Has America Become Fascist? : Sherwood Ross

Has America Become Fascist?
By Sherwood Ross
GlobalResearch.ca
8-1-8

If it hasn't gone the way of Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany, it sure is teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens (New Orleans), tortures its enemies(Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire (Iran), flouts international treaties (UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on (FISA), and intimidates, its critics(No Fly). Americans that can clearly see the totalitarian machinations of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Hu Jintao in China are blind to the fascism threatening to envelop them as well. Webster's defines fascism as "a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism." A comparison of 20th century fascist and communist regimes with President Bush's USA indicates the machinery for a full-blown totalitarian takeover is now in place, even if no coup has occurred. As Naomi Wolf writes in "The End of America"(Chelsea Green) the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill's Section 333 allows the president "to declare martial law and take charge of the National Guard troops without the permission of a governor when 'public order' has been lost" and to "send the guard into our streets during a public health emergency, terrorist attack or 'other condition.'" The enabling crowbar was the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It gives the president authority to set up his own system for bringing alien combatants to trial while denying them protection of the Geneva Conventions. "The president and his lawyers now claim the authority to designate any American citizen he chooses as being an 'enemy combatant,'" Wolf writes of power usurpation that characterized the post-World War One epoch in Europe and Asia. Thus, Congress has empowered Bush just as Germany's Reichstag empowered Hitler, Wolf writes, recalling Hitler's boast, "Democracy will be overthrown with the tools of democracy." Hitler's Interior Minister issued Clause 2 that gave police the power to hold people in custody indefinitely and without a court order, powers the U.S. Congress today has conferred upon "The Decider" in the White House. Mussolini's used the less grandiose "Il Duce" or "The Leader." According to Michael Ratner, director of the Center For Constitutional Rights, New York, "the president candesignate people enemy combatants and detain them for whatever reason he wantsthere are no charges and prisoners have no lawyers, no family visits, no court reviews, no rights to anything, and no right to release until the mythical end to the 'war on terror.'" Wolf writes that dictators justify their usurpation of domestic liberties by raising the alarm of "terrorist" threats. Stalin, for example, used this very term in 1934 when he warned his public of a world-wide conspiracy by capitalists to overthrow the Soviet state. If there have been no mass arrests of native-born Americans it is only because the president has not chosen to exercise this authority. If you think it can't happen to you, recall that in September of 2003 the Army arrested 36-year-old American-born Muslim chaplain James Yee, a West Point graduate, allegedly for "espionage and possibly treason"---but more likely for calling for better conditions for Gitmo inmates. Wolf wrote: "He was blindfolded; his ears were blocked; he was manacled and then put into solitary confinement for 76 days; forbidden mail, television, or anything to read except the Koran. His family was not allowed to visit him. His lawyers were told he would face execution. (But)Within six months, the U.S. government had dropped all criminal charges against Yee." Yes, just as it has dropped charges against hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners earlier, men labeled by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld as "the worst of the worst" but against the overwhelming majority of whom the Bush regime apparently had no case whatever! The treatment Yee got is typical of those who run afoul of the Bush regime: torture first, trial afterif there is a trial. And since his release, Yee has been denied his free speech right to discuss his ordeal---gagged by the Pentagon. Perhaps most incredible, even if a Guantanamo prisoner should be found innocent, the Pentagon says he might not be released anyway. This echoes Stalin's practice of re-arresting Gulag prisoners after they had done their time. At one point, Stalin had eight million souls behind bars, even exceeding President Bush, currently the world's Incarcerator-In-Chief. Author Wolf says another danger flag is the creation of paramilitary groups, "aggressive men who have no clear, accountable relationship to the government or the party seeking power" Mussolini had the blackshirts; Hitler the brownshirts; but whatever their dress, they were thugs. Wolf says that Moycock, N.C.-based Blackwater Worldwide stands ready "to deploy its unaccountable private army (35,000 men) in the U.S.