BLACKWATER USA Onward Christian Soldiers!

[Joanne98]

BLACKWATER USA
ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS

By: Al Cronkrite

Did you know that the United States government is spending billions of dollars hiring paramilitary troops being used in clandestine operations as well as in the War in Iraq and even on our own soil?

It appears that the French Foreign Legion has had children as there are now several organizations in the United States and overseas that provide both trained soldiers and soldierly training. These private military companies (PMCs) offer support for governments and armed forces and facilitate the conduct of a broad range of activities that are often not public knowledge. The activities of PMCs can be conducted with or without the cooperation of our armed forces and when secrecy and lack of accountability are desired they are a convenient vehicle. There are no questions about the legitimacy of the operation, no one is concerned about casualties, the Geneva Convention can be forgotten, international problems are alleviated, and the source of the operation itself can be concealed.

According to an article by Laura Peterson “Since 1994, the U.S. Defense Department has entered into 3,061 contracts with 12 of the 24 U.S.-based PMCs…. Pentagon records valued those contracts at more than $300 billion. More than 2,700 of those contracts were held by just two companies: Kellogg Brown & Root and Booz Allen Hamilton. Because of the limited information the Pentagon provides and the breadth of services offered by some of the larger companies, it was impossible to determine what percentage of these contracts was for training, security or logistical services.”

U. S. supported mercenaries have been involved in Africa, Bosnia, and South America. They are being used in Iraq where 48,000 mercenaries working for 181 different firms are currently deployed. They were surreptitiously used along with Mexican troops to confiscate firearms in New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Mercenaries have no inhibitions about depriving citizens of their Constitutional rights and, armed with AK 47s, they can be used by tyrannical governments for any selected oppression.

Most people in the United States have never heard of these organizations and are not aware that our government is conducting paramilitary activities that are not subject to the rules of conduct for normal overt operations.

Of the dozens of organizations that provide military type training and support, this article will concentrate on one that is of particular interest.

“Blackwater USA” is a multifaceted PMC with extensive training facilities in Northeastern North Carolina. They advertise their services as “the most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world.” Their Website is here. It was founded in 1996 by Erik Prince who is the wealthy son of Michigan auto parts manufacturer Edgar Prince and a former Navy Seal with extensive personal contacts in Washington. Edgar Prince helped Gary Bauer form the Family Research Council and his daughter, Betsey, (Eric’s sister) is married to Dick DeVos the son of Amway founder Richard DeVos. She is Chairperson of the Michigan Republican Party. The family is reported to have extensive personal relationships with James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, Edwin Meese III, Pat Roberson, Richard Viguerie, Paul Weyrich and others.

According to an article in The Nation, since June 2004 Blackwater USA has received $320 million from the Bush Administration to provide security services around the world. Blackwater flew mercenaries into New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina before contracts had been formalized. Ultimately, the Bush Administration paid them $30 million.

Christian theology provides the platform for much of the tragedy that is involved when followers of The Prince Of Peace involve themselves in aiding an imperialistic government in illegal conquests.

Former New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief, Chris Hedges, has published a new book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” . He spent two years traveling around the country seeking the tenor of Christendom. He quickly dredges up the demon of the theocratic state and expresses concern that the evils involved with the hiring of mercenaries could result in the imposition of Christianity on the nation. He goes on to describe Christian vigilantes that occupy high level positions in the Bush II Administration, Army Generals who claim their Faith is their first priority and who cherish the opportunity to evangelize men and women involved with our defense policy. “I think it’s a huge impact.... You have many men and women who are seeking God’s counsel and wisdom as they advise the chairman and the secretary of defense.”

Of the many Evangelical churches he attended Hedges writes, “They painted the war in Iraq not as an occupation but as an apocalyptic battle by Christians against Islam, a religion they regularly branded as ‘satanic.’ All this befits a movement whose final aesthetic is violence. It also befits a movement that, in the end, would need the military and police forces to seize power in American society“.

Chris Hedges is a far left, anti-Christian, Liberal working for a newspaper that holds the same sentiments. His motivations are horrid but some of his descriptions are both accurate and deplorable.

Implicit in the zeal to evangelize is the erroneous assumption that conversion involves “making a decision for Christ“. This Arminian heresy has distorted the Christian ethic and created the impression that Christians are something akin to eccentric used car salesmen and must be avoided at all costs. All through the Biblical narrative God selected His servants. God chooses whom He chooses; we do not choose God, that is humanism! Jesus Himself said that no man would become a Christian unless the Father drew him. Evangelism should never involve planting but only gently harvesting the fruit that God has planted and nurtured.

