"It's fun to shoot people."

[Octafish]

That's what one of Cheney's War, Inc. bosses told his employees. Isn't that what the Marine general said, too? Gee. Tell me this isn't fascistic stuff...

Fury at 'shoot for fun' memo

Outburst by US security firm in Iraq is attacked by human rights groups

Mark Townsend
Sunday April 3, 2005
The Observer

One of the biggest private security firms in Iraq has created outrage after a memo to staff claimed it is 'fun' to shoot people.

Emails seen by The Observer reveal that employees of Blackwater Security were recently sent a message stating that 'actually it is "fun" to shoot some people.'

Dated 7 March and bearing the name of Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, the electronic newsletter adds that terrorists 'need to get creamed, and it's fun, meaning satisfying, to do the shooting of such folk.'

Human rights groups said yesterday that the comments raised fresh questions over the role of civilian contractors operating in Iraq and other world flashpoints.

CONTINUED...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1451137,00.html

This is not America.

[Mikimouse]

1. Unfortunately, this IS America...

And the only way it is going to change for the better is if the people (meaning all of us, or at least the larger share), become so disillusioned with what we have become that we decide to forego all of the needless perquisites that we enjoy, but ignore as such. Sometimes it is necessary (note that I did not say desirable) to bite the bullet and accept the fact that we are all part of the whole, and not the whole. at this point in history, we seem to believe that the US is the center of the global community, with all rest revolving around us and our perceived needs. Copernicus laughs at the repetition of history.

[Octafish]

3. Your strategy reminds me of Robert M. Pirsig's writings...

...as we can see the whole in the part (and the part in the whole), we can change the whole by changing the part. "Know a blade of grass in its entirety and you'll know the universe."

And there's the classic story of the Zen master who was challenged to change the universe by a fellow master. So he lifted a finger.

Smirk, Sneer, PNAC et al are not trying to, but are applying the same approach. Instead of making this a better world -- Quality -- they use war to poison the well.

Their rationale is to position and use the best armed nation to secure the resources needed to continue their mechanized global death machine. Once they've secured what they want, they'll let the famines, plagues and environment degrade to the point where the only survivors are like them -- rich and powerful NAZIs who could afford to buy jungle hideaways and mountain redoubts. Meanwhile, the planet's population plunges from 6.5 billion to a sustainable several hundred million.

Copernicus would laugh, if didn't mean the survival of the meanest. Those in that survivor's group will be sore happy, I'm sure.

Hey, Mikimouse! What should we do? Economic boycott?

Personally, the "Atlas Shrugged" intellectual boycott wouldn't matter to the current crowd in power. They've never even heard of Ayn Rand or Copernicus. All they understand is the smell of grapeshot.

[Mikimouse]

7. Excellent post, and a provocative question...

I am not so sure that the survivors would be terribly happy in the long run, though. I would refer to Marx on that one, as he stated that the 'special product' of the bourgeoisie was none other than the proletariat. Without the workers, how would these assholes keep their hold on resources and power? They may not like it, but they have to keep us around to do their bidding, so to speak. As far as concerns an economic boycott, I have been practicing that for years now. I refuse to give in to the advertising of things that I do not need. I have a 13 year old car (blessings and praise be upon her- apologies to Omar Sharif and Sir Alec Guiness), that still get much better than the average gas mileage, and refuse to be bullied into buying something else, just because it looks old, or because there is a new toy on the market. We are a completely pampered society and we are so used to having everything at our whim that we react with violence if our perceived needs are not met, and immediately, but the root cause is not just that.
I suggest that much of the hostility between the groups in US society has emerged from an underlying and deep disappointment with our collective situation. People who are dissatisfied with their lives are more likely to respond negatively to those within reach, rather than to the actual responsible parties.
I have often argued that one of the visible symptoms of such dissatisfaction is the breaking of what we might term 'petty' rules (they are not really petty, but could be perceived as such). Watch an intersection for a while and see how many people actually stop at the stop sign as we are taught to do. not many do, at least not those around here. Not so very long ago, people came to a stop, counted to three and then proceeded. What has happened? We are a nation confused, and the RW simply thrives on confusion (just look at the fun they are still having with the creation of fear). The citizens of this country feel completely disempowered and show their frustration by attacking each other, and the petty rules they can break without getting caught.
I don't have any good answer, and certainly not one that would provide immediate results. I wish I had one such, but alas, I am only a poor liberal academic trying to facilitate my students' abilities to think critically and to get their facts straight. Sadly, we didn't get here quickly, it happened over a long period of time during which we allowed our standards to deteriorate and our national dissatisfaction to fester. It will take time and serious thought to change course. If it does not happen, then we will end up like Rome. after all, we already have our modern versions of the colliseum struggles (Springer's old TV show, Survivor and others, The Apprentice and others) which elicit in us the same type of gladiatorial fervor that the old Roman bloodfests did. It is the only in an electronic form, but the emotions are the same. We still look at the 'losers' and think, "Thank goodness that is not me, I am so much better than that." But are we really?
Hey, sorry for the extremely long post and rant, but you raised some really good ponts and I wanted to address them. I hope that I did so honorably.

