Blackwater on The Huffington Post

Private Contractors In Iraq Could Face Charges For Earlier Incidents Under New Security Pact

2008-11-21T01:04:53Z

Private security contractors operating in Iraq could face Iraqi prosecution for acts committed when they supposedly had immunity from Iraqi law, U.S. officials said Thursday.

A new U.S.-Iraq security agreement doesn't specifically prevent Iraqi officials from bringing criminal charges retroactively in cases such as the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians by contractors protecting a State Department convoy, officials told security company officials during meetings in Washington Thursday.

ZP Heller: Only One Day Left to Tell Your Senators "Lieberman Must Go!"

2008-11-17T15:20:43Z

Our Lieberman Must Go campaign is gaining Joe-mentum! Over 1,600 people have already made a call to their Democratic Senators, requesting they take away Lieberman's plum Homeland Security Committee chairmanship this Tuesday, when Dems will gather behind closed doors to determine Lieberman's fate.

The press is also taking notice. Our own Communications Director Leighton Woodhouse explained what Lieberman Must Go is all about to The Connecticut Post:

"This is not about retribution or vengeance...This is about the fact that Lieberman has been very clear that his world view and agenda are contrary to the vision that Obama has espoused."

The reality is that Lieberman spent the recent election actively campaigning against Democrats, most notably Barack Obama. But as Leighton suggested, stripping Lieberman of his committee chairmanships is not about exacting revenge. Lieberman has careened to the right on both foreign and domestic policy issues. He has stood with McCain on everything from the Iraq War to fear-mongering about Iran to offshore drilling, and he has represented everything the GOP stands for by speaking at the Republican National Convention. Rewarding him with a powerful committee chairmanship would be, as Sen. Bernie Sanders has said, "a slap in the face of millions of Americans who worked tirelessly for Barack Obama and who want to see real change in our country."

Perhaps Think Progress' Satyam Khanna put it best, however, when he noted during Friday's Meet the Bloggers that Lieberman should no longer be chairman of the Homeland Security Committee or any other committee for the simple reason that he has been a terrible chairman from a progressive standpoint. You can check out Think Progress' full report, but some of Lieberman's lowlights include the fact that he held no oversight hearings over the Bush administration in 2007; he completely bungled the Hurricane Katrina investigation; and to this day he refuses to hold war profiteers like Blackwater accountable.

The only suitable means of addressing Lieberman's hawkishness and partisan politics is by stripping him of his Homeland Security chairmanship. Merely removing his subcommittee chairmanships -- as some Dems have suggested -- would be insufficient, particularly when his Homeland Security gavel gives him subpoena power to investigate the Obama administration. And to those who believe Dems should placate Lieberman to reach that coveted 60-seat, filibuster-proof Senate majority, I say Lieberman's neocon world-view and the fact that he has cozied up to the Republicans means there is no guarantee he will vote with Democrats on anything going forward. That is why Lieberman Must Go. Please call your Senators this Monday and tell them.

Somalian Pirates To Be Taken On By Blackwater

2008-10-16T17:10:22Z

Blackwater3_2 Security analysts and the Somali government are publicly flirting with the idea of hiring mercenaries to stop the pirates that are terrorizing east Africa. Now, the notorious guns-for-fire at Blackwater are responding to the call, with a resounding arrrr!!!!!

"Blackwater Worldwide today announced that its 183-foot ship, the McArthur, stands ready to assist the shipping industry as it struggles with the increasing problem of piracy in [Somalia's] Gulf of Aden," the firm says in a statement. "As a company founded and run by former Navy SEALs, with a 50,000-person database of former military and law enforcement professionals, Blackwater is uniquely positioned to assist the shipping industry."

Jamal Dajani: Afghans Trained by Blackwater Defect to Taliban

2008-10-15T14:47:05Z

Remember when Sarah Palin said that "the surge principles that have worked in Iraq need to be implemented in Afghanistan." Well...as Ms. Palin would say, many Afghans working for the Afghan security forces are now switching sides and are now defecting to the Taliban.

Guess who trained many of them? Blackwater!

An Aljazeera producer was able to interview some of those defectors who were unafraid to reveal their identities and were not bashful about their Blackwater issued IDs.

Afghanistan is not Iraq. The surge methods will not work in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai's government is on the verge of collapse and it will be hard paying off the Taliban not to attack its forces.

This video is pretty revealing.

Jamal Dajani produces the Mosaic Intelligence Report on Link TV

Jayne Lyn Stahl: Martial Law?

2008-10-06T20:14:02Z

Now that Congress has passed the largest bailout measure in U.S. history, it's more obvious every day that the American taxpayer has been sold a bill of goods. How has the passage of this obscene $750 billion bill helped to stabilize the stock market, here or abroad? Thanks to us, Europe now knows where to find the panic button.

The more we find out about what happened behind the scenes, and what some, like Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman, call an atmosphere of "fear-mongering," the more evident it becomes what led many to push the panic button more as a reflex action than a reasoned thought.

All the best economic minds in the country, advised against the transfusion of billions of dollars of consumer capital into the accounts of investment giants. The most astute economists suggested that, at best, the rescue plan was tantamount to putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound. Still, it was the kind of climate, in Congress, in which talk of the imposition of "martial law," and other equally dire consequences, that produced results which may, at best, be seen as a placebo. And, to paraphrase a great American patriot, "Give me placebos, or give me death."

Lest you think the only patriots left are dead guys, you may recall, last week, a Democratic congressman from California, Brad Sherman's, startling revelation that a few of his colleagues in the House were warned that if they voted down the bailout measure, martial law would be imposed in America.

Now a San Diego private attorney general, Paul Andrew Mitchell, intends to pursue a criminal investigation into whether the implied threat of martial law constitutes conspiracy "to engage in a pattern of racketeering activities," or extortion. Whether this lawsuit has teeth, or is found to be frivolous, in the end, isn't really what's important here. One cannot, after all, yell "fire" in a crowded movie theatre, with impunity, so why should anyone be allowed to yell "police state" in the halls of Congress without consequence?

As you know, the power to suspend habeas corpus is a legislative one, and the President must be authorized by legislators to remand that right. A state of martial law, however, would mean the suspension of all civil liberties, giving the military direct rule. Martial law can result from war, social calamities, natural disasters, stolen elections, but when private citizens (lobbyists?) threaten members of Congress with the possibility that troops will be redeployed from Iraq to Main Street if certain preconditions aren't met sets a dangerous precedent. Why would a private citizen, or lobbyist, make this kind of threat?

