So here we are flapping away around the celebrity news of the day. Like a murder of crows around the most recent roadkill.
Fat little Karl Turdblossom is resigning.
Oh MY!!!
Meanwhile…regular U.S. Armed Forces troops are now outnumbered in Iraq by privately contracted mercenaries.
That’s right.
You read it here first.
By JEREMY SCAHILL
If you think the U.S. has only 160,000 troops in Iraq, think again.
With almost no congressional oversight and even less public awareness, the Bush administration has more than doubled the size of the U.S. occupation through the use of private war companies.
There are now almost 200,000 private “contractors” deployed in Iraq by Washington. This means that U.S. military forces in Iraq are now outsized by a coalition of billing corporations whose actions go largely unmonitored and whose crimes are virtually unpunished.
Read on.
Compared with this news, Karl Rove is about as important to our day-to-day survival as are Britney Spears or Lindsey Lohan. And serving essentially the same purpose. The master of misdirection is HIMSELF a form of misdirection. Granted, his disinformational work helped to enable the formation of this private army, but as I have been predicting for several years, once the velvet glove of media hypnosis begins to become somewhat less effective…and ALL trances wear off eventually, bet on it… the iron fist will come out here. It cannot happen otherwise. The ruling class criminals who have engineered this situation cannot let the power escape their hands, because the risk of real retribution…MORTAL retribution, retribution with extreme prejudice……is too great.
Did you know that during the French Revolution essentially the entire ruling class of France was found guilty by people’s tribunals and executed? Yup.
In a country of roughly 30 million people, that means that quite possibly a number a high as 1 out of every 1000 people were executed for having been involved in the ongoing scam that was Royal France in the 1700s.
Right HERE!!!
Of course…there was widespread poverty and even more naked injustice going on there than there is in the U.S., but, hey…one truly serious terror hit (Say one that killed a couple of hundred thousand here) and the fragile infrastructure that brings Americans their pop tarts and greaseburgers would collapse like a house of cards, and soon after that you would see the reality of what is currently infrastructured here. I mean, New York City couldn’t even handle a serious motherfucking thunderstorm last week!!! Let’s get real, here. The entire system is dysfunctional and getting worse.
Rove is leaving?
All that says to me is that the people behind this criminal enterprise that we still laughingly refer to as The United States of America are and have been feverishly preparing for some sort of unprecedented form of military government. The “fool me once?” rule has been stretched to its limit and the massive Ratpublican losses in the 2006 elections plus the obvious growing opposition of much of the military and intelligence apparatus of this country to their policies were the final pieces of information that they needed. Dumb motherfuckers that they really are. Their media-based scam is coming to the end of its effectiveness, and more…drastic measures are going to be needed if they are not themselves to hear the snicker-snack of contemporary guillotines in their late night dreams and early morning knock-on-the door awakenings.
I mean…The United States of America!!!??? After the Vietnam War, the (“still unsolved”) assassinations of the ’60s + ’70s, Iran Contra, the breakdown of the voting system in 2000 and 2004 and the current War in Iraq (And damned near everyplace else on earth that isn’t primarily Northern European in its majority population), what “United States of America” are we talking about here!!! The one that we were hypno-taught in our schoolrooms, movie theaters and TV-lit living rooms?
Please.
Back to that statistic from the French Revolution.
Let us say that genetically speaking the number of users as opposed to the number of used…the percentage of gifted thieves as opposed to the percentage of those who tend to be robbed… holds roughly true in human populations. In my own life I can see 1 out of 1000 as a good estimate. In the small towns and urban neighborhoods in which I have lived, in fairly easily perceived cultural subdivisions (like the NYC music world and the even smaller professional jazz and latin music subcultures), in the high school I attended…1 out of 1000 resonates just about right. Let’s use that .1% and extrapolate the numbers here in the U.S.
United States population?
UH oh!!!
Three hundred million and counting!!!
Three hundred thousand of ’em have to be worried SICK about their own worthless necks!!! The Enron brigade, up and down the system.
And mirabile dictu!!!…why, looka here!!!
Since the launch of the “global war on terror,” the administration has systematically funneled billions of dollars in public money to corporations like Blackwater USA , DynCorp, Triple Canopy, Erinys and ArmorGroup. They have in turn used their lucrative government pay-outs to build up the infrastructure and reach of private armies so powerful that they rival or outgun some nation’s militaries.
“I think it’s extraordinarily dangerous when a nation begins to outsource its monopoly on the use of force and the use of violence in support of its foreign policy or national security objectives,” says veteran U.S. Diplomat Joe Wilson, who served as the last U.S. ambassador to Iraq before the 1991 Gulf War.
