“Where’s the outrage?“, the author of this article asks. I say check their bank accounts.

An Unreported Scandal

A trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there, and soon you’re talking real money. But when it comes to reporting on what the Bush war legacy has cost American taxpayers, the media have been shockingly indifferent to the highest run-up in military spending since World War II. Even the devastating defense spending audit released Monday by the Government Accountability Office documenting the enormous waste in every single US advanced weapons system failed to provoke the outrage it, and five equally scathing previous annual audits, deserved. [...]

The Iraq War may end someday, but rest assured that major weapons systems, once commissioned, have a life’support system unmatched in any other sector of public spending. Rarely does the plug get pulled on even the most irrelevant and expensive war toy. Not while both Democratic and Republican politicians feed at the same trough, and when so much is at stake in the way of jobs and profit.

Bill Moyers had Jeremy Scahill on Friday night and it was a great interview. If you missed it, you can read the transcript or watch the video here. It was a great interview and Jeremy Scahill provides some chilling facts about the privatization of our military. He talks a little about Hurricane Katrina and the use of Blackwater in New Orleans and how Eric Prince sent his guys there before they had a contract. He also states he ran into some Israeli private security contractors at that time. James Reiss, a wealthy inhabitant of uptown New Orleans and chairman of the city’s Regional Transit Authority, brought in an Israeli private security company by helicopter to guard Audubon Place, the gated community in which he lives. As Scahill points out, the rich hire mercenaries and the poor suffer.

In other mercenary news:

• » Afghanistan is now cracking down on private security contractors. Echoing a growing problem in Iraq, Afghan authorities have started to crack down on lucrative but largely unregulated security firms, some of which are suspected of murder. Two private Afghan security companies were raided this week, and at least 10 more contractors - including some protecting embassies - will soon be closed, police and Western officials told The Associated Press. The government is also proposing new rules to tighten control over such companies _ including some Western contractors _ amid concerns they intimidate Afghans, disrespect local security forces and don’t cooperate with authorities, according to a policy draft document obtained by AP.
• » Tomorrow the U.S. and Mexico are to announce a counternarcotics plan that calls for increasing U.S. anti-drug aid to Mexico, now estimated at $44 million a year, to $1.4 billion over two to three years. It will probably involve U.S. private security contractors training Mexican troops.
• » Last week the U.S. rejected a U.N. report that said the use of private security guards like those involved in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians amounted to a new form of mercenary activity. Although the use of mercenaries is discouraged in international rules of conduct of war, the hiring of foreign soldiers by one country for use in a third is specifically illegal only for the 30 countries that ratified a 1989 treaty. The U.S. and Iraq are among the many countries that never signed the accord.

One of the things you have to remember here, and that Scahill pointed out, is that our use of private security firms is putting our tax dollars right back into the pockets of politicians. Primarily the Republicans. Primarily the religious whacko republicans. There’s just something very very very wrong with this.

Eric Prince is a freak. A religious nut who has his own private army and who pumps millions of dollars back into the religious right’s coffers. I don’t know about you, but that scares the shit out of me. This year the Iraqi people suffer at the hands of Eric Prince’s mercenaries. Next year, it could be us.

Main Entry: 1hum·ble
Pronunciation: ‘h&m-b&l also chiefly Southern ‘&m-
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): hum·bler /-b(&-)l&r/; hum·blest /-b(&-)l&st/
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin humilis low, humble, from humus earth; akin to Greek chthOn earth, chamai on the ground
1 : not proud or haughty : not arrogant or assertive
2 : reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission (a humble apology)
3 : a : ranking low in a hierarchy or scale : INSIGNIFICANT, UNPRETENTIOUS b : not costly or luxurious (a humble contraption)

I was watching the Blackwater congressional hearing this morning on C-Span. Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater was being questioned. And I was very alarmed at the cockiness of the guy. And then I walked down to the pool to go swimming. When I walk, I pray. This is my time to be thankful. For my family, for my boyfriend, for my little furry pal, for the gift of life, for another day, for being fortunate enough to be able to have a roof over my head, food to eat, medications for what ails me…..the list goes on and on and on. There’s never ever a lack of things to be thankful for. And I always ask for the gift of humility. That’s what’s lacking in this administration. That’s what was lacking in Erik Prince today. These people don’t have an ounce of humility in them. They’re lacking alot of things……but humility is right up there at the top. The cockiness and arrogance is beyond belief. Even when they are wrong, and they know they are wrong….there’s no humility.

