Why did Obama just extend a contract to Blackwater?

New contract for mercenaries
Independent journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, reveals that Blackwater is continuing to receive government contracts, despite disturbing new allegations about its founder.

August 11, 2009


Blackwater's heavily armed security forces
JUST DAYS before two former Blackwater employees alleged in sworn statements filed in federal court that the company's owner, Erik Prince, "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," the Obama administration extended a contract with Blackwater for more than $20 million for "security services" in Iraq, according to federal contract data obtained by The Nation.


http://tinyurl.com/my3qxv

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This isn't the change I voted for. This group is an ugly remnant of Bushco that needs to be put out of business.

Recommended.

they are probably so imbedded in the function of iraqi & afghanistan wars he can't do squat....imho

Who is the head of the Military?

Did things change that much under Bushco?

No lone right wing nut is going to be the one that attacks the president. You can be damn sure if it happens it will have something to do with our military or private military companies.

n/t

In a loose way you are correct.

During and ever since the end of WW II where war industry suppliers grew gigantic in proportion of other industries, the U S government over the several decades has repeatedly and mistakenly adopted the bad habit of "marrying" their private sector contractors which most of us recently learned, as we all now know, resulted in thousand upon thousand "limited bid and no bid" government contracts awarded to the few, now very select, group of "PET" government contractors that now more or less dictate to government how much government is going to pay for products the manufacture and other services they render.

However, in order anyone at all to place any blame on Obama and the democrats, one would have to lay the same sets of blame on every congress and president starting back with Harry Truman, the congresses and military leaders of that era and all the way up to the present.

What do I mean by "government marrying contractors?" This is not a bit complicated to answer at all, because when I was an independent home building contractor, I made the mistake of marrying two of my subcontractors, plumbing and electrical contractors, by trusting them to be honest with me because we had been life long friends since grade school.

My mistake was from the day I opened my business, for not "letting" out my plumbing and electrical work to be done as open bids to where all the plumbing and electrical contractors in my locale could submit competitive bids, which is the exact same mistake our government has been making with its subcontractors for the past sixty years. It turned out my trusted life long friends on completion of each new promect just handed me their bill that kept ooching up higher and higher from project to project. When I did begin to let open to all contractor bids, my two life long contractor friends bids weren't even in the same ballpark as the three lowest bids submitted. And when I awarded the contracts to the lowest bidders my friends became angry and haven't spoken to me since and that was well over twenty five years ago.

Now for the government. The government has a much larger problem than I had in resolving the contractor marriage problem.....there are few if any other contractors around, especially smaller or start up contractors, able to submit competitive bids against the established giants, much less lower bids, giants that could, would, and already have deviously under-cut any other bid and then scream cost overruns after being awarded a contract which has happened more than a few times in recent and distant past.

In my opinion, the only way giant government contractors like McDonald, Boeing, General Electric, General Dynamics Electric Boat, General Foods, et al ux, can be brought under control is for the U S Government to subsidise, ie front money to smaller contractors and/or start up contractors, that submitted legitimate lower bids, that could then could gear up and produce for government cheaper, and save taxpayers billions in the long run. But even this may not completely resolve the problem due to well documented inside government corruption in both the elect and across the board civilian/military bureaucracy.

There is absolutely no reason or excuse for the U S Government to be paying right at thirty million dollars "each" for the cheapest aircraft it purchases and and surely not be paying right at or just over two billion dollars per each production line aircraft, the B-2 bomber which the U S Government does faster than a broken/jackpotting Vegas slot machine. In my opinion we don't need anymore three and four billion dollars each new naval aircraft carriers. The thirteen we now have should be plenty. In my lone opinion we don't need more forty seven million dollars each Abhrams tanks. The near five thousand of those lil beauties should be enough to thwart any enemy our nation may have to face.

What we have friends is a federal government run amok where it concerns our tax dollars and the way that government dishes our hard earned tax dollars out like it was chum to a feeding frenzy of contractor sharks.