Obviously, for the answer, we have to look to those business monoliths who most directly benefit from a $750 billion so-called rescue package. Which entities are among those listed as so-called owners of the U.S. Federal Reserve? For openers, there's the Rothschilds of London and Berlin, Lazard Brothers of Paris, Israel Moses Seaf of Italy, Kuhn, Loeb & Co. of Germany and New York, Warburg and Company of Hamburg, Germany, Lehman Brothers of New York, Goldman, Sachs of New York, Rockefeller Brothers of New York. Can we see now why this latest magnitude 8.0 earthquake on Wall Street shook up the financial markets from Tokyo to Berlin?

While most of the companies named are overseas ventures, a couple of hundred people, mostly relatives, hold domestic shares. To many working American families, the concept of hundreds of billions of dollars is inconceivable, but it's petty cash to owners, and stockholders, of the Federal Reserve. So, for that matter, are our annual salaries when compared with those of chief executives at firms like Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Washington Mutual, Merrill Lynch, and these are the companies that are in trouble! Imagine what payday for Blackwater, and Halliburton CEOs looks like.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't turn down the $71 million earnings of Lehman Brothers' Richard Fuld, last year alone, or those of John Mack at Morgan Stanley who earned more than $17 million in 2007, or Lloyd Blankfein -- more than $43 million; Henry Paulson earned nearly $164 million, in 2006, his last year at Goldman Sachs, while E. Stanley O'Neal, of Merrill Lynch, combined wages for 2007 were more than $161 million.

If nothing else, these mind-boggling numbers tell you that kidnapping billions of taxpayer dollars to rescue mega goliaths drowning in their own toxic assets is nothing more than the biggest bait and switch swindle that has ever been perpetrated on the American taxpayer.

John Scripsick: What Did My Son Die For?

2008-09-24T13:24:25Z

Most people will lie or stretch the truth for one reason, and that is money.

My son died in Iraq one year ago, and it has made me study the reasons we went to war, as any parent would do looking into the loss of their child.

President George W. Bush came to Oklahoma City Friday to raise money for Senator John McCain. I think for a donation of $5,000 you got your picture taken with Bush at a beer distributor's house. I was there outside the house but did not attend the fundraiser.

My son joined the Marines to help this country do good. I tried to talk him out of joining, but after 9/11 lots of young men and women joined. One day before his final signing, I thought he was having second thoughts, but Bryan looked at me and said he already gave them his word. I was worried but proud that he was a man of his word.

As time went by, I have seen that President Bush, Dick Cheney, and others are not men of their word. They will lie straight to your face.

I was there on Friday, not to get a picture taken with Bush, but to ask some questions:

How can our government pay $800 to $1,000 a day to Halliburton, KBR, and Blackwater employees, who work for businesses that Cheney has ties to, and only pay our troops $70 to $100 a day?

Is it true that Blackwater, which has cost taxpayers billions to provide security in Iraq, has given generously to your campaign?

Was Enron your largest contributor?

Did a Texas oil company that gave to your campaign drill in the Kurdish region yet?

Did you read the report sent to you in August 2001 about an attack in America coming soon?

Did you pay $5 million to a man from Iraq so he would not talk about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)?

Did you ignore Iran's offer to infiltrate Al Qaeda after the 9/11 attack?

Did you disregard Joe and Valerie Wilson's knowledge about WMDs and Al Qaeda in Iraq?

How many military leaders, CIA officials and others, have resigned since you have been president?

If you collect enough money, pull a good-looking rabbit out of the hat, and McCain becomes president, do you get a pardon from these questions?

My son died in Iraq on Sept. 6, 2007. Does my asking these questions make me unpatriotic? Did my son die for my freedom. or did he die so Bush could pump money through private contractors and please Republican campaign contributors?

I was sure standing on a corner outside the fundraiser would not get these questions answered. But maybe the right person will hear the message. I do know that doing nothing will produce nothing.

John Sauer: Finding the Toilet in Stockholm

2008-08-27T14:56:21Z

Last week a mix of water and sanitation experts gathered for World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden to mull over the world's biggest public health crisis. The problem is that not enough people paid attention.

Each year over 2 million deaths could be prevented with improvements related to access to safe drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene. To put that in perspective, we have it within our grasp to prevent the equivalent deaths of 10 Asian tsunamis or 1,000 Hurricane Katrinas. Yet a major effort--like those that have been launched to address HIV/AIDS and malaria--to tackle the global drinking water and sanitation crisis remains elusive. The scope of this disconnect is baffling; water- and sanitation-related diseases (like relatively-easy-to-prevent diarrhea) kill more children each year than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and measles combined.

One reason why there hasn't been a Herculean effort to address this global scourge is that we in the water and sanitation sector are not doing enough to influence how this issue is understood by others. We have not been proactive or coordinated enough to frame the issue to the media and the wider development community in an action-oriented "this-can-be-done" tone.

All too often, water and sanitation has been framed as a "privatization" issue instead of an "access" issue. This is problematic. The "privatization" frame is confusing. It too often results in a blame game that takes attention away from the end result of the sector's work: getting water and sanitation to those who need it. Many of the most innovative, scalable solutions to the water and sanitation crisis are locally initiated approaches, such as the production of latrine slabs or ceramic water filters. They are put in place by a combination of actors: beneficiaries, communities, governments, local entrepreneurs, corporations and NGOs. The work of all of them is necessary to solve this problem.

There is a great need for the water and sanitation sector to reframe the issue so that those outside the sector understand what is at stake and become part of the solution. This effort will take leadership, resources, and working together (for more than one week in Stockholm). I propose "universal access" as the theme that guides this new direction. Developed countries have had universal access to water and sanitation for nearly 100 years. It makes no sense why the rest of the world can't get universal access as well.

Another explanation why the water and sanitation crisis remains in the shadows is that "sanitation" specifically has been ignored. Let's face it-- diseases associated with sanitation, like diarrhea, do not have "disease appeal" for governments and donors. The result is that very few people in the general public even know that 2.5 billion people do not have access to improved sanitation--nearly half of whom actually have to resort to open defecation. Those who do learn are outraged and take action.

More resources must be devoted to recruiting sanitation champions. HIV/AIDS has a built-in constituency because many people have a direct connection with someone who has suffered from or died of HIV/AIDS. Malaria has David Beckham trumpeting its cause. Sanitation needs a brave soul to be its spokesperson.

It has become a joke in the sector that no one in their right mind would become a "sanitation spokesperson." But this is no laughing matter. The lack of sanitation is one of the main reasons there isn't greater progress towards enabling the world's poor to meet their basic needs; malnutrition, poor education and disease burden are all exacerbated by inadequate sanitation. And the plight of the poor becomes more related to the survival of all as the world gets smaller each day.

