Our Mercenary Militia - I couldn’t believe my ears. I was listening to a news show and was hearing about BLACKWATER USA.
Blackwater USA is a corportation that trains mercenaries. Not only that but the web site I ran into states
:“BLACKWATER USA IS THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANY IN THE WORLD.”
Our clients include federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense, Department of State, and Department of Homeland Security, local and state entities from around the country, multi-national corporations, and friendly nations from all over the globe.Blackwater USA; where professionals seek answers
And then I ran across the Iraq details.
Blackwater Security Consulting is providing qualified and trained Protective Security Specialists (PSS) to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau for Diplomatic Security for the purpose of conducting protective security operations in Iraq.
Under the requirements to apply to Iraq was that you could not have bad credit. I assume this is a suicide type of job anyway so being the optimistic person I am I thought how BAD this was. Business would be mad if they got a big credit hog killed so he couldn’t pay his bill.
Personally, I thought the web site looked like a web site for a video game..one of those War Games.
Then I read a story written about Blackwater back in 2004
“There are currently thousands of mercenaries serving in Iraq. Their high salaries and shorter terms of employment will inevitably make a serious dent on the military's budget -- and soldiers' morale.”
Ah, the REAL reason the troops morale is low. It wasn’t the Reporting of issues by the Leftist Media after all. It really was the outsourcing of professional sub contractor mercenaries.
These mercenaries are getting paid more money but is it truly WORTH it. These are the things that still remain to be seen.
But in the News about this today, it mentioned how the casualties of these contractors are not counted.
Then it hit me. CONTRACTORS.
How could I have been so blind by that word?
When I heard about contractors getting caught , killed, held captive and such like that.. I thought that it meant the re-builders like electricians, plumbers, builders, engineers not like Soldier of Fortune magazine readers.
The article went on to inform me of some more items.
“The practice of using mercenaries to fight wars is hardly new, but it is becoming increasingly popular in recent years. During the first Gulf War, one out of every 50 soldiers on the battlefield was a mercenary.”
Well, now I understand more about “friendly fire” At the time of this article, we were hiring Chilean Mercenaries.
I wondered when I read about the Chilean Mercenaries whether they also had to be able to read and speak English , which were one of the requirements for their version of “boot camp”
Which leads me back to why I even looked into this multi national corporation that SHOULD be as well known as Halliburton and Bechtel but is not.
Maybe the event that took place recently regarding families left behind that will put it into another kind of perspective for you.
“The company and its secretive, mega-millionaire, right-wing Christian founder, Erik Prince, position Blackwater as a patriotic extension of the US military, and its employees are required to take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution.”…”
By the end of 2004 Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, was bragging to the press of "staggering" 600 percent growth.
"This is a billion-dollar industry," Jackson said in October 2004. "And Blackwater has only scratched the surface of it."
Apart from Chile, the other popular source for military recruits is South Africa. The United Nations recently reported that South Africa
"is already among the top three suppliers of personnel for private military companies, along with the UK and the US."
There are more than 1,500 South Africans in Iraq today, most of whom are former members of the South African Defense Force and South African Police.
But today, Blackwater is facing a potentially devastating battle--this time not in Iraq but in court. Blackwater is being sued for the wrongful deaths of Stephen "Scott" Helvenston( who was in a bad credit situation), Mike Teague, Jerko Zovko and Wesley Batalona by the families of the men slain in Falluja On March 31, 2004 .
On January 5, 2005, the families filed the lawsuit against Blackwater in Wake County, North Carolina.
"What we have right now is something worse than the wild, wild west going on in Iraq," Callahan says. "Blackwater is able to operate over there in Iraq free from any oversight that would typically exist in a civilized society. As we expose Blackwater in this case, it will also expose the inefficient and corrupt system that exists over there."
I thought that this was interesting so I then went to another site bringing this old story back to the frontpage.
Blackwater in the Crosshairs , There, was an interview with Jeremy Scahill as well as Katy Helvenston, the mother of Scott Helvenston who was killed in Fallujah, and the attorney in the case, Marc Miles
.In the beginning statement Ms Goodman read
“Altogether an estimated 20,000 non-Iraqi civilian contractors are now working for the United States inside Iraq. About 6,000 of these are security contractors.According to Department of Labor statistics, at least 425 U.S. civilians have died in Iraq including at least 22 Blackwater contractors.These men and women are never included in the death tolls provided by the Pentagon or reported on in the media. “
Then in a documentary shown on Frontline , In that Documentary..well here is a bit of the transcript.
COL. JOHN A. TOOLAN, U.S. Marines: Contractors were easily identified on the roads because they were all in brand-new SUVs -- 2004 SUV, tinted windows. So they were easy to pick out. And the insurgents knew that it was a fairly easy mark.
I remembered the story of these men. Only back then it was reported these were US Soldiers. I remember how the forum members were up in arms about this action. But today, I learn that they were not our paid US Military but Paid Mercenaries/Security that became another pawn of the US propaganda machine.
I wondered about the support our government gives its “property” which is what the service men and women are.
They are truly the very Backbone of our freedom yet our own country has short changed them sending them off to war with lousy hardware, little or no armor and under a lie at that!
Maybe that was the plan.
More private contractors get killed and then there are less injuries to the US Military.
What do they call it? A win –win situation?
Yet we are in support of privatizing to outside sources? No wonder Mr. Bush has cut VA expenses. They will have fewer in their way of thinking because of these sub contracted military Mercenaries. It just doesn’t seem right but it seems fitting that Clinton had his Whitewater and Bush has his Blackwater.
More on the other companies and other subjects related to this Corporate War later. Until then here is a little video that sums things up very,very well.
Soap Box 