Scahill: Blackwater now in the private intelligence business

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Raw Story

Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, is worried about the giant mercenary firm's latest foray into private intelligence. "They're marketing their services to not only foreign governments, but to Fortune 500 corporations," he recently told an interviewer.

The forthcoming paperback edition of Scahill's book on Blackwater, which appeared in hardcover in February 2007, will include 100 pages of new material, including a discussion of last September's shooting spree in Baghdad by Blackwater operatives -- which killed 17 Iraqi civilians but for which nobody has ever been charged.

"This is a company that has been accused of murdering Iraqi civilians," Scahill pointed out, "of shooting the bodyguard to the Iraqi vice-president, of causing blowback attacks on United States troops, of hurting the morale of the United States military -- that has cost United States taxpayers over a billion dollars for its operations in Iraq."

However, Scahill's greatest concern at present appears to be Blackwater's venture into the private intelligence business.

"Blackwater started a private intelligence company," he explained, "a private CIA essentially, called Total Intelligence Solutions. And the man running Total Intelligence Solutions is J. Cofer Black. He's a thirty-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency. He also was the guy who ran the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, the government-sanctioned kidnap-and-torture program."



Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Scahill_updates_Blackwater_book_with_new_0731.html

[Bozita]

1. They'll be obeying the law, won't they?

*sarcasm off*

Take a peek...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3417733

[ixion]

2. and funny timing thing there... * just "overhauled" the intelligence community

who wants to be that Blackwater will profit handsomely from this "overhaul".

[flashl]

3. Remember Repubs cry for 'smaller government'? The "bloat" from outsourcing is the missing story. nt

[Auggie]

4. Private Intelligence? As in spying on other companies?

Oh boy... :hide:

[Demeter]

5. More LIkely Spying on Employees

and maybe customers. Someone who can't spy back, or fight deep pockets.

Or Congresscritters, for blackmail purposes.

[Bozita]

7. The intel behind the anti-union law firms?

I hate to even think of how this would work out.

[Demeter]

11. Shades of Henry Ford!

In the early days of Ford Motor Company there existed a security department of sorts called the Ford Service Department. The job of the Service Department was to deal with the growing labor unrest and the labor unions that were starting to form. Ford had instituted a policy called "speed up" by which the speed of the assembly lines were increased slightly every week and employees were feeling the strain.

The head of the Service Department was Harry Bennett. At 5 feet, 6 inches he was in great physical shape due to his years of boxing.

Legend traces Bennett's relationship to Ford Motor Company back to a brawl in the streets of New York. Bennett was a sailor, just off ship, and was saved from being thrown into jail by an acquaintance of Henry Ford who happened to witness the fight. The police were convinced by Ford's friend that Bennett wasn't at fault and he was released.

By further coincidence, Henry Ford's acquaintance was on his way to a meeting with Ford and decided to take Bennett along with him. At the meeting, Henry was more interested in the tale of the street fight than the business at hand and offered Bennett a security job at the Rouge plant.

Rumor has it that Bennett's interview for the job was short. He was asked only one question by Henry as to his capabilities. "Can you shoot?" asked Henry.

Bennett liked to talk and act tough. He had a target painted on one of the filing cabinets in his basement office at the Rouge. Visitors and co-workers were puzzled by the muffled sounds of Bennett's air pistol when he took to bouts of inter-office target practice.

Bennett furthered his tough guy image by keeping lions and tigers as pets. They roamed his western-style ranch that he built in Ann Arbor. Many Ford workers were surprised when Bennett would show up at the plant with a lion or a tiger on a leash and tour the plant.

It didn't take Bennett long to assemble a collection of football players, boxers, wrestlers and even Detroit river gang members as Service Department employees. Bennett possessed no car making skills at all. His success with the company came solely from his close relationship with Henry Ford and his ability to get things done. All Henry had to do was ask, "Can you take care of that Harry?" and it was done.