In fact, some high-profile individuals have spoken out about the urgency of access to sanitation and they should be applauded. Matt Damon, Ashley Judd, Keira Knightley are a few. Would they be willing to form a Sanitation Celebrity Council to move this issue to its tipping point?

So the appeal I'd make to the 2,500 experts who went to Stockholm is to start a "universal access" campaign and to make sanitation--the most important medical advance since 1840--a major part of it. It's time to elevate water and sanitation to the status that it enjoyed during the UN's first Water Decade, which ended in 1990. This is, after all, the second Water Decade (2005-2015) in case we forgot. It's time to get this done.

Marlene Rossman: Wine Review: Can you say Viognier?

2008-08-25T22:42:42Z

Michael David Incognito Viognier 2006 Lodi, California, about $15

No, it's not Vyog-nyer, not Vee-nay or Viagra-ner. However, does have something to do with sex. It's pronounced Vee-yoh-N'YAY and has a rich "mouth feel" and sexy aromas of lychee wth flavors of peach and lime. Viognier is an unusual grape from France's Rhône Valley, that has become a hit with the "Anything But Chardonnay" crowd (like yours truly and other wine geeks). And, since few people know about it and fewer can pronounce it, there's plenty of it to go around.

This particular Viognier came to being in a really cool way. Viognier has been grown in California in small quantities since the late 1980s, and Michael David's Incognito white wine was awarded the title "Best Rhone Varietal in the World" in 2000--except that the winemakers and the judges thought it was Roussanne, a different white Rhone grape. But those clever wine experts at U.C. Davis used DNA testing to figure out that this was a clone of Viognier, and not a Roussanne.

Michael David's Incognito Viognier 2006 has the cleansing bitter-lime finish that's the key to great Viognier. Think of Viognier's flavors as the love child of Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscat (so what if it was a threesome?) It makes a marvelous aperitif wine to sip on its own, and it kicks butt with spicy Asian food.

Blackwater Guards Close To Indictment, WaPo Reports

2008-08-17T10:26:36Z

WASHINGTON — Half a dozen Blackwater Worldwide security guards have gotten target letters from the Justice Department in a probe of shootings in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqis, The Washington Post reported.

The Blackwater guards are caught up in the investigation of shootings that took place last September when a Blackwater team arrived in several vehicles at an intersection in Baghdad where shooting erupted, leaving numerous Iraqis dead and wounded.

Justice Department Close To Charging Blackwater Guards In Iraq Shooting

2008-08-16T22:10:54Z

Federal prosecutors have sent target letters to six Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a September shooting that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead, indicating a high likelihood the Justice Department will seek to indict at least some of the men, according to three sources close to the case.

The guards, all former U.S. military personnel, were working as security contractors for the State Department, assigned to protect U.S. diplomats and other non-military officials in Iraq. The shooting occurred when their convoy arrived at a busy square in central Baghdad and guards tried to stop traffic.

An Iraqi government investigation concluded that the security contractors fired without provocation. Blackwater has said its personnel acted in self-defense.

Trey Ellis: The October Surprise Shouldn't Come as One

2008-08-15T14:32:35Z

Obama supporters have every reason to be feeling sanguine about the upcoming election. Intrade Market Odds has Obama as the 2:1 favorite. Realclearpolitics has his Electoral College count, if the election were held today, at 304, compared to McCain's 234.

However consider this:

We taxpayers already have shelled out $100 billion on contractors in Iraq since 2003. They have 180,000 employees in country now building what they had assumed would be permanent bases for a permanent occupation of an oil-rich land.

Does anyone really believe that Cheney/Halliburton/Blackwater will relinquish the keys to the American treasury without the nastiest of fights?

For six years Cheney has unleashed a gusher of obscene profiteering with little or no oversight of his petro/reconstruction/military contracting cohorts. You don't have to be a conspiracy-addicted fan of Jack Bauer's to understand that they won't just quietly retire to their yachts in the Gulf of Mexico after regime change and their operations in Iraq are forcibly ended. They understand that not only will they be out of business, but that they could also go to jail -- if Democrats hold hearings into war profiteering, just as Truman did as a Senator in 1943.

Remember, when Halliburton et al. first entered Iraq, Republicans had a virtual one-party lock on governance. Democrats acted like frightened little forest animals. The contractors didn't have to cover their tracks because the vice president of the United States, the de facto ruler of the free world, was their capo.

We would all actually be safer if McCain had a better chance of winning. If the odds were more even, then Cheney's people might not feel compelled to risk everything on a fourth quarter Hail Mary pass that will so destabilize the world and petrify undecided voters that they will experience a last-minute conversion to McCain.

What will it be? A nod to Israel to bomb Iran? An American-engineered coup in Pakistan? Whatever it is it is coming and if Obama intends to weather the dirty trick he will have to be prepared.

If the rumors are right and he is picking a VP with a military background that will be a great start. With Jim Webb having withdrawn that leaves Chuck Hagel as the only veteran on the shortlist. He's a very interesting choice and a great McCain neutralizer. Add to that Colin Powell's endorsement sometime after both conventions and Obama should have enough defensive armor to neutralize the dirtiest of the dirty tricks coming down the pike.

** Update **

A lot of you have written in to sing General Clark's praises. I too am a big fan and the last time around, before I'd even laid eyes on him, he and Kerry were my top choices. However we haven't elected a non-elected official to such a high office since Eisenhower. I just think President Obama is already such an outrageous concept that having a non-traditional VP would scare away as many people as it brought in. What Hagel does, is prove that Obama is serious about a new, non-partisan style of governing. Who cares if the VP is more conservative than the P. Obama will be driving the agenda and if he can find common ground with Hagel he can find it with the Republicans left in Congress after we clean their clocks in November.

The Parking Ticket Geek: Ask The Parking Ticket Geek

2008-08-14T01:02:38Z

Hello Parking Ticket Geek-

I was parked on Irving Park Road and received a ticket for Rush Hour Parking (I guess its no parking between 4PM-7PM). Well contested by mail stating that there is no sign that says this and there is actually two signs that state there is no parking from 730-8AM and 215-3PM...absolutely nothing that says No Parking from 4-7PM.

Well of course they are still staying that I am liable so I contacted them again and they said that I could appeal it but there was a fee (absolutely ridiculous).