When the present nation of Israel was created by the Balfour Agreement and sustained by the United Nations, the land occupied by Palestinian Arabs for centuries was overrun by illegal aliens and expropriated by a secular government that has established a nation taken from their ancestors by God as a result of an apostasy that has never been forsaken. This huge injustice supported by theologically challenged Christians is in direct opposition to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Who ordered the Diaspora which removed the mantle from those that had broken His covenant and placed it on those who accepted His Son as their Savior. Now, many of these Christians have broken this precious Covenant by supporting what God has rejected.

Consider the strife and turmoil the creation of this illegitimate nation has created. Prior to 1948, Jews and Arabs had been living peacefully in Palestine for centuries. When Jewish immigrants began to arrive in the area in overwhelming numbers Arab resistance was justly strident and has remained so. Terrorism was unheard of before this affront to God and the clandestine partisanship that has divided Jewish loyalty to their present domiciles was non existent. This was a crime against the established government of the Middle East and against the Jewish people as well. Injustice can be forceably maintained by coercion but it never brings lasting peace.

We now have Christians who worship a peaceful God engaged in overt military action against over 200 million Arabs who instead of annihilation should be awarded the Justice our Christian God represents. It is an anarchic, confusing, unjust situation that only Satan could create

What a tragedy that highly placed military personnel are spreading this pernicious heresy throughout the upper echelons of our government and that wealthy Christians have fallen victim to this same “kill’em all” doctrine and are busy aiding it and making money from it.

Much of this aberration can be traced to the blasphemy Dispensationalism has created. It is not only a paralyzing doctrine but has succeeded in neutering Christianity by channeling Christian zeal into supporting what God hates while failing to support what He loves.

If United States Evangelical leaders would begin to understand the injustice Israel represents and join with The Creator in bringing both Jew and Gentile under the jurisdiction of God’s Laws hope could be returned to the world.

"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
http://www.etherzone.com/2007/cron010807.shtml

[Joanne98]

1. Erik Prince...

Blackwater Founder and West Michigan Native Funds Right-wing through Foundation
September 27, 2006
http://www.mediamouse.org/features/092706black.php
Blackwater USA founder and West Michigan native Erik Prince funds a variety of rightwing and religious causes according to a review of grants awarded by Prince’s Freiheit Foundation. Prince, who’s Blackwater has drawn considerable attention for its work in Iraq, post-Katrina New Orleans, and Colombia, also has strong ties to the economic and religious right both through the contributions of his Freiheit Foundation as well as his parents, Edgar and Elsa Prince, who are prominent supporters of the religious right both in West Michigan and on the national level. Additionally, Erik Prince’s sister is Betsy DeVos, who married into one of West Michigan’s most well-known rightwing families and has made been a career organizer for rightwing and Republican causes. While several reports on Prince have made some mention of his lineage and his political contributions, there has been no detailed examinations of his “philanthropy.”

From 2000 to 2003, the Freiheit Foundation gave financial support to three organizations that can be described as being a part of the economic right—the Grand Rapids-based Acton Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Grand Rapids-based Education Freedom Fund. The two entities with roots in Grand Rapids also are organizations in which Prince’s sister Betsy DeVos has had a leadership role. The Acton Institute—a think-tank blending religion and free-market economics—has received more than $210,000 in funding from the Freiheit Foundation. The Education Freedom Fund, also based in Grand Rapids and directed by Betsy and Dick DeVos, received $30,000 from the Freiheit Foundation in support of the DeVoses ongoing organizing in favor of school vouchers and the privatization of education in the United States. In 2001, Prince’s foundation gave $30,000 to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), one of the more prominent rightwing think-tanks and a strong supporter of both free-market economics as well as the Bush administration’s foreign policy. The AEI supports an aggressive imperialist policy and has several members that are part of the same group of neocons involved in the Project for a New American Century that campaigned for the Iraq War.

While Prince’s family has contributed greatly to religious right groups, Prince’s foundation has primarily funded conservative Catholic or evangelical organizations that do not have clear ties to the religious right. A major exception is the Freiheit Foundation’s $500,000 grant to ex-Watergate felon Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship, an evangelical ministry operating within the United States’ prison system and receiving financial backing from a variety of religious right funders. The Freiheit Foundation has also funded Christian Freedom International, a group that works to document the persecution of Christians around the world and provides aid in the form of physical assistance and coordinated prayer. The organization is led by former Reagan White House official Jim Jacobson who is a member of the secretive religious right Council for National Policy (Prince’s foundation gave a $450 to the Council for National Policy in 2001). The Freiheit Foundation generously funds a number of other religious organizations, including the Haggai Institute, an organization founded in 1969 to train Asian, African, and Latin American Christian leaders to “train others” and evangelize for the Christian faith, who was given $200,000 in 2001. Crisis Magazine, a self-described “politically conservative” magazine that reports on contemporary culture through a “traditional Catholic” perspective, has received a nominal amount of funding from the Foundation ($3,500). Controversial and anti-gay Senator Rick Santorum is one of the magazine’s regular columnists. Catholic Answers, a group that publishes tracts and other literature to aid Catholics in evangelizing. The group came under some scrutiny in 2004 for a voter guide that it produced outlining five issues that it termed as “non-negotiable” for Catholics—abortion, gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and human cloning—and arguing that Catholics should vote for candidates that have the church’s position on these issues (source).

