Whine whine whine. Hire more local iraqis, send more soldiers, draft them if it’s necessary. Don’t say “waaah it’s too hard” when it’s your job to conduct such investigations, just go and do it.

If you don’t, then you have lost your right to dispute whatever comes out from local Iraqi investigations. Put up or shut up.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/19/AR2007091902503.html?hpid=topnews

In other words, the company is exempt from the effort to impose some oversight on these organizations that the US has tried to put together. Small wonder that the State Dept is sticking to Blackwater’s account of
the incident.

This aspect of the story is central to the WaPo story, but not reported in today’s NYT.

Now, the State Dept has historically been the weak sister in Iraq, ever since Rumsfeld muscled Powell’s trained staff out of the Iraq Planning Group prior to the invasion. A steady muttering campaign has arisen in the MSM about the State Dept’s failure to provide personnel for new reconstruction projects (part of the Petraeus scheme), as if to suggest that the next looming policy failure is the State Dept’s fault.

Who arranged this unusual contract that exempts BW from oversight? Why has it remained in effect even as problems with military contractors have mounted? Why was Bremer initially given security by BW, not the military (reportedly he objected to this, and was required by WH to accept BW, tho I don’t have a source) The answer is unlikely to be found w/in the State Dept itself, I believe.

I just returned from the September 15th impeachment/anti-war march in DC and we were 100,000 strong. The DC police arrested 190 loyal patriots, abusing many of them, including dislocating the shoulder of a 60+ year old female patriot. And yet amazingly, she was with us on September 18th, her arm in a sling, when we went through both the Senate and House of Representatives visiting those who should be representing us and letting them know that the American people had awoken and we were not going away.

Of course it is clear that neither the Republican or Democratic parties are going to restore our Constitution or the rule of law it embraces, so for one of the very few times in American history an independent political convention is being organized. That’s right, we are no longer going to simply have Republican and Democratic conventions, we are also going to have an American one.

And the American’s are going to win.

One of the bravest patriots I have ever had the privilege to meet and work with, the founder of Grassroots America Tina Richards, is organizing the new convention and if you’re tired of simply complaining then support the new non-affiliated convention and the organizations implementing it, and relegate the Republican and Democratic parties to the dust-bin of history, where they belong.

You can visit Grassroots America at grassrootsamerica4us.org.
ST

Accusation was conviction, and justice an abominable crime.
SearingTruth

The greatest persuader is the ever encroaching power of truth.
SearingTruth

A Future of the Brave – http://www.searingtruth.com

so, the republican congress under clinton was part of that downsizing?
and it just got worse after 01? … and instead of pumping up the forces and the society and commerce for actual war, bushco went for privatizing and war profiteering… have i got it?

now i have to sleep on that… ugh…
g’nite all…
.

Not to mention they have no accountability.

How can anyone claim that thses guys/gals are acting “lawfully” when they have arranged to have no legal liability for thier actions? C’mon who is kidding who here. Who do they answer to anyway?

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/petition/Blackwater

TP’s Cali posters should check it out.

Cokie Roberts was asked if anything could go wrong and change the rosy scenario that BetrayUs offered to the Congress. “Only a TET Offensive,” she shrugged. But no chance of that the other columnists agreed, ver smugly. Ha ha. “The Iraqis aren’t well enough organized to pull off a surprise military attack,” they all agreed.

But that same day, Sept. 16th, Blackwater operatives in Baghdad opened an attack against Iraqi civilians — during the holy month of Ramadan. The Iraqis are pissed at Blackwater and their hired thugs. This latest massacre of civilians could easily endanger our troops stuck in Bush’s Iraq.

Stay tuned to see what happens. But remember that “TET” was a surprise attack by guerrilla insurgents. The “TET” in Iraq will be equally surprising and it change the US mission there. None too soon.

Recommend | Report Abuse

Comment by wiseass.org — September 19, 2007 @ 8:57 pm

Are you sure? If so, why?

Comment by r — September 19, 2007 @ 9:38 pm

I love it. The troll doesn’t get his attention and goes into a tizzie. Please report this user as an abuser. These kinds of comments are what make the message boards unreadable.

Nothing short of Blackwater going rogue, executing a coup de ta, and launching Saddam’s hidden weapons of mass destruction will get them removed from the Middle Eastern picture.

Unless of course someone, maybe a presidential candidate, tells the American people this is the most important nation policy in our life times and it is worth dying for or sending your children to die for and we agree and go die there and send our children to die there. Until then the mercenaries will make up the monthly armed forces recruiting shortages and the Iraqi people will be killed in a lawless manner with no recourse.

Do you consider and ex-American G.I. serving as a hired mercenary a patriot or a scoundrel? I’ve talked to some military guys and its a problem on the minds of the mid and upper level NCO’s, how do you keep your talent when there is a private firm willing to pay them 3 times as much to do the same or less.

The mercenaries if Blackwater, Dyncorp, and Triple Canopy are no American heroes, they are opportunists taught by our capitalist leaders to damn the country for the sake of lining your own pockets.

This is all in our hands to fix.

After the Soviet Union “collapsed”, it was generally felt that we wouldn’t need all these military bases and personnel, so they started reducing the number of active duty military and had a commission set up to “neutrally” close bases. (It’s a big thing when the local economy of an otherwise small base suffers a base closing. And since so many bases were built “away” from other places, there’s little left of some towns when the base closes.) So, naturally, with our number one enemy “defeated” and the Cold War cmeing to a close, it was felt that we deserved to reep our “Peace Dividend” and draw down our standing armies (which, constiotutionally, are only supposed to be for two-year periods; so if any of you rich libertarians with time on your hands wants to try to tackle that one, I’d be interested in the result.)

From his days inthe Ford administration, Rumsfeld dreamt of a lean, mean fighting machine. One where much of the routine work was contracted out. Great for the corporate world, but an army unit works together better when their own people are taking care of them, not civilians being paid enormous sums more than the guy the military would have had, if not for Rumsfeld.

Clinton made an effort to pursue a path of peace, and de-militarization, which followed the end of the Cold War.

(To give credit, so did the first George Bush… isn’t it fun now that we have it down to the ‘First’ and the ‘Last’ Bush?)

Anyhoo, the beginings of Americas de-militarization was thwarted by Dick Cheney and the Entourage.

(By corrupting/cheating elections)

Petroleum, Guns and Greed function as well oiled
(pardon the pun) machine.
Blackwater, Halliburton, the defense industry, the oil companies, gun manufacturers…..
oh goodness, it’s such a long history….

As Wayne says: The only way we could have kept to Rumsfeld’s requisite for a lean army was to use mercenaries.
The worst of it is that these guys answer to no one.

Katy, if memory serves me, the military was reduced in the Clinton era because there was not a “threat” in the post-Desert Storm, post collapse of Russia. The Republicans were pushing hard for reductions.
Someone will correct me if my memory is faulty.