Anyway, I went outside where I parked and there is a sign about 150feet away from where I parked that says No Parking 4-7PM. How far does a sign need to be in proximity to where you are parked. I mean I think that is absolutely ridiculous that they ticketed me and then also found me liable....so I need to know how far a sign needs to be so if you could let me know, I am definitely goin to appeal it

Thanks
Steph

Geez Steph!

All the signs on your street are making me dizzy! 7:30-8, 2:15-3, 4-7!!!! Whoa!!! I need to sit down.

The sad truth is that technically, all the city has to do is post one sign, a single, solitary sign, to signify the particular parking restriction for the entire block, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation's (the city department responsible for putting up street signs) Brian Steele. Although, according to Steele, the single sign example, while it does occur, is not the norm, and the CDOT tries to make sure there is adequate signage on city streets.

So, let's say you parked on the near end of a block and can't see any signs that restrict parking, because the only sign restricting parking is at the very far end of the block, you can still be held liable in a hearing for the violation.

I realize this is a pain in the ass, but I highly recommend, walking the length of the block to check out all the signs on the block you are parked to make sure you are not unknowingly in violation of any parking restrictions..

That being said, the proper way to contest this would be to photograph the entire block and either demonstrate there was no sign, or show the sign was obscured somehow (tree leaves, turned to the side, etc.) or, and this is a reach, that you could not possibly see this sign as it was so far down the street from where you parked and thus the city failed to adequately post the proper signs along that block. The last defense would probably fail, but I believe I saw it work once. Most times, if a sign exists, even if it's at the end of the block, you will be found liable.

Very truly yours,

The Parking Ticket Geek

P.S. As far as the appeal, I'm not sure in your case if you should pursue that as, as much as I would agree that it always helps to have better posted signs, it sounds like the hearing officer did follow the law.

Dear Senor Geek,

I can not find information on when a parking ticket expire in Chicago, can you help here?

Thank you.

Cheers,
Ismael

Dear Ismael-

Chicago parking tickets NEVER "expire."

There is no statute of limitations on parking tickets.

You can still fight them if the ticket is not in final determination, but
after final determination, you have almost no options.

This lack of time limitation on tickets really needs to be addressed and changed in the municipal code.

For whatever reasons or inefficiencies, the city has sent me Notice of Violation letters alerting me for the first time of tickets that allegedly occurred 3, 4 even 5 years ago. I've heard from many others who have face similar situations.

How does a person fight a parking ticket from many years ago, or even as few as six months ago? Memories fade, the street environment (signs, construction, etc.) may have changed and the ability to gather the proper documentation and evidence to properly fight a violation is difficult if not impossible.

This policy, under these circumstances put the motorist at an extreme disadvantage and I believe the law needs to be changed.

Sorry for the rant, but I hope that answers your question.

The Parking Ticket Geek

Dear Parking Geek

I had an old car with lots of tickets - but the car was junked and I surrendered the tags - which were out of state anyway, and got a pretty new car which I registered to my current Illinois address.

Today I got a seizure notice on my old car - forwarded by the postal service - for tickets from three years ago - and the notice says they can take any car I own. Reading your blog, it seems like they are unlikely to actually boot a different car.

But I want to pay, though it is a lot of money to pay up front - so I called the repayment plan number. It turns out that I don't really qualify for any of the actually helpful repayment plans - just one where they'd want $500 upfront and the seizure notice is for $600.

They asked for my current address, and drivers license number and as I was telling them this I realized - uh-oh - now they know about my beautiful new car, the one that is registered in Illinois. But I told them anyway.

Now I am worried - if the strange lawyer's office knows that my old junked car belongs to the same person who lives at my current address and has a nice new car - does that mean the city knows too? Did I just completely screw myself?

And why don't they just have set street cleaning days in my neighborhood, instead of making up days every few weeks? Giving 24 hours notice to move your car to someone who doesn't drive that much and travels a lot means I am getting way to many tickets.

Thanks

M.C.

Dear M.C.

Whew! You have a lot to ponder here.

Let's start with your old car vs. new car situation. Being that your old car was from three years ago and registered out of state and all the correspondence is currently going there, at least for the short term, you are OK.

Normally, it has been mine and others' experiences, that it is hard to link vehicles registered out of state to vehicles registered in Illinois--even if the owners were/are the same. Not that it can't be done, but I think it's much more difficult than linking the vehicles of one owner all registered within Illinois.

As far as the collection agency's database being linked to the state and city's database, I am skeptical that a private firm could be able to update city and state databases without some trouble. I am going to research this some more, but I gotta think the collection agency can, at least not directly, update these two government databases.

I don't think you screwed yourself, but, as a rule of thumb M.C., the less information you give to the government, the better. Especially when it comes to the city of Chicago and/or the state. The less they know, the better.

I would suggest start making payments on your terms. $50 bucks every two weeks until you are all paid up. So even if they do connect the two vehicles, and you get a seizure notice on your new vehicle, you would have already made a dent in your debt.

Because, when you get the seizure notice, you have 21 days to either pay up or have a hearing before you actually reach Seizure Status which is a technical way of saying you are eligible to be booted.

So keep checking the Chicago Parking Ticket Search Website, to make sure your new vehicle doesn't go boot eligible.

So, worst, most unlikely case is that they'll connect the two plates, but it may take months to do so, giving you time to make smaller payments on the old vehicle.

Best and more likely case is they never connect two different vehicles registered in two different states.

As far as street cleaning, I would suggest checking the street cleaning schedule with your alderman's office and/or your ward's street and sanitation office or click here for your Ward Street Cleaning Schedule.

Mark your calendar and move your car.

Very truly yours,

The Parking Ticket Geek

If you have a question for The Parking Ticket Geek, please e-mail the Geek at: askthegeek@theexpiredmeter.com

For more Chicago parking ticket advice and Chicago parking ticket news, check out The Expired Meter.

William Fisher: The High Cost of Security

2008-08-13T19:20:27Z

As a new report forecasts that the 190,000 private contractors in Iraq and neighboring countries will cost U.S. taxpayers more than $100 billion by the end of 2008, an under-the-radar Florida court case suggests that President George W. Bush - a staunch contractor supporter -- is preparing to throw security firms such as Blackwater under the political bus.

In the Florida case, relatives of three American servicemen killed in the 2004 crash of an aircraft owned by Blackwater Aviation in Afghanistan are suing the company for damages, based in part of U.S. government reviews that concluded that errors committed by Blackwater staff were responsible for the deaths. This week, despite President George W. Bush's support for what he has called the critical roles played by overseas contractors, his Administration failed to meet a deadline for presenting the court with any defense of Blackwater.