[Octafish]

34. Figures a nation that won't obey speed laws can't be trusted with guns.

The same mentality sits on their duffs in Congress. Rather than customarily breaking the speeding law without thinking about it, the class of slackard represented by the elected turds (not the DEM fighters!) are the ones who let the crazy monkey have his war -- of course, to cut them some slack, Bush's Pentagon and CIA did make up the (needed) "evidence."

And the sideshow continues, the nation's eyes upon the NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NCAA or NBA or MLB or NFL or NHL or NFL since November 22, 1963.

Great rant, Mikimouse. Yours is a lesson.

Americans live in a nation where we've been lied to by the government for 42 years now. Many people know it. Unfortunately, too many have no idea what it is that has changed. Things have "always been this way." Not. I remember when I was a free man. The world was different then. America has become the world's gulag. We the People are starting to act like caged animals in a zoo -- out-of-shape, paranoid, irrational, compulsive, obsessive, sociopathic, diseased. Perhaps, the young too will be struck with the angst that comes from living inside a cage.

[Mikimouse]

41. Thank you for the kind words...

I agree with your assessment of the situation. Sports, or other distraction, all the time. The opiate of the masses redefined. I can only hope that the young will be more aware of the mechanisms that drive our society. :toast:

[bobthedrummer]

2. They're fucking mercenaries, which the rest of the world abhor but

The War President employs using our taxes!
Then our professional military is ordered to take reprisals (Fallujah)
when these thugs and killers "get their hair mussed".

And regardless of anything else the BFEE makes a killing financially and continues the "march of freedom".

Big fun in the funhouse we've become since 12-12-2001.

[Octafish]

4. Licensed to kill by Smirk, Sneer, Skeletor & PNAC

Our government has handed over its most sacred responsibility -- that of making war and taking human life only when necessary -- to a for-profit company. Of course, this frees up the military for the official stuff, like attacking a Muslim holy city certain to make America many new friends. Something tells me George Washington wouldn't like this, either. Benedict Arnold might.

From...

The Center for Public Integrity: Windfalls of War

Background

Blackwater Security Consulting, a strategic division of Blackwater USA, was formed on Sept. 29, 2003, according to documents filed with the secretary of state's office in North Carolina.

Blackwater USA, which was founded in 1996 by a former Navy SEAL, says it has trained more than 50,000 law enforcement and military personnel since then. Today, in addition to Blackwater Security Consulting, Blackwater USA comprises four companies: Blackwater Aviation, Blackwater Canine, Blackwater Target Systems, and Blackwater Training Center. According to its Web site, the company provides its clients "with veteran military, intelligence and law enforcement professionals with demonstrated field operations performance tempered with mature experience in both foreign and domestic requirements." Customers include government agencies such as the Department of State and the Department of Defense, federal law enforcement, and corporations. The company relies heavily on the special-operations community for its hires.

Blackwater was the subject of numerous media accounts after a March 31, 2004, incident in which four of its employees were killed in Iraq. Pictures of their bodies, mutilated by a mob of insurgents, hanging from a bridge in Fallujah, were front-page news around the world. In early April, The Washington Post reported that eight employees from Blackwater, alongside four military police and a Marine gunner, defended CPA's Najaf headquarters from an attack of hundreds of Iraqi militia members. Blackwater called in its own helicopters for air support before reinforcements arrived.According to The Virginian-Pilot, Blackwater has more than 450 personnel in Iraq. The company now has opened offices in both Baghdad and Kuwait City.

