dr. elsewhere here
There's been a new development this week on the Blackwater lawsuit. Actually, one of their lawsuits; seems they're up to their night vision goggles in lawsuits these days. But the one filed by the families of those four contractors killed and strung from the bridge in 2004, seems the judge has been convinced to "honor" (such a strange word to use here) the contract terms those deceased men signed that released Blackwater from such lawsuits. There oughta be a law against such exploitation. But I digress....
Watch this coverage on DemocracyNow! for the details. And then get Jeremy Scahill's response to Erik Prince, along with his description of a visit to Prince's home town.
Like I said before, we really need to be pressing Congress to outlaw this entire enterprise. What kind of country have we become that we are supporting mercenaries.
5 comments:
Dear Dr.Elsewhere,
There is no chance that ultra conservative, neo-religious military contractors like Blackwater will be cut off.
Instead, from one of Scahill's recent public talks about Blackwater, Blackwater has a "reserve force of something like 50,000 to 100,000 soldiers trained under the dreaded Allende regime and other authoritarian Latin American countries that are ready to come into the US and implement martial law on short notice".
These are the folks that will be rounding folks like us in the middle of the night and then escorting us to one of the 800 plus Halliburton/FEMA detention camps that will be unmarked on any maps.
this is what we have to look forward to. There is no way Bush/Cheney will step down, no they have plans to take this country all the way to dictatorship and that is why Bush couldn't care less about how Gonzales is perceived.
anon, i can't say i disagree about the agenda here, especially where it concerns erik prince.
however, that does not alter the illegality of that agenda, or the illegality of their pursuit by running roughshod over our laws and Constitution (see my post that follows this one).
just because these people exist and have these horrifying agendas does not excuse us to passive, though cynical, compliance. indeed, it should alarm us to the opposite: a bold and belligerent demand for the removal of these thugs and a recovery of our Constitutional laws.
by contacting your representatives about this issue, and insisting it be investigated and become more public, the possibilities of taking them down increase.
more than ever this wisdom is true: the only way that evil can prevail is for good people to remain silent.
and, i would add, cynical. you're right, W/dick/gonzo will NEVER step down. that is why we must demand that they all be impeached. when the outcry is loud enough, they will listen.
if you do not believe that, then the question to you is this: do you really believe democracy can exist, even here? if your answer is no, then you may as well find a cave and watch it all unfold without you.
oh wait; i just missed a grave error in your comment! whatever can you mean by the 'dreaded ALLENDE regime'???
salvadore allende committed suicide (was assassinated?) in the coup that installed pinochet and was backed by our US govt!!
i have not heard scahill make that claim that you assert. what i have heard him say is that over 100,000 of the units in iraq are not soldiers but PMC 'contractors', and that many of them are from latin america, including chile, which is ironic since chile refused to join the 'coalition of the willing' crap.
please make sure you have all your facts straight, but more importantly, that you do productive things with them when you have them. being cynical and defeatist is no good for anyone, especially yourself.
sorry for the typo, I meant pinochet, not allende, in the previous post.
I heard Scahill speak in Oakland about a month ago, just 6 hours before the FWY 580 upperconnector collapsed. Coincidentally where Scahill spoke in Oakland is less than 3 miles from where the connector collapsed.
He did say in that talk about Blackwater developing alliances with the military in countries like Chile and that Blackwater would be able to have on tap tens of thousands of soldiers ready to come to the US and would have no qualms about administering martial law and being heavy handed. he mentioned/wrote that soldiers in Chile under PINOCHET received special forces/neo-nazi type training that makes them particularly hardened and ready to mow down, brutalize and kill on order.
I am also reading his book as well and remember coming across this.
I agree with you, if B/C/G are not impeached, then it's clear to me, not viewers of FoxNews, they have plans to take control of the US and implement a full fledged dictatorship like Putin.
It seems only the fringes even mouth the word "impeachment", and with the mainstream media in B/C/G's pocket, the masses continue to think everything is fine in this country, all that is needed is to vote in a different president in 2008.
anon, thanks for the input again, and sure hope you revisit, though you may never see this.
it's chilling to think about what you say scahill is suggesting, though - again - nothing surprises me anymore.
as for getting these folks outa office, i've said for years now that it will NOT be good enough to just let them get voted out; we MUST expose and impeach them.
the ONLY way congress will ever get adequate cahunas to do that is if we hound them about it on a regular basis.
it is now our duty and responsibility. or all is lost. it may still be lost even with that effort, but at least we did what we had to do.
thanks again for the input, and please, don't give up hope!
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