The Administration's silence has caused consternation among Blackwater and its supporters. Erik Prince, Blackwater's chairman, told TIME magazine, "After the President has said that, as Commander-in-Chief, he is ultimately responsible for contractors on the battlefield it is disappointing that his Administration has been unwilling to make that interest clear before the courts."

Some observers have speculated that the Administration's silence can be attributed to the controversial nature of the contractor issue and a reluctance to address it during a hotly contested presidential election year.

The Florida battle, which could eventually find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, turns on the question of whether Blackwater and other overseas contractors are subject to U.S. law. That question arises because of a decree issued in 2005 by the then U.S. Iraq Administrator, L. Paul Bremer, granting contractors legal immunity. The Iraqi government claims that Blackwater and other contractors have been responsible for the deaths of Iraqi civilians and wants to make them subject to Iraqi law.

The U.S. has resisted this move, which is thought to be part of the ongoing stalemate in negotiations with Iraq over the future status of U.S. forces in that country.

The White House has also attacked a bill recently passed by the House of Representatives that would place combat-zone contractors under the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. It called the measure is an unacceptable extension of federal jurisdiction overseas, and said it would place additional burdens on the military.

Blackwater's argument is that the company should be covered by the same "sovereign immunity" that protects the U.S. military from lawsuits because the downed flight was under the command and control of the U.S. military.

Last month, this argument was rejected by three federal judges, who cited the U.S. government's failure to take a position in defense of Blackwater as one of their reasons. In their opinion to allow the lawsuit to proceed, the judges ruled that "The apparent lack of interest from the United States... fortifies our conclusion that the case does not yet present a political question."

Lawyers for many major contractors including DynCorp, Kellogg Brown and Root, Blackwater and others, say a dangerous precedent would be established if this and similar cases are allowed to go forward. Such a decision, they say, would open contractors to large money damages and greatly higher risk insurance costs that could adversely affect their ability to carry out the jobs the U.S. government has hired them to do.

As the Florida case made its way through the U.S. legal system, a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) contends that the cost of having military personnel provide security services in Iraq might be little different from the prices charged by private security contactors.

The report said that $6-$10 billion has been spent on security contactors thus far in 2008 and estimated that about 25,000-30,000 employees of security firms were in Iraq as of early this year. It estimates that, if spending for contractors continues at about the current rate, $100 billion will have been paid to military contractors for operations in Iraq.

The report revealed that about 20 percent of funding for operations in Iraq has gone to contractors. Currently, it said, there are at least 190,000 contractors in Iraq and neighboring countries, a ratio of about one contractor per U.S. service member. It noted that the U.S. has relied more heavily on contractors in Iraq than in any other war to provide services ranging from food service to guarding diplomats.

The report also noted that the legal status of contractor personnel is a gray area of U.S. law, particularly for those who are armed. It said that military commanders have less direct authority over contractors because their contracts are managed by a government contracting officer rather than a military commander.

The CBO review was requested by Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. In a statement, Conrad said the Bush administration's reliance on military contractors has set a dangerous precedent. The use of contractors "restricts accountability and oversight; opens the door to corruption and abuse; and, in some instances, may significantly increase the cost to American taxpayers," he said.

The report comes at a time when the actions of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming under increased scrutiny. Contractors, including Blackwater and KBR, have been investigated in connection with shooting deaths of Iraqis and the accidental electrocutions of U.S. troops. The Senate Democratic Policy Committee heard testimony a few weeks ago from a former DCAA contract overseer who was effectively fired because he refused to authorize $1 billion in unsubstantiated charges from KBR. The Government Accountability Office released a report that confirmed whistleblower complaints of DCAA supervisors issuing unsupported findings that were favorable to contractors.

And last week, Government Executive reported that nearly a dozen former DCAA employees see DCAA as a very troubled agency that is more concerned with performance goals than actually overseeing contracts.

The death of a U.S. soldier, who was electrocuted in January while showering in Iraq, prompted a House committee oversight hearing last month into whether KBR Inc. has properly handled the electrical work at bases it maintains. The military has also said that five other deaths were due to improperly installed or maintained electrical devices, according to a congressional report.

Contractors' activities have drawn sharp criticism from private non-governmental watchdog groups, such as OMB Watch. OMB stands for the Office of Management and Budget, which prepares and presents the president's budget to congress.

Craig Jennings, OMB's Federal Fiscal Policy Analyst, told us, "$100 billion is a very large amount of money -- in fact, Iraq's GDP was just over $100 billion in 2007. But what staggers my imagination is how sober adults would be willing to divert such vast sums of America's financial resources to the bank accounts of private firms whose dealings are opaque to taxpayers and, for the most part, held unaccountable."

He added, "I think advocates of unaccountable privatization are beginning to reap what they have sown: defending privatization of war-making on such an enormous scale is becoming tenuous. It's hard to paint a picture of contractors providing taxpayers value when so many instances contractor misconduct have found their way into the public's consciousness."

Jennings also called attention to the shortcomings of the military auditing process. He told us, "This magnitude of expenditures on private contractors is especially striking in light of recent government and media reports of dysfunction in the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA). The protection of the interests of American taxpayers is apparently suffering a number of impediments."

But after we finish excoriating overseas contractors who fail to perform and those in Congress and in the Executive branches of government who fail to hold them accountable for anything, we are left with at least one unanswered question:

Where does our military find the people who now work for those 190,000 contractors?

AmerCorps? Sure!

Bring back the draft? When pigs fly!

Maybe the Hessians will come.

Blackwater And Other Private Contractors In Iraq Losing Immunity

2008-08-11T10:44:05Z

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have agreed on most elements of a framework under which U.S. combat troops would withdraw from Iraqi cities sometime next year, but dates have not yet been settled and Iraqi political approval of the draft accord remains uncertain, according to Bush administration officials.

"What makes this complicated is that, until the whole package is done, it's not done," one official said, adding, "Yes, we have things on the table that we've agreed to," but they await high-level Iraq agreement that may be weeks away, if not longer.

...

Other officials said agreement is not yet firm, and they are uncertain that language will fly politically. Iraq's insistence that its laws should prevail stems largely from the excesses of private U.S. security contractors, whom negotiators have agreed would be subject to Iraqi law.

Chris Gunn: SBA Blackwater Problem Just a Piece of a Bigger Issue

2008-08-08T13:41:04Z

Today, the Washington Post's, "Government Inc." blog by Robert O'Harrow Jr. stated:

"Like companies across the land, Blackwater sought to be designated as a small business to win contracts more easily from the State Department or other agencies. But is it also possible that government procurement officials wanted to apply the designation to Blackwater to make it easier to award the contracts?

