convicted of murder in the incident, in which American security contractors fired assault rifles and grenades into halted noonday traffic, a low point of the U.S. war in Iraq that sent relations between the two countries into a crisis.

Three other guards, Paul A. Slough of Keller, Tex.; Evan S. Liberty of Rochester, N.H.; and Dustin L. Heard of Knoxville, Tenn., were convicted of multiple counts of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter in the Sept. 16, 2007, incident at Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. All three were sentenced Monday to 30 years plus one day in prison.

“It’s clear that these fine young men panicked,” said Lamberth, an Army veteran and Reagan appointee who served as chief district judge from 2008 to 2013.

While defendants have filed appeals, Monday’s sentencing brought an emphatic end to the U.S. government’s years-long effort to demonstrate accountability for American security contractors’ conduct on the battlefield.

In sentencing documents, federal prosecutors called on a judge in Washington to impose lengthy prison terms. The four defendants sought leniency, saying they have been unfairly singled out for harsh treatment for a wartime tragedy.

Jurors found that the defendants, at the time among 19 Blackwater guards providing security for State Department officials in Iraq, shot recklessly and out of control after one of them falsely claimed that their convoy, called Raven 23, was threatened by a car bomber.

The guards claimed that they acted in self-defense after coming under AK-47 gunfire as they cleared a path back to the nearby Green Zone for another Blackwater team that was evacuating a U.S. official from a nearby car bombing.

Prosecutors said in court Monday that the men were guilty of an atrocity against innocent Iraqis, and cited the appalled testimony of fellow Blackwater guards who told jurors that the defendants fired destructive weapons without provocation.

The other contractors “chose to abide by their training, and not to shoot first and make excuses later,” Assistant U.S. Attorney T. Patrick Martin said. “This was one instance they could not back the actions of their teammates.”

Patrick said a lengthy sentence would deter future unwarranted bloodshed by American contractors, passing along the lesson: “You are entrusted to do a job with deadly weapons, but you must use them only when necessary, and their use must be justified. You can’t just shoot first and seek justification later.”&nbsp.; . .

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Guess Who's Watching The Hen House?

During the election, we talked a bit about how the CIA and other spy agencies worked hard to insert their own operatives into Congress as members, with the object of getting control over oversight of their own agencies. There were some successes (William Hurd in Texas) and some failures (Kevin Strouse and Bobby McKenzie) but electing Members of Congress isn't the only way the National Security State can keep control of their shit. This week, investigative journalist Lee Fang, writing for Republic Report, exposed another: high-paid lobbyists being hired by Intelligence shills to run the oversight committees. How about... Blackwater in charge?

After lobbyist-run SuperPACs and big money efforts dominated the last election, legislators are now appointing lobbyists to literally manage the day-to-day affairs of Congress. For the House Intelligence Committee, which oversees government intelligence operations and agencies, the changing of the guard means a lobbyist for Academi, the defense contractor formerly known as Blackwater, is now in charge.

Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA), the incoming chairman of the Intelligence Committee when the House reconvenes in January, announced that Jeff Shockey will be the new Staff Director of the committee. As a paid representative of Academi, Shockey and his firm have earned $80,000 this year peddling influence on behalf of Academi.

In previous years, the House Intelligence Committee has investigated Blackwater over secret contracts with the Central Intelligence Agency. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. As Staff Director, the highest position on a committee for a staff member, Shockey will oversee the agencies that do business with his former employer.

Shockey also represents a number of other companies with business before defense agencies: General Dynamics, Koch Industries, Northrop Grumman, United Launch Alliance, Innovative Defense Technologies and Boeing.

The role reversal, for lobbyists to take brief stints in Congress after an election, has become a normalized. In a previous investigation for The Nation, we found that some corporate firms offer employment contracts with special bonuses for their staff to return to government jobs, ensuring the paycut they receive for passing through the revolving door to become public servants doesn’t have to alter their K Street lifestyle.

Other committees are also hiring lobbyists. Congessman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) replacement as chair of the Oversight Committee, just hired Podesta Group lobbyist Sean McLaughlin as his new Staff Director. McLaughlin’s client list includes the Business Roundtable, a trade association for corporate CEOs of large firms. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) also hired a new chief of staff, Mark Isakowitz, who represents BP.

Essential reading: the comment below on Shockley's background as a longtime crooked Beltway insider going back to when Jerry Lewis was the most corrupt man in Washington and Shockley was one of his top bagmen.

Out of the muck of the Year-End News Dump: Gummint can't touch Blackwater's (Xe's?) Baghdad shooting brigade

AP video from Dec. 6, 2008, when the identities of the five Blackwater guards indicted for the Baghdad shootings were made public

by Ken

One of the features I loved in Rachel Maddow's old Air America Radio morning show was the regular Monday-morning Friday News Dump report. It's one of those things that everybody, or at any rate lots of folks, know about, but hardly anyone does anything about.

Anytime anyone in government has news that has to be made public, but that they would like to draw the minimum of attention, they dump it in with their Friday news dump, secure in the knowledge that all the media and an awful lot of media consumers tune out on Saturday. Anything that happens to get into the Saturday papers and newscasts gets hardly any attention, and by Sunday they're all off on the Sunday Round of Grand Pontificating -- you couldn't wedge any real news in there with a hatchet.