In this case, they murder people, and then think $5,000. is going to make it all go away. (and I guess it’s worked so far) $5,000.00. Can you imagine??? And then their concern is, if they pay the $5,000, how many Iraqis will get killed just so their families can get the $5,000. Can you imagine??? No talk of there being a major fuck up and what they need to do to atleast TRY to insure it doesn’t happen again. No regrets. No pain in the fact that they’ve killed innocent people. No sympathy for the families of the innocent people they’ve killed. Just talk of paying (as little as possible) to shut people up and move on. Total lack of humility. And is it any wonder that the Prince “buys” his way out of any fuck ups? I don’t think so.

And now we’re to believe that the State Department is going to investigate and provide better oversight of the mercenaries we employ. Rigggghhhhtttt. Since 2001, when it made less than $1 million in federal contracts, Blackwater has received more than $1 billion in such contracts - including at least one with the State Department for hundreds of millions of dollars that was awarded without open, competitive bidding. They have been awarded a $92 million dollar contract since the latest murders in Iraq.

Here’s a little background on Erik Prince and how Blackwater came to be.

Excuse me for being late to the table. I just today looked into Prince’s background. There will be no oversight. There will be no consequences for this guy or his employees. This administration will make sure of it. More congressional oversight hearings that will go nowhere…….

By Ruth Conniff
The Progressive

Jeremy Scahill, author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, was on CNN September 17 after the news broke that the military contractor had been kicked out of Iraq for its role in the deaths of 8 Iraqi civilians.

The story of Blackwater, Scahill explained, is the story of the Bush war in Iraq. “Bush failed to build a coalition of willing nations” at the beginning of the war, Scahill told CNN. So instead the President build a “coalition of willing corporations” or war profiteers, including Blackwater.

What Scahill calls the “mercenary component” of this corporate cabal is completely unaccountable-operating a shadow war in which the finances and even the body counts of private contractors go unreported to Congress or the press.

And if Bush has, as Scahill says, overseen “the greatest privatization of warfare in history,” he has also led us into a war in which profiteers-from thugs and looters to multinational corporations-are fighting over the spoils, to the detriment of American citizens and the Iraqi people.

A story in the Christian Science Monitor on September 19 describes the bleak situation in Basra as the British military withdraws and corrupt public officials, organized crime, and the Americans- friends in the Baghdad government fight over oil production.

According to the Monitor, Iraq has about 20 percent of Middle East oil reserves, more than half of it exported from Basra. But production has taken a big hit since the war began.

read more at THE PROGRESSIVE

Yes, I’m going to lay the following at their feet! Corruption starts at the head of the beast. And you can’t get any more corrupt than a flock of in-power republicans!

Iraq’s Arms Bazaar

How firearms intended for Iraqi security forces are winding up in the hands of extremists across the region

The attacks were no mystery. What puzzled Turkish police was the weapons’ origin. Glocks are high-quality sidearms, but by last year they had practically become common street weapons in Turkey. [...] The manufacturer informed Ankara that the pistols were consigned originally to ” ‘US Mission Iraq’ [formerly the Coalition Provisional Authority], address: Republican Presidential Compound, Ministry of the Interior, Baghdad, Iraq.”

There are many more where those came from. [...] A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last month showed that since 2004, some 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols, bought with U.S. money for Iraqi security forces, have gone missing.

(more…)

As Security Work Increases, So Do Casualties

Billions of dollars go to these contractors, such as Blackwater. Yet, our American soldiers receive “squat” for pay and they are losing their houses, losing their jobs at home, and, in some cases, losing their families. This is an atrocity that Blackwater contractor employees are making huge salaries. One contractor pays an employee $80,000.00 a year to pump gasoline! These salaries should be reversed and start paying the soldiers of the U.S. military what they truly deserve. - JS

By Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD — Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq, enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives.

While the military has built up troops in an ongoing campaign to secure Baghdad, the security companies, out of public view, have been engaged in a parallel surge, boosting manpower, adding expensive armor and stepping up evasive action as attacks increase, the officials and company representatives said. One in seven supply convoys protected by private forces has come under attack this year, according to previously unreleased statistics; one security company reported nearly 300 “hostile actions” in the first four months.

