Blackwater USA : "The Dogs and Whores of War ?"

galway | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Saturday January 27, 2007 04:19

by TD - Cosantoiri Siochana

Blackwater : 'The whores of war' (Katy Helvenston, mother of one of the four Blackwater mercenaries killed in Fallujah, March 31, 2004)

Last Tuesday in his State of the Union address, Bush was explicit about the future of the US war machine in Iraq and further afield : "to design and establish a volunteer civilian reserve corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them". However, this force, this outsourcing of privateers is already doing its lethal work in Iraq and Afghanistan,

Blackwater mercenary in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

According to a US Government Accountability Office report, there are about 100,000 contractors in Iraq, of which 48,000 are mercenaries, operating with legal immunity and impunity as another iron fist of the Occupation making up to $1,000 a day in blood money, far more than active-duty soldiers. the employment of these mercenaries being politically expedient as any of their deaths go uncounted in the official toll.

Alpha cock on the mercenary dunghill and global head honcho of Mercenary Inc. is Blackwater USA with its 20,000 hired guns, the world’s largest private military base ( a 7,000-acre headquarters on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, N.C.) and twenty aircraft, including helicopter gunships. Founded in 1996 by the extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire ex-Navy SEAL Erik Prince, this outfit besides Iraq and Afghanistan was hired for state para military duties in hurricane wasted New Orleans two years back and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has at least consulted if not engaged it for possible future disasters in California - a Congressional inquiry and a Department of Homeland Security investigation were instigated when Democracy Now investigative reporter, Jeremy Scahill outed them ( Scahill has a new book : Blackwater: "The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" which can be pre-ordered on Amazon.com)

According to its website : "Blackwater USA consists of five separate business units: Blackwater Training Center (the largest private firearms and tactical training center in the U. S.), Blackwater Target Systems, Blackwater Security Consulting, Blackwater Canine, and Raven Development Group. We also have relationships with our strategic partners, Aviation Worldwide Services and Greystone Ltd." and its ethics "supports accountability and transparency in the professional military, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations industry. We conduct ourselves and our business with honor and integrity. As members of and partners with the International Peace Operators Association, we accept and daily abide by our collective. To boot, opining on its five hired guns, four of them executed with bullets to the back of their heads, hours before Bush's Union Address (after one of their helicopters was downed in Baghad) ; "These untimely deaths are a reminder of the extraordinary circumstances under which our professionals voluntarily serve to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. We ask that these men, their families, and all Americans serving overseas be kept in everyone's prayers." (on 31st March, 2004 another four of their mercenaries were ambushed in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah, their jeeps torched with them inside. their bodies dragged through the streets and at least two left to dangle from a bridge over the river Euphrates ).

In a Democracy Now interview with Amy Goodman (26-01-2007) Jeremy Schill lays bares where Blackwater intends heading : " ... and so, now you have Blackwater, the Praetorian Guard for the war on terror, itching to get into Sudan. You know, something happened last year that got no attention whatsoever. In October, President Bush lifted sanctions on Christian Southern Sudan, and there have been reports now that Blackwater has been negotiating directly with the Southern Sudanese regional government to come in and start training the Christian forces of the south of Sudan. Blackwater has been itching to get into Sudan, and Erik Prince is on the board of Christian Freedom International, which is an evangelical missionary organization that has been targeting Sudan for many years. And there is a political agenda that Blackwater fits perfectly into, whether it’s Iraq and Afghanistan or Sudan". to boot, "...perhaps the most frightening employee of Blackwater is Cofer Black. This is the man who was head of the CIA’s counterterrorism center at the time of 9/11, the man who promised President Bush that he was going to bring bin Laden's head back in a box on dry ice and talked about having his men chop bin Laden’s head off with a machete, told the Russians that he was going to bring the heads of the Mujahideen back on sticks, said there were going to be flies crawling across their eyeballs. Cofer Black is a 30-year veteran of the CIA, the man who many credit with really spearheading the extraordinary rendition program after 9/11, the man who told Congress that there was a “before 9/11” and an “after 9/11,” and that after 9/11, the gloves come off. He is now a senior executive at Blackwater and perhaps their most powerful behind-the-scenes operative ... And what’s really frightening is that you have a man in Erik Prince, who is a neo-crusader, a Christian supremacist, who has been given over a half a billion dollars in federal contracts, and that's not to mention his black contracts, his secret contracts, his contracts with foreign friendly governments like Jordan. This is a man who espouses Christian supremacy, and he has been given, essentially, allowed to create a private army to defend Christendom around the world against secularists and Muslims and others, and has really been brought into the fold. He refers to Blackwater as the sort of FedEx of the Pentagon. He says if you really want a package to get somewhere, do you go with the postal service or do you go with FedEx? This is how these people view themselves. And it embodies everything that President Eisenhower prophesied would happen with the rise of an unchecked military-industrial complex. You have it all in Blackwater".
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/26/1559232

Head honcho of Blackwater USA; Erik Prince

Kofer Black : "who promised President Bush that he was going to bring bin Laden's head back in a box on dry ice and talked about having his men chop bin Laden’s head off with a machete"