I'm sure there are any number of blogs doing what Rachel did: combing through those leavings to see what embarrassments, not to mention revelations, were concealed there. But you see, that's the thing: It's just some lonely, no-account-paid bloggers, and the bureaucratic blunder bundlers can easily live with that -- that's almost better than silence, in that they can always say, if they're challenged about a particular news dump, that they put it out there and heck, somebody picked it up -- are they supposed to be doing the journalists' job for them too?

You might think of the Holday News Dump as the Friday news Dump on steroids, and maybe the dumpiest dump of them all the one that ushers out the old year, a veritable sea of forgottenness. Come Monday we'll see, assuming anybody looks, what got dumped in this year's New Year's Holiday-Plus-Weekend Dump.

But who knew that federal judges also know how to do the Dump? Note the time stamp on this Washington Post report:

Judge dismisses all charges in Blackwater shooting

By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 31, 2009; 4:15 PM

A federal judge on Thursday threw out charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing 14 people in a 2007 shooting in downtown Baghdad.

In a 90-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ruled that the government violated the guards' rights by using their immunized statements to help the investigation. The ruling comes after a lengthy set of hearings that examined whether federal prosecutors and agents improperly used such statements that the guards gave to State Department investigators following the shooting on Sept. 16, 2007.

"The explanations offered by prosecutors and investigators in an attempt to justify their actions and persuade the court that they did not use the defendants' compelled testimony were all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility," Urbina wrote.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said, "We're obviously disappointed by the decision. We're still in the process of reviewing the opinion and considering our options."

[And so on and so on.]

Now I'm not disupting the judge's call. Not that I'm any expert, but I do recall reading about this basic problem in this investigation of having to use immunized statements, and I'm prepared to believe that the facts and law left the judge no alternative. Also, there may be court-specific factors I don't know about, like a need or desire to clear certain rulings within the 2009 calendar year. Still and all, I guess I am suggesting that the judge knew this was a hot potato and did everything he could, short of quitting the bench, to direct heat away from his ruling.

The insidious thing about the root problem in this case, the taking of those forever-off-limits statements, is that really it can't ever be fixed. Even if there were other sources of evidence (my recollection is that in this case there weren't), how would you ever establish that you've gathered that evidence independent of the unusable statements? I would point out that the "investigative" work was done by Bush regimistas, raising the possibility that it wasn't entirely by accident that uncorrectable errors happened in the early stages of the case, which as I recall the regime had no interest in pursuing to begin with. But then hey, with the regimistas, how would you go about separating deliberate incompetence (i.e., sabotage) from the natural kind?

One obvious question: What happens now to the poor schlub who pled guilty and was presumably standing ready to testify against the five other suspects? Presumably he gets whatever sentence he was going to get anyway. I guess that's the roll of the dice in such matters. Nevertheless, I bet he (and his lawyers) are feeling pretty silly.

It's easier if we just don't think about it. The Super-End-of-Year News Dump is perfect for that.

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UPDATE: The Iraqis Don't Have The Luxury of Burying The News Though

As Timothy Williams pointed out in this morning's NY Times, Iraqis went through some more shock and awe when they read about the decision Friday, reacting "with disbelief, anger and bitter resignation to news that criminal charges in the United States had been dismissed against Blackwater Worldwide security guards who opened fire on unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007."

Of course it's not funny that the guy who created Blackwater may be a murderer. It's just that, well, is anybody surprised?

Oh, this is just our Erik being sworn in to testify before some congressional committee or other back in 2007 about some alleged Blackwater depredation or other. Who can keep track? Oh Lord, a crusading Christian freedom fighter's work is never done -- at least as long as there are Muslims left to exterminate.

by Ken

We really need to figure out some sort of strategy for dealing with the flotsam and jetsam that continues to surface from the eight years of unbridled lunacy and criminality that were the Bush regime.

Now it's one of the regime's most prized sociopaths, the founder of Blackwater, the American "security" firm (this is what we call out terrorist organizations) into which the regimistas poured still-uncounted jillions of dollars to befoul the good name of our country all over the world with its high-caliber acts of marauding and mayhem. From what we knew about this Erik Prince bozo, a thug with delusions of Christian grandeur, it always seemed pretty clear that he belonged under lock and key. As with so many of the regime's stooges and cronies, the only real question was whether he should have been in a prison or a mental institution.

With Blackwater under investigation (surprise!), it's now being alleged by two people who worked for Prince Nutso that he "may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities." And this is supposed to be a surprise? When you've got a government run by sociopaths, hiring a mix of sociopaths and psychopaths -- and you know how badly they get on together -- and telling them there are no rules for people like us, what do you expect?

Okay, let's look at just a little of this.

The Nation

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

by JEREMY SCAHILL

August 4, 2009

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety. . . .

Now of course the report goes on and on and on, you bet, and we should care about the sordid details, like the allegations that Blackwater was smuggling guns into Iraq in dog-food bags. But really, is there anything useful to be learned for those of us who spent those eight years screaming that everyone who participated in the activities of the Bush regime should be subject to the death penalty -- preferably on an execute-now, ask-questions-later basis? And the fact is, the rest of the country didn't give a damn about the all-consuming campaign of degradataion, depredation, and extermination unleashed by the Bush regime against all its "enemies" while it was going on, and by the time the shock and shame became too overwhelming, they simply tuned out. Bush? George W. Bush? Sorry, name doesn't ring a bell. Oh wait, didn't there used to be a lesbian by that name?

It appears that the sins of the Bush Regime -- including all those committed by, in, around, and for the regime -- have a "sell by" pull date just like dairy products in the supermarket. Yuck, it's old news. It's expired. It smells bad. Just pour it down the drain. We-the-People officially Don't Give a Darn. We want tea parties!