The billions of dollars being doled out to these companies, Wilson argues, “makes of them a very powerful interest group within the American body politic and an interest group that is in fact armed. And the question will arise at some time: to whom do they owe their loyalty?”
Actually, Mr. Wilson is being a little…optimistic, here.
There will be NO question about to whom their loyalty is owed if and when talky-talk push comes to automatic weapons-based shove.
None whatsoever.
They will dance for who brung ’em.
Bet on it.
More?
Sure.
Some of this outsourcing is happening in sensitive sectors, including the intelligence community. “This is the magnet now. Everything is being attracted to these private companies in terms of individuals and expertise and functions that were normally done by the intelligence community,” says former CIA division chief and senior analyst Melvin Goodman. “My major concern is the lack of accountability, the lack of responsibility. The entire industry is essentially out of control. It’s outrageous.”
RJ Hillhouse, a blogger who investigates the clandestine world of private contractors and U.S. intelligence, recently obtained documents from the Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI) showing that Washington spends some $42 billion annually on private intelligence contractors, up from $17.54 billion in 2000. Currently that spending represents 70 percent of the U.S. intelligence budget going to private companies.
Perhaps it is no surprise then that the current head of the DNI is Mike McConnell, the former chair of the board of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, the private intelligence industry’s lobbying arm. Hillhouse also revealed that one of the most sensitive U.S. intelligence documents, the Presidential Daily Briefing, is prepared in part by private companies, despite having the official seal of the U.S. intelligence apparatus.
Scared yet?
I am.
Read this whole article I have been referencing. It is quite informative.
The Mercenary Revolution, by Jeremy Scahill. Read his book, too. Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. If you have the courage to do so.
And ask yourselves…”Why is THIS not a primary topic of debate in the current presidential nomination wars?”
And then envision a sniper’s rifle pointed at YOUR head for the real answer to that question.
These people are serious. They are the kinds of people who ran the assassination games inside of and outside of the U.S. during the ’60s, ’70s and later, domestically AND internationally.
Now they have found a way to be free of troublesome concepts like congressional oversight. (Lame as that may have been it was still better than nothing.)
And they WILL fuck you up.
Scared yet?
Start making some noise.
Because you never even HEAR the gunshot that takes you out.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG
Serious warnings from seriously bad people?
Let’s talk this one up, please.
It literally DWARFS all other consdierations if you look at the likely possibilty that the current form of Neo-Con rule is rapidly coming to an end.
Bet on it.
The question is not whether they will lose the next election.
That is pretty much of a given.
The real question is…if they are certainly going to lose electorally…what are they going to DO about it?
‘Cuz they gots to do something.
It ain’t about their place in history or any of that other bullshit no matter how often you hear talking heads prattle on about it.
IT IS ABOUT THEIR MORTAL ASSES!!!
Bet on it.
If for no other reason, that is why I favor impeachment. The less time they have to get their shit together and the busier they are defending themselves during that time, the less threat they pose to this country.
Later…
AG
Thanks, AG!
The outsourcing of the national security apparatus is a grave danger to democracy. But I pray the gravest danger is over; too many are on to them now for them to implement the final play.
This battle is only starting.
I started a short reply to this comment, but it grew into a stand-alone post. (Two, actually. You’ll see…)
So here it is.
And…thanks for the jump start.
Remember What The Yogi Said. It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over.
AG
300 Million x 1/1000 = 300,000
NOT 3 Million
Corrected.
Thanks.
I lost a zero somewhere.
300,000.
Still a lot of bad hustlers.
AG
This number may be accurate, but it’s meaningless. Most of those contractors are support personnel not fighters. I know one who’s over there – he’s an Arabic translator. Others deliver supplies and work in mess halls. Without a reasonable estimate of how many contractors really are fighting men, the headline number isn’t useful.
And what percentage of the “official” armed forces are actually carrying weapons in combat?
Betcha it’s dead even.
Plus…even if it is not…does that lessen the impact of a private army that exists beholden to no one but their private financial masters?
Or…do you disbelieve the whole story?
I don’t.
AG
No I certainly don’t disbelieve the story. The private armies do worry me – but I’d prefer to assess that risk based on accurate numbers.
The strongest part of Scahill’s story is about the amount of money being paid to contractors, and with how little oversight. This deserves plenty of outrage, and maybe even the long-promised congressional investigation (not holding my breath).
I’m less convinced when he wants us to be afraid of the “mercenaries” but makes so little attempt to estimate how many there really are. That headline number of 180K is later admitted to include 60% Iraqis and uncounted “third-country nationals”. Those aren’t the ones we need to be worrying about. How many of the group are American fighters?