---in the aftermath of natural disasters, and also in cases of 'national emergency.'" With at least a half billion dollars in government contracts, "Blackwater is the world's largest private security force, works closely with Halliburton, and is available for action outside the scrutiny of Congress," Wolf writes. The outfit raked in $73 million for patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And Blackwater subcontractor Red Tactica, recruits former Chilean commandos," men described by one Chilean sociologist that are "valued for their expertise in kidnapping, torturing and killing defenseless civilians," Wolf wrote. Besides creating such "security" forces, dictators create secret prisons, as Bush has done, ranging from prison ships in the Indian Ocean to dungeons in Poland, where they can hide them from Red Cross scrutiny, as the CIA has done. "We should worry about the men held at Guantanamo because history shows that stripping prisoners of their rights is intoxicating not only to leaders but to functionaries at every level of society," Wolf writes. "Gitmo" is also an interrogation camp, an operation "that is completely and flatly illegal" and outlawed by the Geneva Conventions in 1949, she points out. Stalin also employed torture and in 1937 actually legalized its use in Soviet prisons. When he received his infamous "albums" with the names of those to be executed and imprisoned, next to some names he often wrote: "Beat! Beat! Beat!" And only months after taking power, Hitler "established a network of illegitimate prisons where torture took place" and where guards could murder inmates with "no chance of being punished," Wolf said. And like Stalin, The Decider has signaled his henchmen beatings are now the American Way. Dictators hold power by instilling fear in their citizens. Since 2000, Wolf writes there has been "a sharp increase in U.S. citizen groups that are being harassed and infiltrated by police and federal agents, often in illegal ways." She pointed to a 2006 ACLU report that California police had infiltrated antiwar protests, political rallies, and other constitutionally protected gatherings and were secretly investigating them, even though the California state constitution forbids this. And prior to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, police department detectives infiltrated groups planning peaceful demonstrations. At the Federal level, Bush's apparatchiks are compiling dossiers on law-abiding citizens. The Defense Department's Talon program has created a database about peaceful antiwar and other groups and activists. As Jen Nessel of the Center for Constitutional Rights says, "We have absolutely moved over into a preventive detention model---you look like you could do something bad, you might do something bad, so we're going to hold you." Bush regime actions' today recall how the Gestapo, NKVD, Stasi (East German secret police) and Red China's Politburo "all requisitioned private data such as medical, banking, and library records," Wolf writes, because access to such private data "breaks down citizens' sense of being able to act freely against those in power." And although the Department of Homeland Security's TIPS scheme to get letter carriers and meter readers, etc., to report suspicious activities was met with derision and never funded, the ACLU noted it was merely absorbed in the Pentagon's "black budget." Privacy in America today as guaranteed by the Constitution is fast becoming a memory. The New York Times reported the government in 2005 was monitoring your e-mail and telephone talk without legal warrants and the following year the newspaper disclosed U.S. treasury officials, with CIA help, "were reviewing millions of private bank transactions without individual court-ordered warrants or subpoenas," Wolf pointed out. One method of intimidation is to limit a citizen's right to travel freely. The Bush regime has created "watch"(75,000 names) and "no fly"(45,000 names) lists that restrict individuals' air travel--and those searched and/or stopped from flying can complain all they like because it won't do them any good. Robert Johnson, an American citizen, Wolf reports, described the humiliation factor of being strip searched when he attempted to board an airplane: "I had to take off my pants. I had to take off my sneakers, then I had to take off my socks. I was treated like a criminal." This has now become a commonplace ordeal for thousands of Americans. Even at the height of World War Two, such invasions of personal rights would have been unthinkable. Going back to Webster's definition of fascism, USA today is the world's runaway leader in "militarism." Forty-three percent of all U.S. tax dollars in 2007 went to feed the war machine, as the Pentagon believes security depends on operating more than 700 military bases in 130 countries overseas in addition to 1,000 at home. Bush has escalated its budget so that USA now spends nearly as much on arms as all the rest of the world combined. Uncle Sam is also the No. 1 private arms peddler to the world. By contrast, Iran, portrayed by the White House as a menace to the Middle East, has an annual military budget that is 1/100th of the Pentagon's outlay. Perhaps it would be a good exercise for Americans to read how Hitler emphasized nationalism and militarism. As he wrote in "Mein Kampf": "Instead of everlasting struggle the world preaches cowardly pacifism, and everlasting peaceThere is only one right in this world and this right is one's own strength." As for "reconciliation, understanding, world peace, the League of Nations, and international solidarity---we destroy these ideas." Hitler called for delivering Germans "from the hopeless confusion of international convictions" and educating them "consciously and systematically to fanatical nationalism." Armed with such views the fascist state thinks nothing of starting an aggressive war based on lies. In 1939, Hitler claimed he was attacked by Poland, igniting World War Two. Bush claimed that Iraq had nuclear and biological weapons to destroy America when, in fact, it was the United States that possessed those very weapons and it was Iraq that had none. Bush nonetheless started a seemingly endless war that has by some estimates to date killed more than 1 million Iraqis, wounded perhaps 2 million more, forced a like number from their homes, ravished their country and its economy, touched off a civil war, forced 1 million Iraqis into foreign exile, and killed and wounded 35,000 American troops. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the Iraq war "illegal" but Bush, like Hitler, cares nothing for international treaties, even if those the U.S. has signed under our Constitution are the supreme law of the land. He has made a mockery to the anti-nuclear treaty, causing former President Carter to charge his own country has become the leader in nuclear proliferation. What's more, Bush has spent about $50 billion on germ warfare "defense" with no known significant foreign threat to USA. Americans may think that Webster's view that fascism is often accompanied by racism doesn't fit them. Indeed, USA's strides to eliminate racism based on color in the last century are a societal marvel. But racism against African Americans has largely been replaced with the foolhardy notion that Americans are better than everybody else in the world and have the authority to set right any ruler they believe is in error. This view of their own superiority echoes Hitler's "master race" view of the German people or the Tokyo militarists' view in 1940 that a superior Japan was destined to rule "the eight corners of the world." In this sense, America is very "racist" indeed and the "aggressive nationalism" highlighted by Webster's is apparent in the rhetoric of its public officials and the conduct of its foreign affairs. Yet another characteristic of the fascist state is its leader's use of arbitrary power. Note how Bush evades the will of Congress by tacking on "signing statements" to laws he doesn't like, thus refusing to enforce them, putting himself above the will of Congress and the American people. Note how his aides refuse to respond to Congressional subpoenas to testify. Yet another example is how the Justice Department's own internal investigators found Bush's appointees filled nonpolitical posts with party hacks and then lied about what they had done. "Civil Service Laws Were Breached in Filling Nonpolitical Jobs" said a New York Times reported July 29th. It should be remembered Hitler followed a like policy when he purged Jews from their government posts. When tyrants rule, merit is ever subservient to loyalty. Of course, Bush has not flung thousands of Americans into prison to torture and murder them as Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin did, but he has the power to do so, making the latter half of 2008 a time of danger for Americans. Wolf writes, "At a point in both Mussolini's and Hitler's takeovers, citizens witnessed a stunning series of quickly escalating pronunciamentos or faits accomplis. After each leader made his bids for power beyond what the Italian parliament and the German Reichstag allowed him, each abruptly started to claim all kinds of new rights that were extra-parliamentary; the right unilaterally to go to war, to annex territory, to veto existing laws, or to overrule the judiciary," etc. To repeat the question, "Is America fascist?" the answer is that the machinery is in place for a totalitarian takeover at the direction of a tyrant. While it is true that the U.S. is not a one-party state (some will dispute this owing to the many similarities of the two major parties) like fascist Italy and Germany, and it does have free elections, for the first time in its history in 2000 and 2004 an ominous cloud of doubt has hung over the authenticity of the popular vote and a vast segment of the voting public today does not trust the election machinery to record their vote as they intend. There are no mass arrests and executions in the thousands and millions that typified the regimes of Hitler and Stalin (Stalin had 681,000 people executed in 1937-8 "Great Terror" alone); free speech still exists (under Stalin, a person could be imprisoned for making a Stalin joke); and the government has not put its leaden hand on business as Putin has done although crony capitalism in the selection of defense contractors is rampant. These vital distinctions set America apart from the totalitarian society. Yet, with each passing day in its "War on Terror" the Bush regime tightens its hold on the machinery to establish totalitarian rule here. Americans need to keep in mind that worse than anything President Bush has inflicted upon its own citizenry is what its wars of aggression have inflicted on innocent humanity abroad. A million dead Iraqis can't give a damn by what terminology you describe the United States. If the American people allow their government to make criminal wars to deprive innocent foreigners of their lives and liberties they do not deserve to enjoy either at home. Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based writer who has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News, a columnist for wire services, a news director for a large civil rights organization, and as a publicist for colleges, labor unions and entrepreneurial start-ups. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com Phone: 305-205-8281. The writer is indebted to Naomi Wolf for her book, "The End of America." Ms. Wolf is cofounder of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, New York, an organization that teaches young women how to assume leadership roles.)