Do I have all the answers? No and I don't pretend to. But I do believe that the first thing that needs to be done is to clean the corrupt scum out of our all but dried up government pond at all levels and do it as soon as possible. We can talk about state and local government corruption, two separate barrels of apples and what to do about them later.


That's my say and I stand by it.

They got real big over the last few years. A huge heavily armed mercenary group that works for Cheney.

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"Despite publicly breaking with an American private security company in Iraq, the State Department continues to award the company, formerly known as Blackwater, more than $400 million in contracts to fly its diplomats around Iraq, guard them in Afghanistan, and train security forces in antiterrorism tactics at its remote camp in North Carolina."

our tax money employing murderous, religious bigots and criminals.

Looks like a couple more renewals before we completely cut them out of the picture. It sucks.

IMHO??????

We'll eventually get rid of them - apparently they can't just leave without suitable alternatives.

Unless you think Obama never plans to eliminate them?

"When the department announced it would not renew the company’s security contract in Iraq, it cited the refusal of the Iraqi government to issue a license for the company to operate in the country. But Xe has continued to supply aviation services to diplomats in Iraq under a two-year contract worth $217 million. That contract expires Sept. 3, and a spokesman for the State Department, Ian C. Kelly, said the work would be given to another security and logistics company, DynCorp International.

Xe’s contract to supply personal security to American diplomats in Afghanistan, which began in 2006 and runs through 2011, is worth $210 million. Xe earns $6 million under a three-year contract to train foreign security guards in antiterrorism tactics."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/us/22intel.html


On edit: Xe is Blackwater's new name.

:sarcasm:

haven't they been linked to the use of certain database software in targeting certain microbiologists?

the establishment is beyond corrupt, a single individual will not solve this problem.
both sides of the isle are corrupt, Apathy is rearing its ugly head again.

It is their decision. He has his hands full with other problems.

...I don't see where it says the contract was "extended" in the details of the article (other than the quoted portion at the top). What it looks like it's saying is, the contract with Blackwater will run out on September 3rd. The $20 million is just coverage on the ariel portion of the contract that already existed. So this is just a "covering expenses" sort of thing?

I think?

Though I'm very tired and could be reading this all wrong...

Well, this faux outrage is what I'd expect from the source: http://socialistworker.org/2009/08/11/new-contract-for-mercenaries



Now, first of all, it's not like we can immediately halt operations/services that are a part of a two complex wars.

Secondly, it's not like there's another vendor who could seamlessly step in.

Finally, let's hope that prosecutions will be forthcoming and that Blackwater's services will no longer be needed, ever, again.

Meantime, feel free to panic. It's fun.

Increase. Get it? You calm the fuck down. I say it is wrong to be paying these fuck anything after Bushco is gone 8 months. You don't like that then tough shit. If you check my posts I am not an Obama basher, but this is wrong and I call him on it.

The details and intricacies of the aviation contract are above my pay grade, or I might be able to suggest an alternative vendor.

Perhaps you've got a short list of providers who could fulfill the contract.

:donut:

Thanks for that great suggestion!

:hurts:

:thumbsdown:

Blackwater-backed Torture Flights Caught in the UK

Posted by Adam Howard at 9:12 PM on June 10, 2007.

The most secret and powerful mercenary firm in America has been bankrolling planes to fly terrorism suspects to secret prisons.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/53723/#more

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This is called "enhanced" aviation. You get strapped in to your seat on the Blackwater express, flown to
an exotic destination, and turned over to some real kick ass torturers. You may or may not have information.
That doesn't matter. It's the bureaucratic imperative - the globalization of torture.

But it's just a add on to an aviation contract...

few of them have joined the military needed to prosecute their adored wars.

graphic you've come up with and unfortunately the panicmob has jumped the proverbial shark.

Read my reply to spanone's "i imagine the military industrial complex has him by the balls" that fairly well explains why there are no likely vendors that could step in and which is totally aside the fact that the Blackwater mercenaries "should have never" been engaged in the first place.