Besides, if the regimistas were to be held to account for every last murder, why, there'd be no end of it! I say, just add this to Attorney General Eric Holder's Super-Fantastic List of Old Stuff to Maybe Someday Investigate, or Not. (The list could someday actually have value to the adminstration, as it becomes increasingly desperate to buttress its one incontestably admirable quality: that it's not the Bush regime.)

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Apple Stands For America And The Mormon Cult Stands For Hatred

A box arrived on Friday and it weighed so little I thought it was a couple of CDs but the mailman announced it was from Apple. Apple! I was a consultant on the development of the iPod after I left Warner Bros and this box must have been some new iteration of the shuffle. But I'm perfectly happy with the shuffles I have and I can't remember how to put new songs on them anyway. So I put the box aside, unopened. Later a friend came over and, seeing the box, asked what I got from Apple. I said he could open it. OMG! It was the new MacBook! I get thicker magazines in the mail! I'm an Apple fanatic and I was over the moon to have gotten this wonderful gift-- just in time for my trip to Mali too.

Anyway, I figured I'd go read up on this thing and figure out what it is exactly so I went to the Apple homepage. The second and third story is about the new MacBook. The first story says No on Prop 8. I was shocked. I recall having read that the Mormons and other homophobic fanatics and hate-mongers are threatening to boycott any companies that dare to support gay families' choices. With that in mind I read the Apple blurb on top of their website:

Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights-- including the right to marry-- should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

That's more than many Democratic politicians have the balls to do! And $100,000! Good for Steve Jobs!

Today's L.A. Times reported that about $60 million have been raised around Prop 8. I thought the whole hateful effort was just being financed by the Mormon Mafia and their Utah-based theocracy. Turns out that although they're the biggest merchants of hate and bigotry-- around $10 million so far-- they're not alone. And now that they've been exposed and are feeling vulnerable, the Mormon cult leaders are at least giving lip service to tamping down the orgy of hatred and bigotry a little. They claim that they've now stopped the Utah-based homophobic phone banking operation.

And not all are Mormons sticking with the hate-filled religionist cult on this, though their poisonous fake priests have been asking all parishioners to donate. Bruce Bastian is an ex-Mormon who still lives in Utah and is one of the 5 people who donated a million dollars to stop Prop 8. So as evil and Satanic as the Mormon Church is, remember that there are individual Mormons who are still human and not fully sucked into the garbage pseudo-religion. Bastian:

"They're a church and in their name they have the name Jesus Christ. Can you imagine Jesus Christ doing something like this? There is nothing in Jesus' teachings that justifies what the church is doing.

"To me this is the civil rights movement of the 21st century," Bastian said. "How embarrassing is it now to look back at what we did to African Americans in the 19th century."

But it isn't just the Cult of the Latter Day Satanites who are funding the hatred. The murderous war criminal, neo-Nazi Prince family (Blackwater mercenaries) are also major contributors-- giving to both McCain and to Yes on 8-- but having put around $8 million dollars into right-wing anti-gay efforts this year.

RADICAL BUSH REGIME STICKS WITH THEIR MERCENARIES

Even as the military justice system and the Pentagon try to figure out how to deal with criminal behavior by mercenaries in Iraq-- and by all accounts, except Chris Shays', criminal behavior has been rampant-- the Bush Regime announced yesterday, just as the media was getting ready for a lazy weekend, that they have renewed their deal with the private Republican militia, Blackwater.

The company, based in Moyock, N.C., is under investigation by the FBI in connection with a Sept. 16 incident in which its security personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. Questions have been raised about whether the shootings were justified and if they violated the rules under which contractors may use deadly force in Iraq.

Blackwater [whose fascist owner is a huge GOP donor] has received more than $1 billion in federal business since 2000, according to Eagle Eye, a research company that monitors contract spending. Its agreement to provide security for U.S. diplomats, and bodyguards and armed drivers to escort government officials outside Baghdad's Green Zone, was set to expire next month.

Iraqi officials have called for the ouster of Blackwater. The State and Defense departments have put in place more stringent oversight of private security contractors, such as coordinating their movement with the military and making sure they know the rules of engagement, an official with the State Department said.

One of my neighbors runs a high profile project for the U.S. Government in Baghdad. He refused to continue his work there until the government agreed to use other bodyguards instead of Blackwater. He told me that the Blackwater personnel go out of their way to aggravate relations with Iraqis and are the most hated symbol of the U.S. occupation. He told me that traveling outside the Green Zone with Blackwater marks you as an enemy of Iraq.

WHY DO REPUBLICANS HATE DOGS? OR, MORE TO THE POINT, WHY DO THEY KILL THEM?

Why do they hate us (click to enlarge)

Actually, before you go any further, I want to express some reservations. The entire DWT staff-- except Adam, who spent the day with his spiritual advisor, John Hagee, as he does every Sunday-- has been debating whether or not to run this piece. First and foremost, the video is so disturbing that I am loathe to test the sensibilities of our readers so rudely. I must warn you that I haven't been able to get the image out of my head-- and keep in mind, I dream of watching certain key members of the Regime being fed to sharks and saltwater crocodiles... trussed up in seal drag. But beyond the disturbing film, there is something else that disturbs me. I have no way of being sure this film is real or who it is or where it is. I trust my source. But does he really know? He wasn't there. I lived in Holland for 4 years and read all the documentation in the original Dutch and it doesn't prove anything conclusive. I asked a competent sound engineer to analyze the film and explain some aspects that bothered me. He convinced me. But, as Ken pointed out, if someone is determined to perpetrate a hoax, it's-- quite literally-- child's play these days. So... judge for yourself (if you choose to subject yourself to it... or just suspend judgment and do what you can to defeat Chris Shays anyway.)