Important Blackwater video

The Republicans have their own private army. Whether they win in 2008 or not, the Republican Party has used the last eight years and billions of dollars of tax dollars to build their own private army.

This video is a quick summary of the details and their significance.

BLACKWATER : THE SHADOW WAR

Reminder: Blackwater is still around - even in Canada !!

Proposal to Amend the US Constitution

by magnetics

on Daily Kos

Thu Sep 27, 2007 at 09:50:54 PM PDT

The dangers of private security contractors to civil society have been much discussed in light of the recent shootings of Iraqi civilians by employees of Blackwater Security. Author Naomi Wolf (among others) has emphasized, in a current diary on Dkos, the dangers to Democracy of a Praetorian Guard responsible ultimately to the President, and largely protected from the legal consequences of their actions.

I propose to fix this problem by amending the US Constitution; please continue reading for further details.

• magnetics's diary :: ::
• 
  

I am not a lawyer, but I believe the following draft of a 28th amendment would provide an interesting springboard to discussion and action.

No person in the service, under the orders, or at the behest or bidding of the United States Government shall employ, pursuant to their duties as such, a firearm, or any other physical weapon of aggression, protection, or restraint, except that said person be an employee of the United States Government, such as a member of the Armed Forces, an agent of the Justice Department, or in exceptional cases, a deputized federal marshal or equivalent, subject to the full battery of institutional laws, liabilities, and constraints customarily applying to such persons.

The idea is simple: any person with the power to employ lethal force on behalf of the US Government must be an employee of the US Government.

If this thing needs a name, call it the Blackwater Amendment.

Poll

Should the US Constitution be amended to prohibit employment of private security contractors by the US government?

	Yes.
57%	83 votes
	No.
15%	22 votes
	No, it's too slippery a slope.
9%	13 votes
	I don't know.
1%	2 votes
	It's a good talking point at least.
16%	24 votes

| 144 votes | Vote | Results

More in the ongoing Blackwater saga

U.S. company: crash lawsuit governed by Islamic law

Company is sister to N.C.-based Blackwater

Joseph Neff and Jay Price, Staff Writers

RALEIGH - To defend itself against a lawsuit by the widows of three American soldiers who died on one of its planes in Afghanistan, a sister company of the private military firm Blackwater has asked a federal court to decide the case using the Islamic law known as Shari’a.

The lawsuit “is governed by the law of Afghanistan,” Presidential Airways argued in a Florida federal court. “Afghan law is largely religion-based and evidences a strong concern for ensuring moral responsibility, and deterring violations of obligations within its borders.”

If the judge agrees, it would essentially end the lawsuit over a botched flight supporting the U.S. military. Shari’a law does not hold a company responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their work.

Erik Prince, who owns Blackwater and Presidential Airways, briefly discussed the lawsuit in a meeting today with editors and reporters at The News & Observer. Prince was asked to justify having a case involving an American company working for the U.S. government decided by Afghan law.

“Where did the crash occur?” Prince said. “Afghanistan.”

Joseph Schmitz, Prince’s general counsel, said Presidential Airways was asking the federal judge to follow past U.S. cases where courts have applied another country’s laws to resolve damages that occurred overseas.

The crash of Blackwater Flight 61 occurred in the rugged mountains of central Afghanistan in 2004, killing three soldiers and the three-man crew.