Bennett was so loyal to Henry Ford that during a newspaper interview a journalist asked Bennett, "If Henry Ford asked you to black out the sky tomorrow, what would you do?" Bennett thought for a moment as said, "I might have a little trouble arranging that one but you'd see 100,000 workers coming through the plant gates with dark glasses on tomorrow." Harry Bennett drove over to Henry Ford's Fairlane mansion every morning just to ask his boss if there was any place he could drive him to today. By the time the Model A production was in full swing, the morning meetings were a regular habit. For the best part of 20 years, Harry Bennett either picked up Henry Ford in the morning or took him home at night.

Eventually Harry Bennett rose to the highest ranks of Ford Motor Company as Henry Ford's selection for president of the company. This did not set well with Ford family members. In 1945 Henry Ford II was summoned to Henry Ford's office and informed that he was going to be the new president of Ford Motor Company.

In one of Henry Ford II's first acts, he walked down to Bennett's basement office and told Bennett his services were no longer required. Tough talking Bennett got in a parting shot by telling Ford, "You're taking over a billion-dollar company that you haven't contributed a thing to." That afternoon, Bennett burned all of his company records.

The bizarre and ruthless Bennett era was finally over. Afterwards, Henry Ford II went to Henry Ford to inform him of his first executive decision: "I went to him (Henry Ford) with my guard up. I was sure he was going to blow my head off." Henry Ford, quite nonchalantly said "Well, now Harry is back on the streets where he started."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Bennett

[Bozita]

14. Harry Bennett's home (castle) on Geddes Road on the Huron River was a source of endless rumors.

Turrets, secret passageways, that kind of stuff.

[Pierre.Suave]

32. I wish I had known this story when I was there for school...

All those years in Ann Arbor, wasted...

:P

[saigon68]

39. `

[DemoTex]

31. Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C comes to mind ..

With its main office in Greenville, S.C., and 22 offices nationwide, Ogletree is one of the largest anti-union legal teams in the United States. Ogletree represents more than half of the nation’s Fortune 500 companies and has defeated almost every union it has engaged.

http://www.uaw.org/solidarity/05/0605/feature08.cfm

[lunatica]

6. Doing the company's dirty work

Not only spying but also torturing and even terminating the competition. Whistleblowers will be rendered to jump off tall buildings. People will be disappeared, and of course, CEOs will be protected at all times. They'll be the private SS troops for the corporations who will rule the planet.

There will be no disgruntled customers.

But fear not, they will keep us happily doped on teevee reality shows and celebrity gossip. We won't notice a thing.

[crimsonblue]

25. Not to mention

that corporate espionage is a federal offense.... So this company is specializing in violating the Constitution... God I hate Bush.....

[bperci108]

8. The Return of the Pinkertons and Baldwin-Felts gun-thugs.

You know; those fine Americans who, in the employ of the robber barons, slaughtered men, women and children with impunity at places like Ludlow, Colorado and Matewan, West Virginia and lynched labor organizers like Frank Little.

:wtf:



I wonder where the first massacre of workers and their families will be?


The circle is now complete, it would appear....

[Truth4Justice]

26. History repeating itself.....again.

[coalition_unwilling]

36. I predict it will be when one of the major money-center banks fails

in the next six months (like Citibank), as its CDOs are essentially written off and it shuts down. Municipal police will be unable to quell the unrest from depositors trying (and maybe failing) to withdraw funds from their demand-deposit accounts. and, just like in post-Katrina New Orleans, a panicked RW governor (in this case, Schwarzenazi) will call on the Blackwater goons to "restore order." There will be pitched battles in the streets of LA, courtesy of Schwarzenazi and his mercenary slime-oids.

Don't believe me? Check out what happened when IndyMac failed in Torrance, CA just a couple weeks ago. And IndyMac wasn't even a major money-center bank. True, it was only LAPD against citizenry (like that's ever going to change), but we all know how well the LAPD does in riots. Bratton and Villaraigosa are worthless flunkies of the capitalist system and will be unable to calm people the way a Robert F. Kennedy might have back in the 60s. The IndyMac situation in Torrance could have easily gotten much worse very quickly.