Iraq Contracts

Blackwater Security provides security guards and two helicopters for the administrator of the CPA, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer. The contract was awarded on Aug. 28, 2003; it is valued at $21.3 million.

SOURCE:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=95

[seemslikeadream]

5. The American public doesn’t get quite as concerned

when mercenaries "get their hair mussed".



Blackwater was founded in 1996 by a former US Navy Special Forces veteran. Since then it has trained more than 50,000 military and law enforcement personnel at its 2,400 hectare facility in North Carolina. “The facility boasts several target ranges and a simulated town for urban warfare training. It is so advanced that some of the US military’s active duty special ops troops have trained there” (Time, 12/4/04; “When Private Armies Take To The Front Lines”; Micahel Duffy). It is located near the major military base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and recruits extensively from the Special Forces units based there. Iraq is where Blackwater has hit the headlines.



“…Locals often mistake the guards for Special Forces or CIA personnel, which makes active duty military troops a bit edgy. ‘Those Blackwater guys’, says an intelligence officer in Iraq, ‘they drive around wearing Oakley sunglasses and pointing their guns out of car windows. They have pointed their guns at me, and it pissed me off. Imagine what a guy in Fallujah thinks’. Adds an Army officer, who just returned from Baghdad, ‘They are a subculture’.



“Indeed the relationship between the private soldiers and the real ones isn’t always collaborative. ‘We’ve responded to the military at least half a dozen times but not once have they responded to our emergencies’, says Scott Custer, a co-director of private military company, Custer Battles. ‘We have our own quick reaction force now’. But the private firms are usually cut off from the US military’s intelligence network and from information that could minimise harm to their employees. Noel Koch, who oversaw terrorism policy for the Pentagon in the 1980s and now runs TranSecur, a global information security firm, says private companies ‘aren’t required to have an intelligence collection or analytical capability in house. It’s always assumed that the Government is going to provide intelligence about threats. That, says Koch, means ‘they are flying blind, often guessing about places that they shouldn’t go’… (with fatal results in places like Fallujah. Ed.).



“Several sources familiar with Blackwater operations told Time that the company has in some cases abbreviated training even for crucial missions in war zones. A former private military operator with knowledge of Blackwater’s operational tactics says the firm did not give all its contract warriors in Afghanistan proper training in offensive driving tactics, although missions were to include vehicular and dignitary escort duty. ‘Evasive driving and ambush tactics were not - repeat, were not – covered in training’, this source said…



“At the Pentagon, which has encouraged the outsourcing of security work, there are widespread misgivings about the use of hired guns. A Pentagon official says the outsourcing of security work means the Government no longer has any real control over the training and capabilities of thousands of US and foreign contractors who are packing weapons every bit as powerful as those belonging to the average GI. ‘These firms are hiring anyone they can get. Sure, some of them are Special Forces, but some of them are good, and some are not. Some are too old for this work, and some are too young. But they are not on the US payroll. And so they are not our responsibility’. But with Congress and the Bush Administration reluctant to pay for more active duty troops, the use of contractors in places like Iraq will only grow. A Pentagon official who opposes their use nonetheless detects an obvious if unsentimental virtue: ‘The American public doesn’t get quite as concerned when contractors are killed’” (ibid.).
http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr29-96.html

[Octafish]

26. Blackwater's outsourcing work, too. Chile. Argentina. Guatemala.

Here Come the Death Squad Vets

If José Miguel Pizarro has his way, he will recruit 30,000 Chileans as mercenaries to protect American companies under Pentagon contract to rebuild Iraq. And undoubtedly, within those ranks will be former members of death squads that tortured and murdered civilians when dictatorships ruled in Latin America.

"There is no comparison with what they can earn in the active military or working in civilian jobs, and what we offer," José Miguel Pizarro, Chile's leading recruiter for international security firms, says. "This is an opportunity that few in Chile can afford to pass up."