Don't laugh. It happens all the time."

The re-emergence of this issue brings us back to a press release distributed by the American Small Business League (ASBL) on July 30th, which found that from 2004 to 2008 Blackwater received upwards of $1.07 billion in federal contracts coded as small business contracts. Additionally, the ASBL reported that if the SBA had made the determination that Blackwater's 1000 "independent contractors" were employees as opposed to independent contractors, the firm would have exceeded the small business size standard for its industry by 250 employees. To read more please click here http://www.asbl.com/showmedia.php?id=1113.

Since 2002, there have been more than a dozen federal investigations and private studies that have all found that the actual recipients of federal small business contracts were Fortune 500 corporations. In fact, as recently as July 1st, the Department of Interior Office of Inspector General found that the DOI had inflated its and the federal government's small business contracting statistics by counting contracts to Fortune 500 corporations.

The report specifically referenced the household names of Dell, Xerox, and John Deere as firms that had received millions of dollars in federal small business contracts from the DOI. In an independent study of the DOI's top 100 recipients of federal small business contracts from both 2006 and 2007, the ASBL found that the DOI had reported more than $430 million in federal small business contracts to large firms. In addition to the firms ASBL was able to determine were large, the following clearly large firms were found within the DOI small business contracting data: Booz Allen Hamilton*, Sprint Communications Company, Perot Systems Government Services*, Hewlett Packard Company, and KPMG*. * Received small business contracts in 2006 and 2007.

Clearly, Blackwater receiving federal small business contracts is just the tip of the iceberg. The diversion of small business contracts to large corporations is not an isolated issue. Every year, billions of dollars in contracts intended for legitimate small businesses are awarded to some of the largest corporations in the United States and Europe, and the federal government is using those contracts to meet its small business procurement goal.

It is time to address this issue, and it is time to solve this problem.

www.asbl.com

To read the entire Washington Post blog, please click here: http://voices.washingtonpost.com

Taking Down Blackwater: One Congressman's Plan

2008-07-31T09:43:53Z

Blackwater Worldwide may have misrepresented its size to obtain small business contracts, the House oversight committee announced on Monday. The finding is the result of an investigation by the Small Business Administration (SBA), and it's just the first of three reviews of the controversial security contractor requested by Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA).

Unlike a number of investigations by the FBI and the committee itself that have focused on the conduct of Blackwater's guards in Iraq and Afghanistan -- for instance, the allegedly unprovoked shooting of Iraqi civilians -- Waxman appears to be taking a new tack: scrutinizing the contractor's employment practices to make it ineligible for future federal contracts.

Lloyd Chapman: Blackwater Gets a Billion in Small Business Contracts with Help from SBA Loophole

2008-07-30T11:59:18Z

A new report from the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Inspector General found Blackwater Worldwide had received "at least 100 small business set-aside contracts, worth over $144 million, since 2000." Additionally, the report pointed to the SBA's highly controversial ruling regarding Blackwater's size as a major contributing factor to the inclusion of Blackwater in federal small business contracting statistics.

In November of 2006, the SBA ruled that Blackwater was a small business by considering a substantial number of the firm's employees to be independent contractors. According to the SBA Inspector General report, more than 1000 employees were considered independent contractors and were not counted towards the company's size determination by the SBA. As a result, Blackwater was able to avoid the 1,500-employee size threshold for their industry and qualify for federal small business contracts. The SBA's interpretation helped Blackwater circumvent normal federal small business size standards. Without the SBA's loophole specifically created for Blackwater, the company would exceed the small business size standard by more than 250 employees and would not be eligible for federal small business contracts.

After reviewing the SBA Inspector General's report on Blackwater, the American Small Business League (ASBL) launched an independent investigation into the total dollar volume of contracts awarded to Blackwater from 2004 to 2008. The investigation was conducted by reviewing federal contracting data supplied by Fedmine.us. Fedmine.us is one of several companies with access to the XML data-feed from the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG), the federal government's repository of procurement data. As part of the ASBL's investigation, it reviewed contracts awarded to Blackwater Security Consulting, Blackwater Lodge & Training and Blackwater Target Systems LLC. The ASBL found that from 2004 to 2008 Blackwater received more than $1.07 billion in federal contracts coded as small business contracts.

This appears to be yet another example of a never-ending stream of federal investigations that have all found the Bush administration to have diverted billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to some of the largest corporations in the world. It is going to take the FBI to get to the bottom of this. The diversion of federal small business contracts to large corporations was first exposed in 2002, and yet no legislation has been passed to stop it. It is unconscionable that Congress has not passed legislation to stop this problem. Small businesses are sick and tired of members of Congress that are all talk with no action to back it up. This is a problem that should have been solved six years ago.

Blackwater Got Gig Protecting Obama In Afghanistan

2008-07-27T12:40:02Z

Sen. Barack Obama has not been a fan of private police like Blackwater in war zones, and some news outlets even reported that they were spurned for his trip last week to Afghanistan and Iraq. But Whispers confirms that Blackwater did handle the Democratic presidential candidate's security in Afghanistan and helped out in Iraq. What's more, Obama was overheard saying: "Blackwater is getting a bad rap." Since everything appeared to go swimmingly, maybe he will take firms like Blackwater out of his sights, the company's supporters hope.

Jeremy Scahill: Don't Believe the Hype: Blackwater is Here to Stay

2008-07-23T15:17:39Z

It seems that executives from Blackwater Worldwide, the Bush administration's favorite hired guns in Iraq and Afghanistan, are threatening to pack up their M4 assault rifles, CS gas and Little Bird helicopters and go back to the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina whence they came. Or at least that's how it is being portrayed in the media.

This story broke on Monday, when the Associated Press ran an article based on lengthy interviews with Blackwater's top guns. Since then, the story has picked up considerable steam and generated a tremendous amount of buzz online and in the press. After all, Blackwater has long been a key part of the US occupation and has been at the center of several high-profile scandals and deadly incidents. Add to that its owner's ties to the White House and the radical Religious Right in the US and it is clear why this is news. On top of that, Barack Obama -- a critic of Blackwater -- just completed a tour of Iraq, where he was touting his "withdrawal plan."

Among the headlines of the past 24 hours: "Blackwater Plans Exit From Guard Work," "Blackwater Getting Out Of Security Business," "Blackwater Sounds Retreat From Private Security Business," and "Blackwater to Leave Security Business." One blogger slapped this headline on his post: "Blackwater, Worst Organization Since SS, To End Mercenary Work."

Frankly, this is a whole lot of hype.