Canine lovers may remember back in December when it came to light that mercenaries from Chris Shays' favorite perfect mercenary firm, Blackwater, shot and killed a guard dog at the NY Times news bureau in Baghdad. Republicans, like Shays, Cheney, and Bush, jumped to Blackwater's defense.

Despite the Iraqi govenment's demands that Blackwater get out of their country, this GOP run mercenary force is still there-- and still causing problems. I would like Bush or Cheney or Shays to defend this video from a Dutch website. Warning: the video is very disturbing:




UPDATE: A BREAK IN THE CASE?

People are trying to track the puppy-killer down. They may have found him. More as this develops... if it does. Looks like I may have been too hasty in blaming Blackwater. Looks like the guy is a Marine. Oy.

Being the Bush regime means not just never saying "We wuz wrong" but always having had competent people pointing out that your head's up your butt

QUOTES OF THE DAY
as assembled by the Washington Post (click to enlarge)


In the famous cleaned-up version of Lyndon Johnson's, er, tribute, Gerald Ford couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. By implication, though, ol' Jerry could at least perform these functions separately.

Whereas the image forming of the livestock inhabiting the highest regions of the Bush regime, a latter-day Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, is a herd of critters--whether blinded by wacko ideology, a passion for pillage and profiteering, or outright mental defect--so bumblingly incompetent, you figure they must hire outside contractors to chew their gum for them.

Watching the regime unravel is a matter of perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop. What we invariably learn is not just that the regimists were wrong about absolutely everything, from the largest matters to the smallest, but that at every step along the way there were sane, trustworthy people warning them, often in considerable detail, which has usually proved on the money.

Today's cautionary tale of ideologically bumbling ineptitude concerns the obsessive and critically dangerous reliance on private "security" firms, which turn out to be mostly crony-connected bands of high-paid characters playing cowboys-on-crack. You and I may not have known much Blackwater and their ilk until relatively recently, but it turns out--surprise!--that there were plenty of warnings available.

Chapter and verse come courtesy of Steve Fainaru in the report in today's Washington Post from which the above quotes were drawn:

The U.S. government disregarded numerous warnings over the past two years about the risks of using Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms in Iraq, expanding their presence even after a series of shooting incidents showed that the firms were operating with little regulation or oversight, according to government officials, private security firms and documents.

The warnings were conveyed in letters and memorandums from defense and legal experts and in high-level discussions between U.S. and Iraqi officials. They reflected growing concern about the lack of control over the tens of thousands of private guards in Iraq, the largest private security force ever employed by the United States in wartime.

Neither the Pentagon nor the State Department took substantive action to regulate private security companies until Blackwater guards opened fire Sept. 16 at a Baghdad traffic circle, killing 17 Iraqi civilians and provoking protests over the role of security contractors in Iraq.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT-- DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS

In between the breathtaking Humayun's Tomb complex, the Qawwalis singing in front of the darga of sufi saint Hazrat Nizmuddin, and wandering back through time in the twisting, muddy lane of backstreet Old Delhi, I'm managing to keep up on current events by watching the BBC Worldwide and the local news channel, NDTV. Earlier today I was watching a BBC news program with an Indian friend that featured back to back segments on Barry Bonds and Howard Krongard. He seemed more stunned than I was.

Bonds, who is a black ballplayer, is accused of the crime of lying about using steroids so that he could hit more home runs. The report says he faces 30 years in prison. I suppose the number of years even minor members of the Bush Regime would face is all but incalculable-- not to mention the arch-criminals in the regime. But then on comes the Krongard news: he resigned as State Department inspector general. "Cookie" Krongard is a white Republican, and, like Bonds, he has been accused of criminal behavior. But his wasn't a crime against a game like baseball, as serious as that may be.

No, Cookie is accused of hindering the investigation of, and thereby facilitating and conspiring with, the GOP Blackwater mercenary firm in committing, in effect, war crimes. (In congressional testimony he somehow managed not to know--or, according to his brother "Buzzy," to forget--that his brother was a Blackwater adviser.) There was no mention, nor even a hint, in the report of an indictment for Krongard-- Bonds has already been indicted-- or of a trial or a prison term.

My Indian friend seemed confused and somewhat amused by the juxtoposition of the two stories. "Thirty years for the ball player and not a mention of any punishment for the war criminal? What has happened to your country? Will Hillary be able to fix it?" I told him the question is if she will even want to fix what is wrong with my country.


STATESIDE UPDATE--It's not over yet for Cookie

Don't forget that the feds have been circling in on Barry Bonds for eons now. They're just getting started on Cookie. It appears that he may be facing a perjury rap of his own, for starters. For more on his departure, see Saturday's Quote of the Day.--Ken

IRAQ SAYS EXPULSION OF BLACKWATER MERCENARIES IS NOT NEGOTIABLE

Have you been watching the Erik Prince p.r. offensive on TV. Does he look like he's not the Antichrist? No, no... I mean doesn't he look like he is the Antichrist? The History Channel ran that Antichrist expose again this past weekend. I think they show it as soft-core gay porn now that Larry Haggard, the world's #1 Antichrist hunter and exploiter, has been exposed as a tushy-licker. Watch:



Whether Price is or is not the Antichrist, we probably will never know-- unless we find out too late-- but he has been very reclusive and secretive until Henry Waxman dragged him out of his little cocoon and made him testify publicly. Since then you can't get him off the TV. Last night 60 Minutes did a bit of a puff piece. You tell me: is this the Anitchrist?