Pizarro's firm, Servicios Integrales, was contracted by Blackwater USA to recruit the first batch of Chileans in November 2003. By May 2004 he had placed 5,200 men who, after one week of training in Santiago, head to North Carolina for orientation with Blackwater, the private security firm that made headlines when four of its employees where killed in Falluja, their bodies mutilated and hung from a bridge. After training, Blackwater flies the men to Kuwait City to await their assignments in Iraq.

SNIP...

"Blackwater USA has sent recruiters to Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia and Guatemala for one specific reason alone," said an intelligence officer in Kuwait who requested anonymity. "All these countries experienced dirty wars‚ and they have military men well-trained in dealing with internal subversives. They are well-versed in extracting confessions from prisoners."

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/18967/

[Name removed]

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[Octafish]

8. Don't like generals or general contractors killing innocent people.

That goes for sub-contractors, too.

Iraq wasn't at war with the United States. George Bush declared war on Iraq. There was no connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Any WMDs Iraq had were destroyed after the 1991 Gulf War -- and those he purchased from the USA and Europe through generous loans from George Bush Sr.'s State Department (read Alan Friedman's "Spider's Web" for details). Today, Bush Jr. is responsible for the fun shootings of Iraqi conscripts, civilians and all who happen to be in the way. For what?

The Anti-Empire Report

by William Blum

EXCERPT...

American imperialists, old and new

George F. Kennan, who is credited with formulating the basic foreign policy followed by the United States in the Cold War, died March 17 at the age of 101. He was what is commonly referred to as an elder statesman. In his years at the State Department he was recognized as the government’s leading authority on the Soviet Union, and as the founder of the policy of “containment” of the Russians, a term he coined; he was also one of the authors of the Truman Doctrine. One of his best-known pieces of writing is “Policy Planning Study 23", written for the State Department planning staff in 1948. It read in part:

“We have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. … In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. … To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. … We should cease to talk about vague and … unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”

This is worth repeating not only for its intrinsic interest and its significance as a document of US foreign policy history, but as a means for making a comparison to present day policy. Those who intensely despise the leaders of the Bush administration are convinced that they are uniquely vile in American history. I would maintain, however, that there’s very little of what we’ve come to fear and loathe about the Bushgang that can’t be found in many previous administrations, and that if George W., on a purely personal level, were not such a crass, ignorant, dishonest, and insufferably religious jerk, his policies would be much more readily excused by liberals (though not by radicals) as they excused similar policies under Clinton and other Democrats going back to Truman.

What has distinguished the Bush administration’s foreign policy from that of its predecessors has been its unabashed and conspicuously overt expressions of its imperial ambitions. They flaunt it, publicly and proudly declaring their intention — nay, their God-inspired right and obligation — to remake the world in their own image. The utterly callous attitude toward human suffering that marks the current administration’s philosophy differs from Kennan’s cold-blooded amorality in that the Bushgang has rejected his advice and do indeed talk about human rights and democracy … ad infinitum. But so has every administration post World War II. Kennan was surprisingly out of tune with international public relations, or maybe he was just too honest to be a diplomat.

So why is the Bushgang so intent on encouraging democracy all over the world? Should that not be supported? Well, it depends on what you mean by democracy, or what the Bushgang means by it. I think that what Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al look for in a “democratic” third world country, or look to establish in that country, is that the government is corporate-friendly, that the society has the legal and financial institutions needed to remake the country so that it’s appealing to foreign investors, that it will play ball with the World Trade Organization, the IMF, and the rest of the international financial mafia, and most important, that it is a capitalist system, enterprise nice and free, none of this socialist crap. That’s what they mean by democracy. Least of all have they in mind any kind of economic democracy, the closing of the gap between the desperate poor and those for whom too much is not enough.

CONTINUED...

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m10578&l=i&size=1&hd=0

PS: I do respect the good men and women who have served our nation. Were it not for them, we would not be free today. Many of these, BTW, come from my family since 1776.

PPS: A hearty welcome to DU, samhill 226! Hey, didja ever read Marine Gen. Smedley Butler? His "War is a Racket" is great.

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/war_is_a_racket_033103.htm

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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[VOX]

19. "...if Iraq had attacked the U.S...."

Sorry, but that's an impossible scenario.