They are very similar:


"The basic Gestapo law passed by the government in 1936 gave the Gestapo carte blanche to operate without judicial oversight. The Gestapo was specifically exempted from responsibility to administrative courts, where citizens normally could sue the state to conform to laws. As early as 1935, however, a Prussian administrative court had ruled that the Gestapo's actions were not subject to judicial review."

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

"The legal status of Xe and other security firms in Iraq is a subject of contention.<131> Two days before he left Iraq, L. Paul Bremer signed "Order 17" giving all Americans associated with the CPA and the American government immunity from Iraqi law.<132><133> A July 2007 report from the American Congressional Research Service indicates that the Iraqi government still has no authority over private security firms contracted by the U.S. government.<134>"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_Worldwide#Legal_status_and_oversight_of_Blackwater_Worldwide

I'm going to start using that one.

:evilfrown:

add this to the list of MANY...

and just think - as the obama cultists here seem to love to spew: It's been only 8 months in to his term!!!

''.... significantly increase funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other nongovernmental organizations to support civic activists in repressive societies.''

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/02/AR2008030201982.html

A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
by William Blum
Common Courage Press, 2000/ 2005

The CIA created the NED as a convenient front to fulfill a variety of missions under the cloak of respectability, and, as usual, counting on the almost complete support of the corporate media.

HOW MANY AMERICANS COULD IDENTIFY the National Endowment for Democracy? An organization which often does exactly the opposite of what its name implies. The NED was set up in the early 1980s under President Reagan in the wake of all the negative revelations about the CIA in the second half of the 1970s. The latter was a remarkable period. Spurred by Watergate-the Church Committee of the Senate, the Pike Committee of the House and the Rockefeller Commission, created by the president, were all busy investigating the CIA. Seemingly every other day there was a new headline about the discovery of some awful thing, even criminal conduct, the CIA had been mixed up in for years. The Agency was getting an exceedingly bad name, and it was causing the powers-that-be much embarrassment.

Something had to be done. What was done was not to stop doing these awful things. Of course not. What was done was to shift many of these awful things to a new organization, with a nice sounding name-the National Endowment for Democracy. The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities.

It was a masterpiece. Of politics, of public relations and of cynicism. Thus it was that in 1983, the National Endowment for Democracy was set up to “support democratic institutions throughout the world through private, nongovernmental efforts”. Notice the “nongovernmental”-part of the image, part of the myth. In actuality, virtually every penny of its funding comes from the federal government, as is clearly indicated in the financial statement in each issue of its annual report. NED likes to refer to itself as an NGO (non-governmental organization) because this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that an official US government agency might not have. But NGO is the wrong category. NED is a GO.

http://www.bestcyrano.org/filesdepot/?p=777

You know, that "democracy" where the "moderates" always win and the corporate 'leet always get their concessions.

NED is neither national nor democratic. They are well endowed in the cash area. Vin Weber was the chair. What could be more "democratic?"

:hi:

You are right, as in correct

Right means might;)

Another reason for impeachment PRE election: After the election, the point is moot. Dirty deeds continue. No matter who's in charge. No matter who's Unitary Executive.

I want my country back.

This is the original publication, the very pro Obama Nation magazine. They ran it first. I don't think that they're a "bullshit source." They break very good stories that are often times neglected. If multiple sources reprint it, including www.socialistworker.org so what. Sachill didn't write it for that web site. It was for The Nation.

If by "bullshit source," you mean Jeremy Scahill, that doesn't fit either. Sachill has shown great courage in the past but his present work on Blackwater is exemplary. He's writing about a firm whose CEO/founder stands accused of killing witnesses against crimes of which he is accused. That means Scahill is putting his own life at risk. Certainly he's no "bullshit" source. He's walking the walk for a new standard of ethics in government.

So who is the "bullshit" source?

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:wow: :spray: :rofl: "DEBUNKED by response #15 above." :rofl:

Two different things.

After all, they're eminently qualified.

BTW :sarcasm:

But the contracts don't expire until September's end as is posted here on this thread.

Its not fair to presume that Obama personally signs every government procurement contract.

This was probably done multiple levels below the Whitehouse.