So... Was Blackwater part of highest level, innermost circle strategizing within the Bush admin?

From The Nation,

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090831/scahill1

Blackwater: CIA Assassins?
By Jeremy Scahill

August 20, 2009


<snip>
Reached by telephone, Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said that because of her oath of secrecy on sensitive intelligence issues, she could neither confirm nor deny that Congress was aware of Blackwater's involvement in this program before the Times report. Schakowsky also declined to comment on whether Blackwater came up at a June briefing by CIA director Leon Panetta, which she attended. That briefing sparked calls for an investigation into whether Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to conceal an assassination program from Congress.

"What we know now, if this is true, is that Blackwater was part of the highest level, the innermost circle strategizing and exercising strategy within the Bush administration," Schakowsky told The Nation. "Erik Prince operated at the highest and most secret level of the government. Clearly Prince was more trusted than the US Congress because Vice President Cheney made the decision not to brief Congress. This shows that there was absolutely no space whatsoever between the Bush administration and Blackwater."

As The Nation has reported, Blackwater continues to operate on the US government payroll in both Iraq and Afghanistan, where it works for the State Department and the Defense Department. The CIA will not confirm whether Blackwater continues to work for the agency (or, for that matter, if it ever has).

Blackwater's work for the CIA was the result of meetings in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 between Prince and Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard, then-executive director of the CIA, the agency's number-three man. Krongard and Prince, according to a former Blackwater executive interviewed by The Nation, "were good buddies." In a 2006 interview for my book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Krongard said that the company was hired to provide security for the CIA in Afghanistan. "Blackwater got a contract because they were the first people that could get people on the ground," Krongard said. "The only concern we had was getting the best security for our people. If we thought Martians could provide it, I guess we would have gone after them."


<snip>

Maybe it's all one big battle of the Abrahamic theocracies.

An Abrahamic cluster fuck, so to speak.

:freak:

tails we loose

Can't they get them for everything else? Was it some sort of blanket immunity and can it be offered after the fact?

I'm serious hoping the our new administration isn't AFRAID of bringing these thugs to justice.

Prince was a member of the CNP (Council for National Policy).

from Sourcewatch,

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Council_for_National_Policy

Council for National Policy

The Council for National Policy is a secretive forum that was formed in 1981 by Tim LaHaye as a networking tool for leading US conservative political leaders, financiers and religious right activist leaders.

The group, which meets three times a year, promotes "Educational conferences for national leaders in the fields of business, government, religion and academia to explore national policy alternatives. Weekly newsletters are distributed to all members to keep them apprised of member activities and public policy issues. A semi-annual journal is produced from membership meeting speeches."<1>

In 2001, ABC News reported: "The CNP describes itself as a counterweight against liberal domination of the American agenda."<2>

Others are not so kind to the organization and its motives. Mark Crispin Miller states that the CNP is a "highly secretive... theocratic organization -- what they want is basically religious rule" (A Patriot Act).

Barry W. Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told the New York Times about the CNP meeting ahead of the 2004 Republican National Convention, "The real crux of this is that these are the genuine leaders of the Republican Party, but they certainly aren't going to be visible on television next week."<3>

I believe they were also responsible for selecting Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate.

http://www.geocities.com/ck4829/roster.html

note the names listed under "A," for starters.

which one sticks out like a sore appendage?

but it is missing Erik Prince. I believe KO even brought up his membership on Countdown.

lots of ppl on that list

A plausible twist in the cheney "murder for hire" scheme.

but Chimpy elevated it to an art form. I left the contractor I worked for in early 02 after it was evident to me what was really going on behind the scenes

Hell's bells, we can't even convict DeLay or indict Rove...does anybody actually think we (whoever 'we' is nowadays) can nail these fuckers?

It's all just a disgusting sick joke.
:grr:

based not only on what I'm reading here, but on the fact that they had a big presence in New Orleans after Katrina, apparently enforcing FEMA's inaction.

Some of the peace groups and other volunteers who went there to help clean up and restore the city wrote blogs with pictures and videos of what was left of New Orleans immediately after Katrina. Some of them showed armed men who identified themselves as employees of Blackwater. They were always harassing the volunteers who took pains to avoid them. One picture showed two Blackwater employees sitting on the steps of a building with a machine gun on a tripod between them to "keep order," even though the city was peaceful at the time.

This was during the period when the Bush administration was trying to keep the residents from going home and trying to keep "outsiders" and "agitators" out. So if Bush was not working in concert with Blackwater why would their employees have been provided accommodations at the best remaining hotels, putting volunteers and others who were actually trying to work to restore the city out on the street or in the makeshift shelters they worked to make for themselves? Why were the Blackwater employees allowed to have and possess weapons including weapons which you cannot possess legally in this country unless you are in the military? Why did they seem to be in charge of local government, which allowed them to heckle and sometimes beat residents and volunteers.

They have been Bush's paid thugs all along and you bet at the highest levels they were in on his plans and doing what he and Cheney wanted done.

armed to the teeth, and trained to kill.

I could hardly believe what I saw or the fact that Bush made a conscious decision later not to spend the money to strengthen the levees to prevent a second catastrophe like the one caused by Katrina. He had them put back the way they were before the storm, and some of them still have cracks in them caused by the storm.

As for Blackwater there are hardly any words to describe what they did. They were like an advance army occupying a destroyed city to begin a coup d'etat. Only it was here, and it was us, and few people had the courage to call it what it was. Another link in the chain Bush was building to solidify his nascent dictatorship.

"Buzzy" Krongard's name was brought up in conjunction with the short selling of airline stock done through the bank he used to head. that, coupled with the recently posted thread, "Blackwater Director Let 9/11 Hijackers into US, then Killed, Tortured the Remaining Witnesses" imply an association prior to 9/11, and quite frankly, provides a partial means to explaining the security breakdown (and MIHOP)

(http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6363469)

very interesting!

How about that.

Conspiracies in the W administration - that's just crazy talk!

Wonder what other crazy conspiracy theories aren't just theories anymore?