And what is being discussed here are not hometown GIs, but mercenaries -- men very well acquainted with death and killing, who **like** that line of work, and who will do just about anything if the price is right.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

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[Octafish]

20. It's not fun for my country when the leadership makes money off war.

I appreciate what you're saying and agree with what you say, samhill226. What happens during combat forever changes a man. Combat even makes many men better men, John Kerry for instance.

We're approaching the question from two sides. I'm talking about how we are in Iraq killing people who shouldn't be killed. The reasons Bush gave for going in were to go after terrorists threatening the US with WMDs. There were none. We knew there were none. Those voices were silenced.

One thing we can see that's happened in this war is somebody is making a lot of money. Halliburton for one, many new billions. Other Pentagon related purchases total about $200 billion -- that we know about.



Image courtesy of the Zebramoth Collection.

[LibertyorDeath]

9. Are you a recruiter? Or do you just

Play a lot of Video games.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

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[LibertyorDeath]

12. So you Play a lot of Video games.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

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[LibertyorDeath]

18. "That is the truth. I know."

"Combat is the most difficult, dangerous, terrifying, exhilarating human endeavor. It pits men against each other in a contest where the stakes are literally life and death, and while it is happening morals, rules, and ethics go flying out the window. There is only you, you comrades, the enemy, and death.

It can be addicting. To see a man who is trying to kill you, and to kill him before he can pull the trigger or thrust the knife. How alive you will feel.

That is the truth. I know."

So what branch of the military are you in?

Where did you serve or see action.

Tell us more about the exhilaration of battle or

Did you stay at a Holiday in Express last night.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[bobthedrummer]

29. Link please.

on edit: please link to a thread where posters use profanity against each other-that's a personal attack or disruption as I understand the Rules.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Octafish]

17. But who owns the BUSINESS for whom they work?

Who makes money off war?

The military-industrial complex? The CIA and the national security state? NAZIs? The money-laundering international financial system? The trillionaire global drug cartels? The mafia? The KKK? Yes. The Bush Crime Family.

Here's how these serious bastards grabbed power and made money, historically off war: Representing the Republican party through Allen Dulles -Richard Nixon-George Bush-George W Bush axis of evil is Prescott Bush:



Isn't that Richard Byrd smiling on, approvingly?

From the other side of the aise comes Averell Harriman, former Governor, Ambassador and counselor to Democratic presidents, also a full partner of Prescott Bush and Alan Dulles, not to mention Clark Clifford and BCCI.



Here's what they once did for a living together -- made money off war by arming the fella they referred to as Herr Hitler. Fine "Americans," these.

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
Saturday September 25, 2004
The Guardian

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html



These are the same turds making money off Iraq. Yeah, they're NAZIs.

[bpilgrim]

25. To see a man who is trying to kill you, and to kill him before he can pull

"To see a man who is trying to kill you, and to kill him before he can pull the trigger or thrust the knife."

that's a myth for the most part, especially these days, when you never see it coming.

and unless your shoot'n at civilians you usually don't have the 'pleasure' of seeing the whites of their eyes.

peace

[Octafish]

36. It's certainly profitable, that War Biz. Ask PNAC.

Here's what Richard PNAC Perle saw -- an opportunity to make money off homeland security. Although at the time he worked for Uncle Sam and the Jerusalem Post, old Dick had the forsight to invite Adnan Khashoggi into his brand spanking new Carlyle Group-like private investment bank, Trireme Partnerships. The investment a modest $100 million.



Lunch with the Chairman

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?

Issue of 2003-03-17
Posted 2003-03-10

At the peak of his deal-making activities, in the nineteen-seventies, the Saudi-born businessman Adnan Khashoggi brokered billions of dollars in arms and aircraft sales for the Saudi royal family, earning hundreds of millions in commissions and fees. Though never convicted of wrongdoing, he was repeatedly involved in disputes with federal prosecutors and with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in recent years he has been in litigation in Thailand and Los Angeles, among other places, concerning allegations of stock manipulation and fraud. During the Reagan Administration, Khashoggi was one of the middlemen between Oliver North, in the White House, and the mullahs in Iran in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Khashoggi subsequently claimed that he lost ten million dollars that he had put up to obtain embargoed weapons for Iran which were to be bartered (with Presidential approval) for American hostages. The scandals of those times seemed to feed off each other: a congressional investigation revealed that Khashoggi had borrowed much of the money for the weapons from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (B.C.C.I.), whose collapse, in 1991, defrauded thousands of depositors and led to years of inquiry and litigation.