Or just another greedy, grasping right-wing loon?

My good friend of mine is based in Baghdad as head of a major rebuilding operation. Last year he explained to me how Prince's mercenary company, Blackwater, is the heart of darkness, evil incarnate. But Prince disagrees. "I've not seen... any evidence to support any kind of egregious, malicious, intentional wrong behavior."

End of subject? Uh... probably not. The A.P. reports today that the puppet government in the Greed Zone is demanding that Blackwater leave Iraq within six months. Why are they giving them six months?

The Iraqi investigators issued five recommendations to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which has since sent them to the U.S. Embassy as demands for action.

Point No. 2 in the report says:

"The Iraqi government should demand that the United States stops using the services of Blackwater in Iraq within six months and replace it with a new, more disciplined organization that would be answerable to Iraqi laws."

Sami al-Askari, a top aide to al-Maliki, said that point in the Iraqi list of demands was nonnegotiable.

"I believe the government has been clear. There have been attacks on the lives of Iraqi citizens on the part of that company (Blackwater). It must be expelled. The government has given six months for its expulsion and it's left to the U.S. Embassy to determine with Blackwater when to terminate the contract. The American administration must find another company," he told AP.

...The Iraqi government investigative report said Blackwater guards had killed 21 other Iraqi citizens and wounded 27 in a total of seven previous incidents, including a shooting by a drunk Blackwater employee after a 2006 Christmas party. Congress is investigating whether the government relies too heavily on private contractors who fall outside the military courts martial system.

DynCorp, a less reckless and less inherently vicious mercenary company, will probably take over Blackwater's contracts. Bush will make sure American taxpayers are screwed and Blackwater is well-compensated. And will Pelosi's promises prove to be more empty rhetoric that don't end the war even one micro-second sooner than Bush's departure from the White House?

THREE BLIND REPUBLICAN MICE-- SUPPORTIN' WAR PROFITEERS TO THE BITTER END

In Tom Davis' world a little war profits never hurt nobody

I'm sure Bush will veto it-- if his Senate Chief Obstructionist, Miss McConnell (R-KY) can't deep six it with some of that parliamentary trickery he's always using it to thwart the will of the people-- but you have to laugh at this one. The House just passed the War Profiteering Prevention Act by a vote of 375-3. It crimianlizes war profiteering. Did someone decriminalize it? Not allowed is "overcharging in order to defraud or profit excessively from war, military action, or reconstruction efforts" and if Bush signs it-- lol-- it will be "a felony subject to up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million or twice the illegal profits of the crime."

If your mind works anything like mine, you're probably wondering what kind of sick slobs voted against this, right? I'm sure you know which party they all come from. The misanthropes who don't want to see war profiteering made illegal are:
-Richard Baker (R-LA), who has voted with Bush on every single Iraq roll call. H'es 100% so why sully that now?
-Tom Davis (R-VA), who is now trying to appeal to a much more right-wing and lunatic fringe GOP base as he tries to run for the Republican nomination to replace Senator John Warner and is trying to show that, at heart, he's just as insane as Eric Cantor-- or even more so. In the past, when he just had to deal with a moderate suburban district outside DC, he even once-- out of 55 roll calls-- opposed some Bush-Cheney scheme of destruction in Iraq. But that was then. Now's he's desperate to butch up his image. That and a big fat bribe from Erik Prince, the North Carolina Republican war lord who runs Blackwater and has given Davis over $700,000 in "campaign contributions." A real American that Davis. This was his argument against the bill-- which even kooks like Patrick McHenry, Mean Jean Schmidt and Doug Lamborn couldn't buy: "Hundreds of contractor lives have been lost over in Iraq, and I think the widows and the mothers, of these sons and daughters who've been killed in Iraq would be, I think chagrinned to hear their sons referred to as profiteers."
-Mike Rogers (R-AL), as crazy as they come, so nothing more or less could ever be expected of him. You want to know exactly how crazy? Just look at his voting record regarding the well-being of America's military personnel. He's a lot more interested in the well being of America's war profiteers than of the young men and women who are on the front lines.

THE VERDICT IS IN: BLACKWATER MERCENARIES COMMITTED MURDER. WHEN DOES BUSH GO TO THE HAGUE?

If you accept the farce that Iraq is a sovereign nation and that the phony elections the Bush Regime stage-managed were more legitimate than the ones in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, then you accept that Bush's puppet regime and that it's head, Nuri al Maliki, is the Prime Minister of not just the Green Zone but of all of Iraq. If that were remotely true, it would be bad news for the private Republican army Bush-ally Erik Prince has assembled in North Carolina, the vicious mercenary force, Blackwater. But since it is all just a farce, no one is worrying much.

So will Congress do anything? Not a chance-- despite the fact that Maliki's office said yesterday that "the government’s investigation had determined that Blackwater USA private security guards who shot Iraqi civilians three weeks ago in a Baghdad square sprayed gunfire in nearly every direction, committed 'deliberate murder' and should be punished accordingly. If Congress lets this go will they all be accomplices to Bush's war crimes?