Prince has also supported universities, including Catholic University of America (which maintains a “Marriage Law Project” reporting on efforts to define and preserve marriage as between heterosexual couples only (source) and Christendom College, both of which firmly believe in the importance of religion in everyday life. Prince has also provided $195,000 to the Institute for World Politics, a graduate school in Washington DC offering training in “statecraft” by examining diplomacy, military strategy, the formation of opinion, and other such topics taught by former government officials from the Department of Defense, Central Intelligence Agency, and other such agencies as well as private institutions such as the American Enterprise Institute. Like the American Enterprise Institute, the Institute for World Politics promotes a foreign policy in line with that of the Bush administration—a policy that has functioned to help Blackwater earn government contracts and to increase Prince’s own fortune.
http://www.mediamouse.org/features/092706black.php

[Joanne98]

2. Eric Prince Wikipedia...

We seeee you!!!!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince
Erik Prince
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Erik Prince, born in 1969 in Holland, Michigan, is the founder and owner of the military support contractor Blackwater USA. A millionaire and former US Navy SEAL, after high school he briefly enrolled in the Naval Academy before attending and graduating from Hillsdale College. After college, he earned a commission in the Navy and served as a Navy SEAL officer on deployments to Haiti, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, including Bosnia. When his father Edgar Prince unexpectedly died in 1995, he ended his Navy service prematurely. He sold his family's automobile parts company, Prince Corporation, for $1.4 billion and later moved to Virginia Beach and personally financed the formation of Blackwater USA.

Prince is the brother of Betsy DeVos, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Michigan and wife of former Alticor (Amway) president and Gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos. Prince's first wife died of cancer in 2003, and he has since remarried and has six children. He now runs Prince Group, Blackwater’s parent company, from an office in McLean, Virginia and also serves as a board member of Christian Freedom International, a nonprofit group with a mission of helping "Christians who are persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ".

Due to its controversial role as an independent, though US-supported, military entity, Erik Prince and Blackwater USA have been the target of several allegations, leading to at least one major court case. Among these allegations are claims of unethical hiring practices and war profiteering. <1>


References
Christian Freedom International website
Newsobserver article concerning Blackwater plane crash
Hampton Roads interview of Erik Prince
Hampton Roads "Blackwater Top Brass"
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince

[Joanne98]

3. I ordered Chris Hedges new book today.. American Fascists...

I can't wait....

Editorial Reviews
http://www.amazon.com/American-Fascists-Christian-Right-America/dp/0743284437
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The f-word crops up in the most respectable quarters these days. Yet if the provocative title of this exposé by Hedges (War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning)—sounds an alarm, the former New York Times foreign correspondent takes care to employ his terms precisely and decisively. As a Harvard Divinity School graduate, his investigation of the Christian Right agenda is even more alarming given its lucidity. Citing the psychology and sociology of fascism and cults, including the work of German historian Fritz Stern, Hedges draws striking parallels between 20th-century totalitarian movements and the highly organized, well-funded "dominionist movement," an influential theocratic sect within the country's huge evangelical population. Rooted in a radical Calvinism, and wrapping its apocalyptic, vehemently militant, sexist and homophobic vision in patriotic and religious rhetoric, dominionism seeks absolute power in a Christian state. Hedges's reportage profiles both former members and true believers, evoking the particular characteristics of this American variant of fascism. His argument against what he sees as a democratic society's suicidal tolerance for intolerant movements has its own paradoxes. But this urgent book forcefully illuminates what many across the political spectrum will recognize as a serious and growing threat to the very concept and practice of an open society. (Jan. 9)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists first spoke of the United States becoming a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedom and our way of life. In American Fascists, Chris Hedges, veteran journalist and author of the National Book Award finalist War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, challenges the Christian Right's religious legitimacy and argues that at its core it is a mass movement fueled by unbridled nationalism and a hatred for the open society.

Hedges, who grew up in rural parishes in upstate New York where his father was a Presbyterian pastor, attacks the movement as someone steeped in the Bible and Christian tradition. He points to the hundreds of senators and members of Congress who have earned between 80 and 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian Right advocacy groups as one of many signs that the movement is burrowing deep inside the American government to subvert it. The movement's call to dismantle the wall between church and state and the intolerance it preaches against all who do not conform to its warped vision of a Christian America are pumped into tens of millions of American homes through Christian television and radio stations, as well as reinforced through the curriculum in Christian schools. The movement's yearning for apocalyptic violence and its assault on dispassionate, intellectual inquiry are laying the foundation for a new, frightening America.