Me too.
Unfortunately…there ARE no “accuate numbers”. We have a black ops hole literally trillions of dollars deep and dense from which no light escapes.
You also write:
What?
You think that there exist some sort of rules stating that foreign mercenaries cannot fight here just as well as they might anywhere else in the world?
Please.
We cannot even prevent undocumented domestics and construction workers from taking advantage of all good things American.
They will go where the money takes them.
Bet on it.
The corporate interests that are involved in this are the same ones that hire Indonesians to make Nike sneakers. Why? Because the Indonesians work for less. Why do you think that bullets fired by foreign-born mercs will work any less well than those fired by native-born Americans? The sneakers work pretty well, right?
Sometimes I do find myself wondering about the leftiness blogs in general…
Who ARE you people?
Later…
AG
your french revolution analogy was about the US aristocracy hiring private armies to subjugate the rest of us.
Do you really think they’d bring in armed brown people to do this? I sure don’t. No matter how cheaply Indonesian soldiers would work. Iraqis? Less than no chance. The elites may let brown people mow their lawns, but letting them have guns, no.
South African or white European mercs, sure. But they’d be as expensive as Americans. This is going to limit the number of private fighters.
Blackwater and the rest of the war profiteering contracting firms are plenty scary, but their business is robbing us with the fountain pen not with the six-gun, to misquote Woody.
illustrates a diuferent idea.
When the elite no longer HAVE a native-born. blood-related standing army upon which to rely, they hire whatever they can get. And yes, it does backfire. As historically illiterate as these peple are…? I mean, hell esqiumaux, they didn’t even understand what went down in Vietnam, fer chrissakes!!!
They’ll try whatever it takes to keep their murdering asses in one piece for another DAY, and damn the consequences.
AG
this scenario just doesn’t fly for me, AG.
you give these people more credit than they deserve. these guns for hire have systematically built up their own myth about being some bad ass motherfuckers, that l suspect will not hold up under such an undertaking. at the end of the day, they’re nothing more than well armed bodyguards, and even then they’re not as well armed as the american military, even in it’s “weakened state”. while l have no doubt that these people are extremely dangerous, l have a hard time buying into the premise of a mercenary force, even one 200,000 strong, could take control of, subdue, and maintain control over the 300,000,000 ± us without the support of the military and security establishment.
they have very limited numbers of aircraft, mostly rotary wing, no air force, no navy, no cruise missiles, limited access to munitions of all types, no heavy artillery, no permanent command and control infrastructure, and they’d be seriously out numbered in addition to out gunned. none of the really important stuff you need to over throw/take over a country of 300,000,000 ± and hold it….you get the picture. l’m sure there’re plenty of disgruntled active and return iraq vets, not to mention a whole lot of citizens, who’d like nothing better than to blow a bunch of merc’s away.
so imo, it’s not bloody likely without the backing and support of the armed forces; and whatever brand of bat shit crazy they may be, l do not believe they are traitorous. neither, for that matter are all the mercs….boat loads of money ain’t going to cut it for at least some of them, especially when the cost of failure if you attack your own country in such a treasonous manner is certain death.
if there’s ever a coup in this country, it’ll be the “perma-gov” in the guise of the cia and it’s sister agencies, and the us military doing it, and they won’t need the merc’s help. blackwater and their ilk may well be drawn into the equation, but much more likely as praetorian guards to cover all the asses as they fight their way out to hide-away’s in south america, dubai and other “safe havens”. after that their employment prospects are pretty limited. other than serving as permanent “security forces” to keep the bastards alive wherever they end up, where are they going to go.
the criminals have run their game, everybody’s got more than they can ever spend; there’s really not a lot left for them to gain with such a risky endeavor. hell, they’ve been running the game for 7 years and nothing’s happened to them yet, why blow it all now when pardons-r-us is just around the corner.
the d‘s haven’t the spine for doing anything tangible, like impeachment, to change the situation now, what makes anyone think they will once they’re in power. hell, they’re just waiting to reap whatever benefits are left, and l suspect that there’ll be more than enough to satisfy them after 08.
it’s time to make a get-away…take the swag and go, leave the mess to whoever comes next…last one out, turn off the lights, the party’s over.
lTMF’sA
Blackwater is not the only “security” company, Aegis, I think. Agreed that the Karl resigning is merely part of the everyday diversionary tactic of occupying “news” bandwidth with meaningless triva and or propaganda. Here in Massachusetts they are considering banning hunting altogether but at the same time allowing hunters to shoot coyotes. It’s all just rumors at this point but I wonder if there are any hunters left in this state, not many I suspect and perhaps not enough to build “the resistance”.