Iraqi investigators, supported by Iraqi witness accounts, have said unofficially that they could not find evidence of any attack on the Blackwater guards that might have provoked the shooting on Nisour Square, which the Iraqis say killed 17 and wounded 27. But the statement by Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the prime minister, is the first indication that the government considers its investigation completed and the shootings unprovoked.

“This is a deliberate crime against civilians,” Mr. Dabbagh said. “It should be tried in court and the victims should be compensated.”

...“Not even a brick was thrown at them,” said Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassim, the Iraqi defense minister. “And until now we have been examining this matter.”

But in an indication of the legal uncertainties surrounding the case in Iraq, where the law gives American contractors virtual immunity, Mr. Dabbagh said decisions on specific legal steps would wait until the Americans completed their own investigation of the shooting and conferred with the Iraqis. It is not clear which provisions of American law would apply in this case.

...In previously undisclosed details in the government’s final report, the Iraqi police documented that Blackwater guards shot in almost every direction, killing or wounding people in a near 360-degree circle around Nisour Square.

The thick file amassed for the investigation asserts that bullets reached bystanders who were as far as 200 feet away and nearly on the opposite side of the square.

Wouldn't you love to see every member of Congress who doesn't try to take action against this, and regardless of party, tried in a war crimes tribunal for this outrage against humanity? I sure would. But Blackwater is making longterm plans to stay in Iraq, despite being banned by the puppet "government" and hacks like Rush Limbaugh and John Boehner just continue to lie and lie about everything related to the occupation and devastation of Iraq. As for the long-term American strategy in Iraq... there never has been any but whatever people on the ground were told there was, seems to have come apart at the seams, as sectarian animosity has overtaken any hopes for reconciliation. George W. Bush... winning hearts and minds.

An ominous threat to American democracy:

NOW THERE'S TORTURE AND THERE'S TORTURE... NOT THAT WE DO EITHER

If you weren't reassured yesterday when Bush declared that we don't torture no one, perhaps you can still be suckered by two declarations in tomorrow's NY Times, one from Miss Condi about keeping an eye and a firm grip on Bush's private Republican army, the mercenary criminal enterprise known as Blackwater, and then yet another declaration by the Liar-in-Chief that torture is not torture when Republicans do it to guys he decides are the bad guys. I guess he is the Decider and he gets to decide what is and what isn't torture (although numerous treaties legitimate presidents signed long before his cronies staged the coup that placed them in the White House kind of defined that stuff already). Sounds like a technicality someone at the Hague can try to sort out someday.

OK; I have a feeling that setting brutal, vicious, unaccountable, murdering mercenaries loose on a civilian population counts as a war crime. Should Condi hang? Don't ask me; I think every legislator in Congress who ever voted for any of their schemes is culpable. And the one who took impeachment off the table...

Anyway, Condi, on behalf of the Bush Regime, wants to keep Blackwater in Iraq, regardless of what Congress, too afraid to provoke a constitutional clash, thinks. So she says she'll keep an eye on them. Feel better? (Not so much; but I would if it was Naomi Wolf who was watching Blackwater.)

The department will also install video cameras in Blackwater armored vehicles to produce a record of all operations that could be used in investigations of the use of force by private security contractors. The State Department will also save recordings of all radio transmissions between Blackwater convoys and military and civilian agencies supervising them in Iraq.

...The State Department measures announced on Friday are the first concrete response by the American government to the violent episode on Sept. 16 in central Baghdad involving several Blackwater teams that left as many as 17 Iraqis dead. Officials said the State Department would send dozens of its diplomatic security service agents to Baghdad so that there would be enough people in place to accompany every Blackwater convoy.

The State Department was facing new questions on Friday about its handling of another case, involving a former Blackwater guard who is suspected of shooting a bodyguard to an Iraqi vice president while drunk last Christmas Eve.

The former guard, Andrew J. Moonen, now lives in Seattle after being dismissed from Blackwater and sent home from Iraq 36 hours after the shooting, with the approval and help of the State Department.

But within weeks of losing his job at Blackwater, Mr. Moonen was hired by a Defense Department contractor and sent to Kuwait to work on logistics related to the Iraq war, a spokesman for the contractor, Combat Support Associates, said Friday. Mr. Moonen worked for the company from February until August of this year, said the spokesman, Paul Gennaro.

Friday was a regular Regime propaganda offensive. At the same time Condi was promising to hold a tighter leash on those awful Blackwater murderers rascals, Bush was screeching, in defiance of common knowledge-- a trick he used to get away with more regularly-- that "This government does not torture." The frequency and intensity of his blatant lying almost qualifies. But not as much as waterboarding. And although treaties Bush has surely never read but by which he is bound stipulates that there are no exceptions to the thou shalt not torture rule, Bush says he can do whatever he wants.

“I have put this program in place for a reason, and that is to better protect the American people,” the president said, without mentioning the C.I.A. by name. “And when we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we’re going to detain them, and you bet we’re going to question them, because the American people expect us to find out information-- actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That’s our job.”

And rounding up random teenagers in Aghan marketplaces and dumping them into a cell for months and months... is that his job too? As for protecting the American people... well it's demonstrable and without contention that no one has ever done a worse job at that. No. One. Ever.

The he claimed he ran all this by the appropriate members of Congress and they agreed. They beg to differ. According to Senator Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, "The administration can’t have it both ways. I’m tired of these games. They can’t say that Congress has been fully briefed while refusing to turn over key documents used to justify the legality of the program.”