The majority of the more than 100 security companies operate outside of Iraqi law, in part because of bureaucratic delays and corruption in the Iraqi government licensing process, according to U.S. officials. Blackwater USA, a prominent North Carolina firm that protects U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, and several other companies have not applied, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Blackwater said that it obtained a one-year license in 2005 but that shifting Iraqi government policy has impeded its attempts to renew.

The security industry’s enormous growth has been facilitated by the U.S. military, which uses the 20,000 to 30,000 contractors to offset chronic troop shortages. Armed contractors protect all convoys transporting reconstruction material, including vehicles, weapons and ammunition for the Iraqi army and police. They guard key U.S. military installations and provide personal security for at least three commanding generals, including Air Force Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Scott, who oversees U.S. military contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

read more at THE WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON - When the Coast Guard’s first large cutter in 35 years was christened in November at Northrop Grumman’s Pascagoula, Miss., shipyard, it was a gleaming symbol of the service’s ambitious $24 billion Deepwater program to update its aging fleet.

Six months later, Deepwater is listing badly under a storm of congressional criticism for design mistakes, cost overruns, and lax oversight. A botched program to lengthen existing patrol boats from 110 feet to 123 feet has forced the Coast Guard to cancel the conversions and completely scrap eight ships.

The Pascagoula, Miss.-built National Security Cutter, at 418 feet the crown jewel of the Deepwater program, is under scrutiny for metal fatigue that critics say shortens its 30-year life to less than five years. The Coast Guard has responded to the hammering from lawmakers by taking oversight of Deepwater from the contractor, Integrated Coast Guard Systems, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, canceling the conversions and making design modifications to the National Security Cutter.

Thursday, the service announced at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing that it had taken the first legal step to recoup the $100 million loss of the eight cutters from the contractor. ICGS said in a statement that it is still evaluating the letter from the Coast Guard.

But many members of Congress are pressing for more.

Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., calls the failed 110-foot conversion program “the poster child” of what’s wrong with Deepwater.

More at McClatchy

Why can’t they fund their own defense???? They are not a poor nation. Oh wait, I forgot. 75% of the military aid to Israel has to be spent in the United States. More war profiteering on the part of this administration.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives has adopted a measure aimed at weaving closer U.S. and Israeli defenses against ballistic missiles of the type that could be fired by Iran.

Part of a $504 billion defense spending bill passed Thursday, the measure would redirect $205 million in Defense Department funds toward projects already underway in Israel.

It would provide $25 million more for Arrow missile co-production and integration, $45 million for a U.S.-Israeli short-range missile defense system dubbed “David’s Sling” and $135 million to buy a Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, fire unit.

All three projects involve interceptors designed to shoot down ballistic missiles in the terminal phase of their flight paths.

The move was spearheaded by Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee and a candidate for his party’s 2008 presidential nomination.

It was a last-minute addition to the Democratic-controlled House’s version of the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, which still awaits action in the Senate and reconciliation of any differences between the bills.

More at Reuters

To get an idea of the aid we’ve given Israel since 1949, go here.

Crossposted from JoeWo.com

One of the great military Generals of the last century saw it. This kid and a stuffed tiger see it. Why don-t the people running this war see it when so many do see it? The reason is because of this ugly fact and this is another reason which is equally obscene. But they have had a pretty good history in doing such things and have become experts at it and actually expect it and when they don-t get it they are shocked. So when you see a child asking such a stupid question as that kid to his tiger you may want to walk over to the child and tell them that one person can make a difference.

We are Family…..

WASHINGTON · One of President Bush’s uncles, William H.T. Bush, was among directors of a defense contractor who reaped $6 million from what federal regulators say was an illegal scheme by two executives to manipulate the timing of stock option grants, documents state.

The uncle, known as “Bucky,” is the youngest brother of the first President Bush and heads an investment firm. William H.T. Bush was an outside, nonexecutive director of Engineered Support Systems Inc., a defense contractor whose profits were bolstered because of the Iraq war.

St. Louis-based ESSI supplied equipment and electronics to the military. It was acquired last year by another defense contractor, DRS Technologies Inc. ESSI has been under investigation by federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning the alleged options backdating scheme.

Read more at the Sun Sentinel