Blackwater Christmas - not just a dream
By Capt. Fogg
I don't know what the spectators at the Armed Forces Bowl this New Years Eve will think when they see Blackwater mercenaries parachuting into the stadium as they did December 1st during halftime at the Sand Diego State/BYU game. Indeed, what will the Air Force team think when they see that those aren't our guys in the black uniforms? Are they staging an armed takeover or just displaying the awesome power of a private military?
I'm sorry to contradict Reagan the Great, but when someone shows up to help, I prefer that it would be someone from the legitimate government rather than armed representatives from a country without borders, or laws or accountability. I don't think it will be long, for instance, before the Bushists privatize the "War on Drugs" by giving license to companies like Blackwater to do all the things we won't allow the government to do ( like start a war in Columbia or Mexico or pour water up your nose or worse) and make no mistake, Blackwater has the vehicles, the helicopters, the ships and the intelligence division to allow them to accomplish most any mission, foreign or domestic, our next rogue president might consider to be too touchy to approach in a legal fashion.
If the next rogue president should be Mitt Romney, we can be assured that Blackwater head, Cofer Black, his chief adviser on counterterrorism, will have a lot to say about military affairs and military conduct and indeed he already has had. Romney's decision not to comment on torture was made with the advice of Black. Of course I'm sure Cofer Black's private army will be happy to accept more and better no-bid contracts from whichever idiot the American people choose to make things worse.
As Jeremy Scahill writes in The Nation,
And what are the chances that this profitable enterprise will be brought down now that they have moved beyond the borders of brutal occupation and commercial espionage into retail sales of everything from 9mm pistols to baby clothes? Is the future a kind and degree of fascism unimaginable even in the Europe of the 1930's and 40's? Why not? With the country rallying behind thugs and idiots in blue pinstripes, what chance does freedom have?
(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)
I don't know what the spectators at the Armed Forces Bowl this New Years Eve will think when they see Blackwater mercenaries parachuting into the stadium as they did December 1st during halftime at the Sand Diego State/BYU game. Indeed, what will the Air Force team think when they see that those aren't our guys in the black uniforms? Are they staging an armed takeover or just displaying the awesome power of a private military?
I'm sorry to contradict Reagan the Great, but when someone shows up to help, I prefer that it would be someone from the legitimate government rather than armed representatives from a country without borders, or laws or accountability. I don't think it will be long, for instance, before the Bushists privatize the "War on Drugs" by giving license to companies like Blackwater to do all the things we won't allow the government to do ( like start a war in Columbia or Mexico or pour water up your nose or worse) and make no mistake, Blackwater has the vehicles, the helicopters, the ships and the intelligence division to allow them to accomplish most any mission, foreign or domestic, our next rogue president might consider to be too touchy to approach in a legal fashion.
If the next rogue president should be Mitt Romney, we can be assured that Blackwater head, Cofer Black, his chief adviser on counterterrorism, will have a lot to say about military affairs and military conduct and indeed he already has had. Romney's decision not to comment on torture was made with the advice of Black. Of course I'm sure Cofer Black's private army will be happy to accept more and better no-bid contracts from whichever idiot the American people choose to make things worse.
As Jeremy Scahill writes in The Nation,
"the Government is in the midst of the most radical privatization in history, and companies like Blackwater are becoming ever more deeply embedded in the war apparatus. Until this system is brought down, the world's the limit for Blackwater Worldwide. . ."
And what are the chances that this profitable enterprise will be brought down now that they have moved beyond the borders of brutal occupation and commercial espionage into retail sales of everything from 9mm pistols to baby clothes? Is the future a kind and degree of fascism unimaginable even in the Europe of the 1930's and 40's? Why not? With the country rallying behind thugs and idiots in blue pinstripes, what chance does freedom have?
(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)
Labels: blackwater, fascism
posted by Capt. Fogg at
12:07 PM
2 Comments:
Scahill and his ilk are trying to make a bigger story out of this than it really is. Blackwater works for the US government, and will likely continue to do so, even under a Democratic administration. All their employees take an oath to the US Constitution, not to President Bush or the Republican Party or an international cabal.
I was recently talking with a friend who just returned from Afghanistan. He's flown with the Blackwater pilots who deliver much-needed ammunition to our front-line firebases. (One flight was originally suppose to carry the troops' Christmas presents; they asked for more mortar rounds instead.) When I asked why Blackwater was doing this instead of the US military, he was quick to explain that the US no longer has the airlift capability to supply our own forces, thanks to Clinton-era military cuts. (For the sake of being an equal opportunity blamer, I'm shaking a finger at the congressional Republicans who helped preside over this.)
Finally, to call Bush a "rogue president" and suggest he'll stage a coup to stay in office is just absurd and irresponsible. Show me the odds and I'll happily put my money on Bush constitutionally stepping down without any Blackwater use of force.
By
Aaron Linderman, at 3:01 PM
It's a bit late to be blaming anything on Clinton era military cuts and regardless of what oaths Blackwater takes, it hasn't inhibited them from running amok or from being opaque to scrutiny.
Yes, my statements about Bush are intentionally hyperbolic but privatizing the military is a dangerous business and it smells of an attempt to run up the costs of this war for private benefit and of bypassing the law for private ends. It raises questions of accountability that your reassurances do not address.
By
Capt. Fogg, at 11:24 AM
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