[chill_wind]

9. And America continues through it's pleasant sleepwalk

toward nightmares we may not wake from....

[Truth4Justice]

30. Isn't' it funny how so many people are out of work, yet you wouldn't know it from TV alone.

The boob-tube is exactly that when it comes to real reporting of the news.

f it were not for the "internets" and progressive radio, lots of people still wouldn't see whats coming down the pike, or is now present, for that matter.

"Something wicked this way comes".

I had hoped I would never see such a time ever come upon us all once more, alas.

[Frisbee]

10. I expect...

anyone who tries to kill their contracts or shut them down will meet an untimely end, regardless of how high placed they may be. I think the comparisons to the SS and the Pinkertons are very appropriate. Bush/Cheney have done too many horrible things to keep track of, but in the long run, empowering Blackwater may make the short list of the worst of the worst.

[Demeter]

12. Then Why Is Poppy Bush Still Breathing?

We should be so lucky.

[Homer12]

13. Black Helicopters

It's funny how in the 1990's the militiant conspiracy winguts talked about a concpiracy secret force black helicopters in the sky's.

They must have been owned by Blackwater the entire time. They scare me, a private military operating in the UNited States.

[Uncle Joe]

15. These mercenary corporations are a threat to the publics' government.

Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, RamboLiberal.

[Truth4Justice]

28. You mean the mega-corporations government, don't you?

[Uncle Joe]

33. Well they do have control of it, but technically speaking according to the owner's manual it's ours

if we want it bad enough.

[KoKo]

16. DAMMIT! It NEVER ENDS! Thanks for the Post and a BIG K&R!

These Criminals are throwing so much at us we don't have time to analyze and think about what they are doing.

It's Naomi Klein's "Shock and Awe" over and over and over.

I Bookmark, and Read...and it takes so much time. Those who have two and three jobs don't have the time to do this! Most of our DU'ers, including myself, have other jobs we have to do so our reading takes up time breaks from our jobs or our families.

What a DREADFUL TIME WE LIVE IN! I pray for all of us to have the strength to keep going. The hardest road is still the one we have more to trod. I don't know how many more we can have on this "footpath" to make it.. :-( But, a :toast: to those on that road...who are flagging but still with us.

[Truth4Justice]

29. Amen to that!

[robinlynne]

17. oh shit!

[chill_wind]

18. Jeremy Scahill has reached a lot of people, but he needs help.

Spread the facts.


Know Your Enemy

http://thedishpanchronicles.blogspot.com/2007/05/stop-blackwater-1-know-your-enemy.html

[MadrasT]

19. Aw, geez...

... just when I talk myself down and stop hyperventilating over the latest outrage... a new one comes along to replace it.

Gotta talk to the doc about upping my meds... ;-)

K&R

[chill_wind]

20. ...

[HCE SuiGeneris]

21. A private Gestapo in Amurika.

We've come along way, baby!

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[Truth4Justice]

27. That sums it up nicely.

[Bozita]

22. Hello? This is Walmart calling. We've got a possible union organizing problem. Can you help?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3418702&mesg_id=3418702

Scary!

[silverweb]

23. The privatized FBI/CIA.

Now they'll hold two tiers in the new capitalist pyramid.

Guess just who will be sandwiched in relatively comfortable infotainment-fed ignorance ("for your own safety, of course!") between those two tiers while the new robber barons plunder the developing world....

[EFerrari]

24. I thought this edition was out weeks ago.

[Supersedeas]

34. the revolving door of Black Ops -- accountability??

[Odin2005]

35. The soldiers of Corporate Feudalism.

All these mercenaries should be hanged for treason. Mercenary armies are incompatible with Democracy

[saigon68]

37. Every Now and then they get their JUST REWARD

Especially when the residents of Fallujah invited them to a "SPECIAL BARBEQUE"

[roamer65]

38. They know they can't trust the US military when martial law comes.

The US military will fragment as some in it still do believe in the Constitution and the republic. They know they can trust their whores at Blackwater.

[fascisthunter]

40. fascist corporate intelligence

this company should be outlawed.