The widows of the soldiers sued Presidential Airways, Blackwater’s sister company, which was under contract with the U.S. military to fly cargo and personnel around Afghanistan.

Presidential Airways argued that the lawsuit must be dismissed; legal doctrine holds that soldiers cannot sue the government, and the company was acting as an agent of the government.

Last year, a series of federal judges dismissed that argument.

In April, Presidential asked a federal judge in Florida to dismiss the lawsuit because the case is controlled by Afghanistan’s Islamic law. If the judge agrees that Afghan law applies, the lawsuit would be dismissed. The company also plans to ask a judge to dismiss the lawsuit on the constitutional grounds that a court should not interfere in military decision-making.

The National Transportation Safety Board has blamed the crash on Presidential for its “failure to require its flight crews to file and fly a defined route,” and for not providing oversight to make sure its crews followed company policies and Pentagon and FAA safety regulations.

WAR CRIMES DOSSIER: Over the Counter Intelligence

Over the Counter Intelligence
Posted by Philip Mattera on June 13th, 2008

Tim Shorrock, a veteran investigative journalist and a longtime subscriber to the Dirt Diggers Digest, has just come out with a book called Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing. Shorrock describes how an activity that used to be handled by spooks on the federal payroll has been steadily transformed into a $50 billion Intelligence-Industrial Complex. 

Thanks to the contracting scandals surrounding Halliburton and its former subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, the public learned of the extent to which the Pentagon has turned over routine functions to private military companies. The outrageous behavior of Blackwater has highlighted the use of mercenaries to protect U.S. diplomats and other VIPs in Iraq.

Shorrock shines a light on another group of corporations that are carrying out a more sensitive function that most people have no idea is being handed over to the private sector. Careful readers of the revelations concerning abuses at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq would have learned that interrogators alleged to have abused detainees included civilians employed by a company called CACI. But that is only the tip of a lucrative iceberg, Shorrock shows.

For example, he writes, more than half the people working at the super-secret National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia are employees of companies such as Science Applications International Corporation ( SAIC ), BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin. The Center’s terrorist database is maintained by The Analysis Corporation, which subcontracted collection activities to CACI.

Since 9/11, Shorrock says, the Central Intelligence Agency has been spending 50-60 percent of its budget (or about $2.5 billion a year) on contractors—both individuals and companies. At the CIA and its sister spook agencies: “Tasks that are now outsourced include running spy networks out of embassies, intelligence analysis, signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection, covert operations, and the interrogation of enemy prisoners.”

Shorrock devotes an entire chapter to Booz Allen Hamilton, known to most people as a management consultant for large corporations but which pioneered the intelligence outsourcing industry (though it recently agreed to sell its federal business to the Carlyle Group). When Mike McConnell, a former Booz Allen executive, was named by President Bush as Director of National Intelligence, it was the first time, Shorrock notes, that a contractor was put in charge of the country’s entire spy apparatus.

Spies for Hire has much more to offer that cannot be adequately summarized here. I recommend that you read it in full. But let me let also note that profiles of some of the intelligence contractors discussed by Shorrock—such as CACI and ManTech International—can be found on the Crocodyl wiki to which I contribute. Also note that the updated edition of Jeremy Scahill’s valuable book Blackwater , recently issued in paperback, has a discussion (p.453 forward) on the mercenary company’s move into another form of privatized intelligence—a product called Total Intelligence Solutions that is designed to bring “CIA-style” services to Fortune 500 companies.

http://dirtdiggersdigest.org/archives/60

Dirt Diggers Digest is written by Philip Mattera, director of the Corporate Research Project, an affiliate of Good Jobs First.

See also feature articles by Tim Shorrock on CorpWatch.org:

Domestic Spying, Inc.