Anyone who thinks Blackwater is in serious trouble is dead wrong. Even if -- and this is a big if -- the company pulled out of Iraq tomorrow, here is the cold, hard fact: business has never been better for Blackwater and its future looks bright. More on this in a moment.

Back to the matter at hand:

Complaining that negative media attention and Congressional and criminal investigations are hurting business and that the Blackwater name had become a catch-all target for anti-war protesters, the company's brass told the AP Blackwater was shifting its focus to its other areas of government contracting, like law enforcement and military training, as well as logistics.

''The experience we've had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk,'' said Erik Prince, Blackwater's reclusive, 39 year-old founder and owner. Company president Gary Jackson said Blackwater has become like the "Coca-Cola" of war contractors, a brand representing all private companies servicing the Iraq occupation. Jackson charged the company had been falsely portrayed in the media, saying, ''If [the media] could get it right, we might stay in the business.''

All of this sounds a bit like whining on a children's playground.

Shame on journalists for not recognizing the noble work of the gallant heroes and patriots (who happen to be paid much more than US troops and have not been subjected to any system of law and who can leave the war zone any moment they choose) and forcing Blackwater to consider abandoning its (very profitable, billion dollar) charitable humanitarian campaign in Iraq. Remember, according to Blackwater, it is not a mercenary organization, it is a "Peace and Stability" operation employing "Global Stabilization Professionals."

While they were at it, Jackson and Prince should have blamed those wretched seventeen Iraqi civilians who had the audacity to step in front of the bullets flying out of Blackwater's weapons in Baghdad's Nisour Square last September. After all, following those killings, Erik Prince told the US Congress that the only innocent people his men may have killed or injured in Iraq died as a result of "ricochets" and "traffic accidents." If that is true, Nisour Square might have been the most lethal jaywalking incident in world history.

As for the current hype, the day after the AP story "broke," Blackwater's longtime spokesperson Anne Tyrrell was quick to clarify the matter. Blackwater, she said, has no immediate plans to exit the security business. "As long as we're asked, we'll do it," she said. Meanwhile, the State Department, which renewed Blackwater's contract for another year in April, says it has received no communication from the company indicating it is not going to continue on in Iraq. "They have not indicated to us that they are attempting to get out of our current contract," said Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy.

As of 2005-2006, according to the company, about half of Blackwater's business was made up of its security work in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and post-Katrina New Orleans. Today, Jackson says it is about 30%. ''If I could get it down to 2 percent or 1 percent, I would go there," he said in the interview.

Blackwater, like all companies operating in US war zones, is following political developments very closely. The company may be bracing for a possible shift in policy should Obama win in November. Blackwater could be contemplating resignation before termination. On the other hand, Obama has sent mixed messages on the future of war contractors under his Iraq policy. While he has been very critical of the war industry in general -- and Blackwater specifically -- he has also indicated he will not "rule out" using private armed contractors at least for a time in Iraq.

Perhaps Blackwater has already gotten what it needed from Iraq: over a billion dollars in contracts and a bad-ass reputation, which has served it well. In May, Blackwater boasted of "two successive quarters of unprecedented growth." Among its current initiatives:

--Erik Prince's private spy agency, Total Intelligence Solutions, is now open for business, placing capabilities once the sovereign realm of governments on the open market. Run by three veteran CIA operatives, the company offers "CIA-type services" to Fortune 1000 companies and governments.

--Blackwater was asked by the Pentagon to bid for a share of a whopping $15 billion contract to "fight terrorists with drug-trade ties" in a US program that targets countries like Colombia, Bolivia, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. The New York Times said it could be the company's "biggest job" ever.

--Blackwater is wrapping up work on its own armored vehicle, the Grizzly, as well as its Polar Airship 400, a surveillance blimp Blackwater wants to market to the Department of Homeland security for use in monitoring the US-Mexico border.

On top of this, Blackwater affiliate Greystone Ltd., registered offshore in Barbados, is an old-fashioned mercenary operation offering "personnel from the best militaries throughout the world" for hire by governments and private organizations. It also boasts of a "multi-national peacekeeping program," with forces "specializing in crowd control and less than lethal techniques and military personnel for the less stable areas of operation." Greystone's name has been conspicuously absent in this current news cycle.

At the end of the day, maybe this is just a story, a whole lot of a hype and a dash of misdirection from a pretty savvy company. Safe money would dictate that Blackwater plans on continuing to be, well, Blackwater.

Consider this: the other day Blackwater president Gary Jackson told the AP, "Security was not part of the master plan, ever."

Interesting claim. It was, in fact, Jackson himself who, back at the beginning of the Iraq occupation, described his goal for Blackwater as such: "I would like to have the largest, most professional private army in the world."

This piece originally appeared on The Guardian's Comment is Free. For more information, see Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

Blackwater Getting Out Of Security Business

2008-07-22T12:37:47Z

MOYOCK, N.C. — Blackwater Worldwide said Monday that it planned a shift away from the security contracting business that earned it millions of dollars and made it a flash point in the debate over the use of security contractors in war zones.

"The experience we've had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk," company founder and CEO Erik Prince told The Associated Press during a daylong visit to the company's North Carolina compound.

Patt Morrison: Blackwater and the Constitution

2008-07-08T19:28:27Z

The Third Amendment -- going, going ... ?

Nice work, Blackwater.

The Third Amendment says that "No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.''

Apart from the Founders' fondness for a weird scattershot use of commas [evidence that ''well-ordered'' militia thing], which would grieve the punctilious-about-punctuation heart of my elementary-school teacher Mrs. Sedeen, this amendment has been, as the new ''in'' word says, a bit of a legal outlier.

Thankfully, our history hasn't generated major Supreme Court wrangling over the government trying to billet Sergeant York in private houses; the biggest military incursion in private homes in modern memory is probably G.I. Joe.

But with Blackwater trying to set up a counterterrorism training facility along the Mexican border, San Diego has appealed to a federal court to stop it.

It doesn't precisely fit the language of the Third Amendment -- mercenaries won't be camping in the gazebo -- but it does go to the broader meaning of ''house'' and by extrapolation of ''home:'' does it include our neighborhoods? Our cities?

The Blackwater business is slick on two counts. With the government privatizing military functions, the feds could plausibly argue, "Heck, they're not soldiers. They don't wear the nation's uniform, and they're too well-paid to be soldiers.'' And as for that "time of war'' thing, aren't we always at war these days?''

Blackwater employees not being ''soldiers,'' they don't have some of the advantages of the uniform -- but don't seem to bear any of the limitations or encumbrances, either. National security beats full house, straight flush, royal flush, you name it. Remember the border fence going through in spite of hell, high water, property rights and environmental damage?

