Blackwater West

[marmar]

by Rick Jacobs at HuffPost:
Blackwater West
Posted August 14, 2007 | 08:28 PM (EST)



You would never imagine that California would need or want a Blackwater mercenary training facility. And you'd be right: California and the residents near where Blackwater wants to set up shop really don't want Blackwater. After all, the Marines at Pendleton, a few miles down the road, keep us pretty safe.

Blackwater West, as they call it, will be created and run by the same folks who brought us four dead Americans with corpses strung up from a bridge in Fallujah. But as with so much else Blackwater does, the wishes of the people matter not one whit. It's all about a buck and the ideology of fear.

Thursday night, KNBC spent nearly eight minutes of its thirty minute news program shining a bright light on this secretive, privately held company's plans to set up an 824 acre training facility in East San Diego County. If seeing is believing, then have a look. The piece was a few months in the making and caught producer Frank Snepp's attention because of his own CIA background and because 3,500 members of Courage Campaign here in California have petitioned our senators and Governor to stop this insidious band of rogues before they stop civil society in our state.

Blackwater thrives on secrecy and when you read and watch what's going on with them, you see why. A year ago, Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films pried open the gates, just a little bit, with Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers. In that film, we met the families who survived the brutal deaths of those four Blackwater employees sent into Fallujah without proper armaments, personnel or even a map. The families have been seeking legal redress for two years now, but Blackwater hired the best of the privateers, none other than Ken Starr, that paragon of justice, to help them keep their dirt out of the public view.

And then Jeremy Scahill wrote an entire book about Blackwater, which curled the few locks of hair I have left. But it goes on. On May 30, as reported in the Washington Post, Blackwater shot and killed an innocent Iraqi driver. The result? More ill will toward the United States soldiers fighting bravely daily and ironically more contracts for Blackwater. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-jacobs/blackwater-west_b_60474.html

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1. I hope they don't get it. Potrero is a quiet, unspoiled, rural area east of San Diego that will

be ruined if Blackwater moves in there. This would be a huge tragedy if that happens.

[EFerrari]

2. Is that Duncan Hunter's district? I read somewhere that he

is involved in getting BW out here.

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5. I am fairly sure that the land is actually located in CA-51, which is Bob Filner's district, but

the dividing line between 51 and 52 (Duncan Hunter's district) passes right through the area. So I'm not 100% sure exactly which district the land is in. If I find out for sure, I'll let you know. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Hunter had some connection to it, even if the land doesn't sit in his district.

[EFerrari]

7. If I remember where I read/heard that, I'll post it here.

It might have been on Amy's show. She did a great report on it early this summer.

[Recursion]

3. On the plus side...

...you can expect to see plenty of Marines beating the $*&# out of mercs during brawls on liberty in the Gaslight district.

[patrice]

4. The comments on that article forget to mention how

it is quite likely that the motivation of a private military such as Blackwater, could very possibly be to protect the property of the rich when "Katrina" cubed occurs.

The posters wonder how anyone could be for a private military and fail to notice the obvious facts about who the Prince family and friends are.

[ellenfl]

6. k&r eom