Khashoggi is still brokering. In January of this year, he arranged a private lunch, in France, to bring together Harb Saleh al-Zuhair, a Saudi industrialist whose family fortune includes extensive holdings in construction, electronics, and engineering companies throughout the Middle East, and Richard N. Perle, the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, who is one of the most outspoken and influential American advocates of war with Iraq.

The Defense Policy Board is a Defense Department advisory group composed primarily of highly respected former government officials, retired military officers, and academics. Its members, who serve without pay, include former national-security advisers, Secretaries of Defense, and heads of the C.I.A. The board meets several times a year at the Pentagon to review and assess the country’s strategic defense policies.

Perle is also a managing partner in a venture-capital company called Trireme Partners L.P., which was registered in November, 2001, in Delaware. Trireme’s main business, according to a two-page letter that one of its representatives sent to Khashoggi last November, is to invest in companies dealing in technology, goods, and services that are of value to homeland security and defense. The letter argued that the fear of terrorism would increase the demand for such products in Europe and in countries like Saudi Arabia and Singapore.

The letter mentioned the firm’s government connections prominently: “Three of Trireme’s Management Group members currently advise the U.S. Secretary of Defense by serving on the U.S. Defense Policy Board, and one of Trireme’s principals, Richard Perle, is chairman of that Board.” The two other policy-board members associated with Trireme are Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State (who is, in fact, only a member of Trireme’s advisory group and is not involved in its management), and Gerald Hillman, an investor and a close business associate of Perle’s who handles matters in Trireme’s New York office. The letter said that forty-five million dollars had already been raised, including twenty million dollars from Boeing; the purpose, clearly, was to attract more investors, such as Khashoggi and Zuhair.

CONTINUED...

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030317fa_fact

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

31. So are you telling us

you have killed another human being deliberately?

[VOX]

16. Remember the 4 Americans killed and burned in Iraq last year?

They were Blackwater mercenaries. The MSM painted them as security, but they may have been acting as death-squads. It is very probable that the Iraqis who killed them knew *exactly* who they were doing in, and their deaths were not random.
- - - - -
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43364-2004Apr1?language=printer
Slain Contractors Were in Iraq Working Security Detail
By Dana Priest and Mary Pat Flaherty
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 2, 2004; Page A16

The four men brutally slain Wednesday in Fallujah were among the most elite commandos working in Iraq to guard employees of U.S. corporations and were hired by the U.S. government to protect bureaucrats, soldiers and intelligence officers.

The men, all employees of Blackwater Security Consulting, were in the dangerous Sunni Triangle area operating under more hazardous conditions -- unarmored cars with no apparent backup -- than the U.S. military or the CIA permit.

U.S. government officials said yesterday that they suspect that the men were not victims of a random ambush but were set up as targets, which one defense official said suggested "a higher degree of organization and sophistication" among insurgents. "This is certainly cause for concern."
<snip>

[bobthedrummer]

21. The real deal is that the Fallujah print media had been publishing

articles about the torture and killings at Abu Ghraib way before that became a MSM story.

Bremer or someone else ordered a Fallujah newspaper shut down and there were demonstrations to allow the press to resume.

Mercenaries were used to break the demonstrations, which were carried out by shooting mostly women and students, civilians, in the face.

The Blackwater mercenaries were killed and mutilated.

The USMC was ordered to take reprisals in Fallujah but they were met with much resistance.

There came a stand-off and forces surrounded Fallujah, the city was ordered evacuated.

Fallujah was then neutralized with overwhelming force including WP, napalm and gases, it is now the safest city in Iraq.

I heard this anecdote from a US Army Civilian Affairs unit sergeant that was there, believe it or not, that's the real deal.

Some fun, heh?

[Octafish]

23. "Did somebody say 'Death Squads'?"

And now the US Senate wants to make this guy Intel Czar? Look out, Detroit!