Nice try, San Diego, but don't expect any more support from the courts than the folks in the path of that border fence got. After all, there's a war on.

ZP Heller: Going Out of Business: How Much Longer Will Iraq Be for Sale?

2008-06-20T12:19:14Z

"Interrogation for Profit." That was the title of the lead op-ed in last Thursday's New York Times. It's a phrase straight of Brave New Films' documentary Iraq for Sale, and an issue we've been calling attention to for the last few years. But while it's gratifying to see a growing dialogue about how the Bush administration has shirked all accountability regarding the detainment and interrogation of Iraqi prisoners by hiring mercenary private contractors, this fight is far from over.

It is true, as the op-ed pointed out, that Congress is finally pushing to prohibit private contractors and limit the use of security guards in combat areas. According to Congressional Quarterly, the House has already passed such a ban and the Senate is set to consider its own version, which has been tacked onto a $612.5 billion defense authorization bill. Not surprisingly, however, President Bush is already threatening to veto, using the age-old boilerplate that banning private interrogators "would unduly limit the United States' ability to obtain intelligence needed to protect Americans from attack."

Protect Americans from attack? Once again, Bush is painting himself as our concerned father, though by now he's become an abusive parent. By suggesting that only the father can safeguard his children (us) from the supposedly imminent threat of terrorism, Bush is preying on our collective vulnerabilities in a post-9/11 world. For the last seven years, this has been Bush's chief line of defense, and it's a diabolically clever one because it has enabled his administration to run this war with zero accountability.

For what would happen if Congress were successful in banning or even limiting the use of private contractors? It would effectively mark the beginning of an end to the Bush administration and its shadow army of over 180,000 private contractors working for the U.S. in Iraq. It would mean that when there is another incident like last September's shooting in Nisour Square -- in which Blackwater guards were accused of brutally killing 17 Iraqi civilians without any provocation -- the Bush administration wouldn't be able to pour hundreds of millions more into "protective services" contracts for Blackwater and other companies. Perhaps this legislation would even open up the floodgates, signaling the corporate press to examine the Bush administration's reliance on contractors and facilitating the prosecution of contractors charged with lethal conduct.

This legislation could also mean accountability for those contractors who have profited enormously from the outsourcing of intelligence gathering. Our government wouldn't be able to continue outsourcing 70 percent of its intelligence budget. That colossal number, according to Tim Shorrock, author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, is equivalent to over $42 billion a year that our governments hands over to a "'secret army' of corporate vendors." These are profiteers like CACI International, whose interrogators faced no repercussions when they were accused of abusing Abu Ghraib prisoners with attacks dogs. Instead, the government awarded CACI a three-year $156 million contract to provide more army intelligence training and information technology support.

Proponents of the Congressional legislation to ban contractors are correct in pointing out that this war and the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners ought to be the responsibility of highly-trained military personnel, not poorly-prepared contractors whose only goal is to make profits. And while Bush will likely veto this bill, hopefully Congress will listen to Iraq for Sale, NY Times op-eds, and the bologsphere, and remain undaunted in its pursuit of oversight. At the very least, here's hoping these calls for accountability can drown out future admonitions from our abusive father.

Matthew-Lee Erlbach: American Democracy, LLC

2008-06-16T13:42:11Z

As the overture for an Iranian War crescendos from the orchestra of our complicit media, many truths, derided as aluminum foil hat-wearing fringe lunacy only too recently, are emerging more starkly and with more frequency:

George Bush, AP, Nov, 7, 2005:

We do not torture.

Tom Lasseter, McClatchy Newspapers, Jun 15, 2008:

American soldiers herded the detainees into holding pens of razor-sharp concertina wire, the kind that's used to corral livestock. The guards kicked, kneed and punched many of the men until they collapsed in pain. U.S. troops shackled and dragged other detainees to small isolation rooms, then hung them by their wrists from chains dangling from the wire mesh ceiling.

He goes on:

The McClatchy investigation found that top Bush administration officials knew within months of opening the Guantanamo detention center that many of the prisoners there weren't "the worst of the worst." From the moment that Guantanamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White said, it was obvious that at least a third of the population didn't belong there ... In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.

With this in mind, and with a current war waged on outright lies, how do we possibly render these new "threats" from Iran, for which this administration and media have been slowly and steadily building as a new front on the "War on Terror." After all, you can't just up and one day decide to declare war...or at least not two times in a row. You have to give it a little groove, ease into it. That way, the American people won't think anyone is crying "Wolf." Only in this case the boy isn't crying "Wolf;" he cries "Democracy" -- an old slogan for a dying brand.

The brand seems to have worked pretty well though. The United States is kind of like a big corporation, taking over other companies -- or countries -- and rebuilding them in their image. After Japan was carpet-bombed and then kicked with two Atomic bombs, the U.S. went in there and "helped them rebuild." We "rebuild" a lot.

We also install leaders, or CEOs, of many of these countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Chile, South Korea, etc. -- but all in the name of "Freedom" -- another slogan that masks the true economic intentions underneath ... a pig in a dress is still a pig. Truth be told, this particular piggy in Iran is about protecting U.S. economic interests in the Middle East. See: $5,812,353 billion spent on permanent U.S. fortress-bases in Iraq; See: Contracts with Blackwater, Halliburton, KBR, Boeing; See: Disney-themed amusement park...and probably Mickey Mouse wearing an American flag cape.

Weekly now, the extent to which the American people were duped is almost Shakespearean.
At any cost, and at the expense of all of us here who urgently listen to this minstrel show's many theme songs overplayed on all the mainstream media outlets, the battle cries in dealing with Iran should be heard with the lessons we continue to learn from the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. If not, then what we are experiencing now, both socially and economically, will be but a prologue to a very Shakespearean tragedy.

Time to put on our aluminum foil hats again.

Immunity For Private Guards Is Sticking Point In Iraq Security Deal

2008-06-10T11:32:12Z

Immunity from Iraqi law for foreign private guards is a sticking point in the deal between Washington and Baghdad over long-term US troop presence in the country, a top US official said Tuesday.

"The issue of contractors including (foreign) security contractors is a sensitive one, is a significant one," David Satterfield, the US State Department's top Iraq adviser told reporters in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

"There are outstanding issues, obviously, including issues focused on security side."

The presence of tens of thousands of foreign private security contractors has been heavily criticised, especially after last year's brutal massacre of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad by Blackwater company which offers protection to US officials in Iraq.