American Fascists, which includes interviews and coverage of events such as pro-life rallies and weeklong classes on conversion techniques, examines the movement's origins, its driving motivations and its dark ideological underpinnings. Hedges argues that the movement currently resembles the young fascist movements in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and '30s, movements that often masked the full extent of their drive for totalitarianism and were willing to make concessions until they achieved unrivaled power. The Christian Right, like these early fascist movements, does not openly call for dictatorship, nor does it use


physical violence to suppress opposition. In short, the movement is not yet revolutionary. But the ideological architecture of a Christian fascism is being cemented in place. The movement has roused its followers to a fever pitch of despair and fury. All it will take, Hedges writes, is one more national crisis on the order of September 11 for the Christian Right to make a concerted drive to destroy American democracy. The movement awaits a crisis. At that moment they will reveal themselves for what they truly are -- the American heirs to fascism. Hedges issues a potent, impassioned warning. We face an imminent threat. His book reminds us of the dangers liberal, democratic societies face when they tolerate the intolerant.
http://www.amazon.com/American-Fascists-Christian-Right-America/dp/0743284437

[Gabi Hayes]

9. I almost bought that at the airport last week, but it was just too depressing

to think about

Hedges is an amazing person; one of the only real journalists left

remember he got booed up at a college graduation valedictory a few years ago for daring to speak his mind at a.......UNIVERSITY?

http://www.rrstar.com/localnews/your_community/rockford/20030520-4814.shtml

interview with Hedges

http://www.alternet.org/story/15982/

[Gabi Hayes]

10. interesting, ironic snip from the interview:

Q: You are the author of "War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning." You have reported from many war zones, you've been in Guatemala, you've been in El Salvador, you've been in Bosnia, you were in the Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, you were held by Iraqi Republican Guard. Can you talk about some of those experiences?

A: You know, as I looked out on the crowd, that is exactly what my book is about. It is about the suspension of individual conscience, and probably consciousness, for the contagion of the crowd for that euphoria that comes with patriotism. The tragedy is that -- and I've seen it in conflict after conflict or society after society that plunges into war -- with that kind of rabid nationalism comes racism and intolerance and a dehumanization of the other. And it's an emotional response. People find a kind of ecstasy, a kind of belonging, a kind of obliteration of their alienation in that patriotic fervor that always does come in war time.

As I gave my talk and I looked out on the crowd, I was essentially witnessing things that I had witnessed in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina or in squares in Belgrade or anywhere else. Crowds, especially crowds that become hunting packs are very frightening. People chanted the kind of cliches and aphorisms and jingoes that are handed to you by the state. "God Bless America" or people were chanting "send him to France" -- this kind of stuff and that kind of contagion leads ultimately to tyranny, it's very dangerous and it has to be stopped.

[Joanne98]

12. Such pathetic young people. Maybe a person from American Idol

would have been better received..

[Gabi Hayes]

13. pretty sad, eh? and this in Northern Illinois, not some red state backwater

also, it was May of 2003, so the mission was accomplished, and people hadn't realized yet that the tar baby was just coagulating around our brave president

so I'll cut the poor, benighted audience some slack just because of the date

[muntrv]

4. Blackwater is this today's SS.

[bperci108]

7. And the Partisans knew how to deal with the SS...

...didn't they? :evilgrin:

So will we.

[mmonk]

5. Our version of the Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran)

[bperci108]

6. One huge glaring error:

"Chris Hedges is a far left, anti-Christian, Liberal working for a newspaper that holds the same sentiments. His motivations are horrid..."

Hedges is a Christian; a graduate of Harvard's Divinity School, I believe.

He's hardly "anti-Christian", nor is he "far left" by any stretch of the imagination.

But such trivial little irrelevancies shouldn't get in the author's way of a good hissy-fit... :dunce:

(I'm currently reading this book, BTW and it's outstanding.)

[Gabi Hayes]

11. yes, he is a divinity graduate.....check post number 6/7. you might

find them ironic, to say the least

[bperci108]

14. Gabi, I'm afraid you lost me....

...maybe it's late, but :wtf: ?


Apologies in advance for apparently being irony-impaired tonight. ;)

[C_U_L8R]

8. Unprotected by Geneva Conventions

The world doesn't take kindly to mercenaries.
Dumb shitheads can be shot on site.
And our govt should be held accountable
for funding illegal mercenary armies.
It's truly sickening what the reichwingers
have done to our country. War for profit.