Architect of Death: Negroponte in Iraq

by Sander Hicks

Broadcast: 4/23/04

On Thursday, the White House announced plans to make controversial Iran-Contra figure John Negroponte the United States' ambassador to the new Iraq. Negroponte currently is the US ambassador to the United Nations and will head a Bagdad "super-embassy" with 3,000 employees. From 1981 to 1985, when Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras, the US-backed Honduran military committed 185 murders. According to a staff assistant, Negroponte suppressed the embassy's own 1982 report on human rights abuses.
Under Negroponte, US military funding to Honduras went from four to seventy-seven million dollars. The Reagan White House used Honduras as a staging ground for the illegal arming of the Contra rebels. Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch/America, called Negroponte the "ostrich ambassador," for his willingness to look the other way, making military objectives a higher priority than human rights.

SNIP...

LAETITIA BORDES -- Sister Laetitia Bordes led a campaign during Negroponte's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations. She traveled to Honduras on a fact-finding delegation during his tenure there and met with him. She said today: "During his nomination to the U.N. ambassadorship, we carried out a public information campaign detailing how Negroponte gave the CIA-backed Honduran death squads an open field when he was ambassador to Honduras. His hearings, however, were held a couple of days after the 9/11 tragedy, so he was hurriedly confirmed as people did not want prolonged hearings in that environment. That's how he got confirmed the first time. ... Negroponte collaborated with human-rights violators everywhere he has been; his record is public. Our Congress is letting us down again: Negroponte is once again being promoted instead of being held accountable. ... During Negroponte's tenure, U.S. military aid to Honduras grew from $4 million to $77.4 million; the U.S. launched a covert war against Nicaragua and mined its harbors; and the U.S. trained Honduran military to support the Contras." (An Associated Press story states: "During 2001 confirmation hearings for his U.N. ambassadorship -- an appointment that was delayed for six months because of the controversy over his tenure in Honduras -- Negroponte testified that he did not believe death squads were operating in Honduras.")

ROBERT PARRY -- Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s as a reporter for the Associated Press and Newsweek. He said today: "The choice of John Negroponte to be the first U.S. intelligence czar -- following Elliott Abrams's promotion to be deputy national security adviser -- marks the continued reemergence of officials tied to the darkest moments of Central American violence in the 1980s. There's also irony entrusting Negroponte to oversee objective intelligence analysis, since either he was oblivious to illicit behavior going on around him as U.S. ambassador to Honduras or he was complicit in a wide range of human rights abuses."

PETER KORNBLUH -- Kornbluh is senior analyst with the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. He was co-director of the Iran-Contra documentation project and director of the Archive's project on U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. He is the co-editor of "The Iran-Contra Scandal: A Declassified History." He said today: "The documents ... showed that Negroponte helped clear the way for a secret agreement under which the United States would provide more CIA money to Honduran army generals and additional military and economic aid to the country. In exchange, Honduras agreed to allow the Contras to continue operating on Honduran soil."

CONTINUED...

http://www.oilempire.us/negroponte.html

[bobthedrummer]

24. Since when is it policy to order the USMC to take reprisals for merc's?

What a despicable criminal abuse of our troops by the Rumsfeld/Myers DoD.

[Octafish]

32. These BFEE turds should be tried for treason on several counts.

Excellent point, Brother Bob! Abuse of authority. Ordering troops into harm way for personal gain. Use of federal money for personal gain. Outing a CIA agent for political gain. Dereliction of duty before, during and after 9-11. Using office to rig energy market in California and as many other places as possible. Stealing an election.

The turds of the BFEE must face trial. The crimes of traitors can not, and must not, go unprosecuted nor the criminals remain free.

[libhill]

30. Well, shuckins

If it's fun to shoot people, then let's abolish the death penalty, and let all the murderers out of prison. The prison system in this country is overcrowded, and according to the wingnuts, the convicted killers were just having fun, anyways.

[Octafish]

33. I don't want to shoot anybody. I wish my government felt the same way.

The illegal war in Iraq has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people -- thousands and thousands of innocent woman and thousands and thousands of innocent children.

You know what's the worst part -- for me, a reg'lar guy? What makes me furious is that Smirko McCokespoon and Sneering Dick Cheney are making so much money off of it.