BLACKWATER BACKED... BY 30 REPUBLICAN KOOKS-- AND NO ONE ELSE

Will Bush also veto a bill to rein in the excesses his pal Erik Prince's mercenary outfit, Blackwater? I mean, it wasn't unanimous. It only passed by 389- 30, all 30 being ultra-right reactionary Republicans. Every single Democrat and the vast majority of Republicans voted for David Price's legislation to hold contractors like Blackwater accountable (H.R. 2740) for their criminal behavior... in U.S. courts. You can understand why right-wingers are outraged, of course. Right? Will Bush veto? Of course even before Bush has to veto, will Miss McConnell obstruct?

Watch Congressman Joe Sestak, a former Admiral, explain why this bill is important and should not be vetoed.



So who were the Republicans who voted no, who wanted to let Blackwater continue committing egregious war crimes in the name of the United States of America with zero accountability? You'll recognize many of the names. These are men who have cheered Bush along all the way to our country's disgrace and along the road to ruin in Iraq:

Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
Richard Baker (R-LA)
Joe Barton (R-TX)
C.W. Boustany (R-LA)
Paul Broun (R-GA)
Michael Burgess (R-TX)
Steve Buyer (R-IN)
Chris Cannon (R-UT)
Nathan Deal (R-GA)
John Doolittle (R-CA)
Trent Franks (R-AZ)
Planet Denny Hastert (R-IL)
Pete Hoekstra (R-MI)
Duncan Hunter (R-CA)
Sam Johnson (R-TX)
Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
John Linder (R-GA)
Jim McCrery (R-LA)
Jeff Miller (R-FL)
Gary Miller (R-CA)
Joe Pitts (R-PA)
Tom Price (R-GA)
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Pete Sessions (R-TX)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)
Tom Tancredo (R-CO)
Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA)
Don Young (R-AK)

Now there's a list of pure unadultered garbage. Can someone point out something worthwhile bout even one of these jerkoffs? This list is so bad that not even Mean Jean Schmidt, Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn, or Patrick McHenry would get on board this crazy train.


UPDATE: CHRIS SHAYS HAS LOST HIS MIND... AGAIN... COMPLETELY-- AND WHAT PART OF MISSISSIPPI DOES HE REPRESENT?

IS THERE A PLACE FOR A PRIVATE ARMY IN A DEMOCRACY? DO WE STILL HAVE A DEMOCRACY?

Every little fascist turd needs his own bullies. Early on Bush Family benefactor Adolf Hitler had the Sturmabteilung (better known as the S.A.), the Nazi Party's "Assault Division. And, just like their Nazi heroes, George Bush's GOP wanted a private army too. They found it through billionaire GOP contributor and deranged psychopath Erik Prince and his disreputable mercenary army, Blackwater.

This new Newsweek paints a dismal picture of the GOP's violent little army. Like a report in Saturday's Washington Post, 5 Witnesses Insist Iraqis Didn't Fire On Guards, the Newsweek story exposes the vicious and brutal mercenaries as a cancer on the honor of our nation's involvement in Iraq.

Since the fatal Sept. 16 Blackwater USA shooting in Baghdad’s Nasoor Square, officials from the private security company have insisted that their guards were responding to fire from “armed enemies.” Yet an extensive evidence file put together by the Iraqi National Police and obtained by Newsweek-- including documents, maps, sworn witness statements and police video footage-- appears to contradict the contractors’ version of events. A confidential incident report, which has been provided by Iraqi National Police investigators to American military and civilian officials, concludes that the Blackwater vehicles “opened fire crazily and randomly, without any reason.”

A neighbor of mine, a high ranking civilian working in Baghdad, has told me repeatedly that he refuses to have anything to do with Blackwater. They are worse than rabid animals and they shoot at Iraqis for sport. His contract stipulates that his body- guards are provided by any security firm except Blackwater. He's told me for years that the hatred the Iraqis have for Blackwater is the most intense hatred he's ever seen and that the American dislike for the Hessians couldn't have come close. Many think that the one charge that may eventually take Bush to the Hague will be his loosening of this violent band of mercenaries on Iraq.

The incident at Nasoor Square is remarkable only because it has been widely reported. For Blackwater, it is an everyday occurrence. It happened just around the corner from National Police Headquarters and Iraqi police officials were on the scene within minutes. They and other Iraqi witnesses swear that Blackwater mercenaries opened fire completely unprovoked. "No one shot at Blackwater," says Col. Faris Saadi Abdul, the lead Iraqi police investigator. "Blackwater shot without any cause."

The report from the House Oversight Committee, released to members in preparation for today's hearing are startling and makes one wonder once again what could possibly be on Nancy Pelosi's mind to take impeachment off the table. Bush's Regime is a criminal enterprise and Blackwater is a very real and very clear and present danger to American democracy. The report reveals that:

(1) Blackwater has engaged in 195 “escalation of force” incidents since 2005, an average of 1.4 per week, including over 160 incidents in which Blackwater forces fired first; (2) after a drunken Blackwater contractor shot the guard of the Iraqi Vice President, the State Department allowed the contractor to leave Iraq and advised Blackwater on the size of the payment needed “to help them resolve this”; and (3) Blackwater, which has received over $1 billion in federal contracts since 2001, is charging the federal government over $1,200 per day for each “protective security specialist” employed by the company

This morning's NY Times has a story on this report and it boggles the mind that the American public can allow the Bush-Cheney Regime to remain in office for even another hour. Blackwater CEO, Erik Prince, whose family has given countless millions of dollars to neo-fascist organizations and Republican politicians-- and who has gotten close to a billion dollars in contracts in return-- will be testifying under oath today. Seven notoriously extremist Republican Party politicians, Dan Burton (IN), Christopher Cannon (UT), Darrell Issa (CA) [who Jane tells me is already acting like an obstructionist dick as the hearing were getting underway today], Patrick McHenry (NC), John Mica FL), Mark Souder (IN) and Lynn Westmoreland (GA), have demanded that the Oversight Committee postpone the hearings to give the Regime more time to tamper with evidence and come up with a credible story. Henry Waxman is unlikely to didn't take them seriously.

