The Nation: Bush's Shadow Army (about Blackwater & other mercs)

[Bucky]

There's tens of thousands of them. They make up about 1/4th to 1/3rd of the armed Americans in Iraq. Sometimes they're called "contractors" but that's also a term used to describe the 100,000 truck drivers, cooks, and construction workers in Iraq--so it's a deliberately misleading term. This link has a video report along with an excellent article by Jeremy Scahill of The Nation.

An oughta-read.

[ourbluenation]

1. this paragraph....wow. . .

Contractors have provided the Bush Administration with political cover, allowing the government to deploy private forces in a war zone free of public scrutiny, with the deaths, injuries and crimes of those forces shrouded in secrecy. The Administration and the GOP-controlled Congress in turn have shielded the contractors from accountability, oversight and legal constraints. Despite the presence of more than 100,000 private contractors on the ground in Iraq, only one has been indicted for crimes or violations. "We have over 200,000 troops in Iraq and half of them aren't being counted, and the danger is that there's zero accountability," says Democrat Dennis Kucinich, one of the leading Congressional critics of war contracting.

[lyonn]

7. Are we about to see a corporate military that hires illegals

for wages an American couldn't work for? Otherwise called outsourcing the defense of our country. This is an outrageous concept but sometimes it appears we are heading in that direction.

P.S. Wesley Clark looks better all the time!

P.S.S. Was referring to Bucky's Clark reference. Duh

[yellerpup]

2. Chilling.

Thanks, Bucky.

[Benhurst]

3. Recommended #2

[paparush]

4. Democracy Now did a GREAT piece on Blackwater a few weeks back...

Have a listen -
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/26/1559232&mode=thread&tid=25

[livvy]

5. His book is very good.

It was just released in February. I'm about half way through it now.
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
Avalon Books 2007

[Rageneau]

6. The only new jobs Smirk has 'created' have been for mercenaries.

Were it not for military recruitment, Halliburton and KBR contractors sucking at Uncle Sugar's teat, and Blackwater hired guns, Bush would have a net LOSS of jobs for his tenure.

[Joanne98]

8. The company Blackwater was formed by a RW Christian...

If you watched Chris Hedges today on Book TV.. He was talking about that. The "christians" are planning an armed takeover of America. I'm reading his book American Fascists. It's horrifying..