[libhill]

35. And that's the key -

They are making money off of it, and they don't give a flying fig how many Service men and women, and much less how many innocent Iraqis, are killed in the process. The whole war was embarked upon based on two lies 1)that Iraq had wmd's, which we know they never did and 2) that Saddam and Iraq were somehow involved in 911. If they really gave a rats ass about 911, they'd concentrate on hunting down Bin Laden, which means Afghanistan, not Iraq. I've always believed that the Afghan War is nothing but a smoke screen anyway.

[gordianot]

37. They both passed up the opportunity to shoot people first person.

Maybe the old excuse I was following orders has some truth when you trace it back to the source.

[Octafish]

39. A Big Chicken Hawk and mighty greasy turd of the BFEE is PAT ROBERTSON.

The chicken-in-chief Smirk and his handler Sneer actually think their sorry hides are needed by the world, so they let someone else die in their place. What's worse, both now send others to their death -- both in our armed forces and in the nations they have illegally attacked during their treason.



Another one who considers himself too valuable for the front lines thhinking his life somehow helps make this world a better place for arch-criminality in the name of the Lord is the pyschopathic personality beloved throughout conservative GOP cirkules once known as the fancy Reverend, now just simply, "Dr.," Pat Robertson, televangelist, diamond-miner and Korean War Chicken.

Truly first among today's surviving political criminals, Smarmy Pat was well on his way to the heavy fighting on the Korean peninsula, a young 90-day wonder second lieutenant, leading his USMC platoon when he got the call that maybe his life was too important to risk on the battlefield.

So Warchicken Pat called Daddy, then a very conservative Democratic Senator from Virginia, to get him pulled off his troop transport before it shoved off from Yokohama for Seoul back in 1951. Pat waved bye-bye from the dock and most of the officers and Marines went on to get wounded and killed.

The story was repeated in 1988 when Robertson ran for president as a “Combat Veteran.” The source of the story was Pete McCloskey (R-Calif.), one of the surviving USMC officers who was on the transport. Robertson was so angry about the truth coming out, he found a trial lawyer and sued McCloskey. Of course, chicken that he is, Robertson dropped the suit the day it was slated to go to trial.

Here's a great resource on the subject:

The Liquor Officer

http://www.schlatter.org/liquor_officer.htm

Somebody reminds me of that turd, but I don't want to put my thumb on him.



Mebbe this guy.



It's Chimpageddon, Mandrake.

[Swamp Rat]

38. Schutz-staffel Branche

Rummy's Waffen SS.

[Octafish]

40. A killer smile.

Pentagon Increases Its Spying Markedly

By Mark Mazzetti and Greg Miller
Times Staff Writers

March 24, 2005

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's new emphasis on intelligence gathering overseas has led to a major expansion of espionage operations and a more prominent role for intelligence officers in military decision making and war planning, Defense officials said Wednesday.

As part of the plan, the Pentagon is expanding the number of spies and special operations forces abroad and creating new intelligence analysis centers inside military commands worldwide, the officials said.

Providing new details about the Pentagon's expanding role in intelligence operations, the officials also acknowledged that the effort is controversial in Washington. The ramped-up activity "rubs some people the wrong way," said a Defense official involved in the expansion.

SNIP...

In some cases, the clandestine operations involve inserting U.S. military personnel in countries unaware of the intrusion. Officials emphasized that the military has previously executed such delicate missions, but never before on such a large scale.
"The volume of these smaller-scale clandestine activities has expanded dramatically," said the Defense official.

Pentagon officials declined to provide details about specific operations or discuss countries where clandestine activities are underway. But their descriptions make it clear that the Pentagon is seeking to improve its ability to gather intelligence within the borders of such countries as Iran, North Korea and China.

CONTINUED...

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-intel24mar24,0,7101235.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines



I'm tired of being rubbed the wrong way.

[Disturbed]

42. In the meantime the Dem Party is...

going along to get along.

[gordianot]

43. The new cold war.

I would be willing to bet it is rather bloody. In this day and age that Secret Agent man/woman must really worry about tomorrow. Who in their right mind would want to be an agent in North Korea? On second thought they must be recruiting the mindless.