BLACKWATER-- BACK IN THE DRIVERS SEAT

Blackwater is the most hated symbol of Bush's regime of mayhem and destruction in Iraq. Every self-respecting Iraqi, no matter how they feel about anything else, wants to wipe out the mercenary savages the Bush Regime has loosened on their country with a license to kill randomly and at will-- and with no oversight and no accountability. It is a clear war crime and hopefully one day we will all watch Bush being handed a last cigarette and a blindfold after his war crimes tribunal for this alone. Better than that than having to deal with a savage Republican private army in our own country.

My friends in Iraq-- some military, some civilian-- all agree on the brutality of the Blackwater mercenaries. "They use Iraqis for target practice," one friend told me. "The Iraqis all fear them and hate them." Most people who know of former CIA field officer Robert Baer know him for the film Syriana (which was based on his books Sleeping With the Devil and See No Evil and starred George Clooney playing him). This week he also has an article in Time, Why Blackwater-- and More-- Should Leave Iraq.

Baer points out that Iraqis "look at Blackwater as trigger-happy mercenaries, and Iraqis don't want any armed foreign security contractors in their country. Do we let Iraqi embassy private security contractors race around Washington or New York, machine guns sticking out the window, to prevent carjackings?"

Granted, Washington and New York aren't Baghdad. Still, the fact is security contractors are a daily reminder for Iraqis that their country is occupied, and they are second-class citizens. The insult is not just that security contractors are allowed to use lethal force and not worry about going to jail; a Western security contractor will make in a week what an Iraqi might make in a year. Private security contractors are a humiliation equal to the humiliations that provoked the Boxer Rebellion in China or drove Iranians to overthrow the Shah. Security contractors may be keeping our officials alive, but they are not winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis.

Papering over the problem by expelling Blackwater from Iraq leaves dozens of other companies working in Iraq, with their fingers on the trigger. With anywhere from 25,000 to 48,000 security contractors in country, we're bound to have another incident like Sunday's.

What the Administration should do is rescind Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17, the decree that puts foreign security contractors beyond the reach of Iraqi law. This would effectively close down private security companies. There is no reason the State Department cannot provide its own security; State security officers are under diplomatic immunity. If there's a questionable shooting, the Iraqi government at least will have the satisfaction of declaring the shooter persona non grata under the Vienna Convention.

Bush's response was to get Condi to tell the Iraqi puppet government in the Green Zone that tried to expel Blackwater that they should back down. Lucas at The Battle School says she succeeded and Maliki has backed down. "Blackwater," writes Lucas, "was suspended, in total, for four days. Which equals out to be a half day for each civilian killed. So if you're Iraqi you should know that your death isn't worth a full 24 hours, just a petty 12. And if you're a mercenary in Iraq, you'll only get suspended for 12 hours for every Iraqi killed (so if you want a week off, then kill ten Iraqis).


UPDATE: ERIK PRINCE'S INVESTMENT IN THE GOP SURE HAS PAID OFF

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.

PRIVATE REPUBLICAN ARMY-- FASCIST MERCENARIES-- BANNED BY IRAQ, BUT...

As we've mentioned before, one of DWT's neighbors is helping with a rebuilding project in Baghdad. He's running it and has been living over there. He told me that he stipulated in his contract that he will not be forced to use Blackwater personell in anything to do with his project. He threatened not to work on the project until this was agreed to. Run by a big Republican donor and Bush crony, Erik Prince, in the Iraqi consciousness Blackwater is exactly what the Hessians were in the early U.S. consciousness. They are seen as vicious mercenaries run by one of the worst of the war profiteer companies.

Today we find out that the government of Iraq has cancelled Blackwell's license to operate in their country-- in effect reducing the American military presense by as many troops as Petraeus and Bush claim they will do... soon. This morning CNN reports pretty much what my neighbor has been telling me for a couple of years: the perception among Iraqi civilians-- and this is borne out by years of grisly statistics-- is that Blackwater mercenaries, far, far more than American military personell, treat Iraqis like dogs and shoot them for sport.

Iraq's Interior Ministry has revoked the license of Blackwater USA, an American security firm whose contractors are blamed for a Sunday gunbattle in Baghdad that left eight civilians dead. The U.S. State Department said it plans to investigate what it calls a "terrible incident."

...An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, said, "We have revoked Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq. As of now they are not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq. The investigation is ongoing, and all those responsible for Sunday's killing will be referred to Iraqi justice."

The Bush Regime will, no doubt, remind the puppet government in the Greed Zone who's really running the show and I expect that it will soon be kiss and make up time between Maliki's Greed Zone operation and Blackwater.

Romney, who, like Giuliani, has an atrocious record of hiring really unsuitable people to work for him-- Larry Craig, Jim McCrery and David Diapers Vitter are just three recent examples-- just hired a Blackwater vice-president as his terrorism policy advisor.