QinetiQ Goes Kinetic: Top Rumsfeld Aide Wins Contracts From Spy Office He Set Up 

Carlyle Group May Buy CIA Contractor: Booz Allen Hamilton

WAR CRIMES DOSSIER: Corps who are abusing on US/Canadian and other Citizens: Part 1

 Company Profiles 

 Boeing 

 Blackwater USA 

 Lockheed Martin 

 Northrop Grumman 

 General Dynamics 

 Raytheon 

 United Technologies 

 Halliburton 

General Electric 

Science Applications International Corporation 

 CSC/ DynCorp

Chemicals
From toxic waste to the unpronounceables on your food labels, chemicals are all around and within us. Here you will find CorpWatch coverage of the range of issues involving chemicals, including pesiticides, the widespread use of petrochemicals, health and environmental impacts, and the role of chemicals in bioengineered agriculture.


Construction
Building (or rebuilding) things is a lucrative business to be in, especially in an era when lots of things are being blown up. Construction is a mega-industry with players raking in money for huge projects, from Bechtel's Big Dig to Kellogg Brown & Root's military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are the small, mob-connected firms building at ground zero in New York, and even the bin Laden family, who largely built modern Saudia Arabia and Dubai. The companies who build dams, roads, schools, hospitals and military installations are a major economic and political force.

Energy
Those who own, extract, process, and sell the fossil fuels on which modern culture is (often regrettably) based make up perhaps the single most powerful industry in the world. While energy policy in the United States is made behind closed doors with oil barons, wars are fought in the Middle East over oil & gas, and geopolitics in South America is revolutionized on the power of vast oil reserves.


Food and Agriculture
The industrial food chain is complex - and highly profitable for those who control it. In India, ancient traditional grains have been patented by multinationals, while drought- and pest-resistant strains of food crops are engineered in laboratories and planted in massive monocultures worldwide. Harsh pesticides and herbicides have become the rule instead of the exception. GMO soybeans are crowding out the Amazon rainforests; meanwhile, massively subsidized, nutritionally-challenged corn finds its way into almost every aspect of the American diet, especially fast food. The corporations (Monsanto, Cargill, ADM, McDonald's, etc) behind what we eat exert power in their best interest, rather than in ours. What's good for their bottom line is not necessarily good for our waistlines, our coastlines, our treelines ...


Financial Services, Insurance and Banking 
Banks, investment firms, insurance companies are integral to the operation of every industry we cover. They are the nervous and circulatory systems of the corporate world. In a world where everything - even a human life - can be assigned a monetary value; where limitless money and great risk intersect, lies opportunity for greed, corruption, and fraud. 


Manufacturing
Perhaps the most outsourced industry in the world, manufacturing covers everything from textiles to automobiles to construction to electronics and everything in between. Since international trade is largely centered on the exchange of manufactured goods, issues of globalization swirl around these corporations. Here you'll find coverage of labor and sweatshops, the environment, trade agreements, and the overarching impacts of "offshoring" the manufacture of the goods the developed world consumes.


Media & Entertainment
A very few corporations control most of the messages we receive each day, from billboards to newspapers, to radio, film and television. CorpWatch covers not only the effect of media consolidation, but also the wizards behind the curtains in advertising, public relations, and the mainstream news media.


Natural Resources
It is a mark of modern civilization that we now buy and sell what nature provides for free. Trees, water, minerals, open land - these are profit opportunities for those who can turn them into timber, dams, bottled water, diamond rings, or condominium complexes. For issues directly relating to oil, gas, and coal, see also Energy.


Pharmaceuticals
The cost of prescription drugs has never been higher, and pharmaceutical companies have never spent more persuading consumers that they need drugs they've never heard of for illnesses they didn't know they had. Drug companies are also spending millions defending patents and persuading the FDA to approve new drugs ever faster. Meanwhile, developing countries go without desperately needed drugs because pharmaceutical companies fear that lowering prices for the neediest is a slippery slope. Big Pharma says high prices fund research and innovation.


Retail & Mega-Stores
Big-box stores like Wal-Mart, Asda and Home Depot have squeezed out small businesses all around the world, driving down wages and quality of life where they do business, all in the name of low prices. They are the largest, slowest-moving easy targets, smaller (and yet still massive) retail chains like Starbucks, Forever 21, Abercrombie & Fitch, the Gap and others have also drawn fire for sweatshop abuses, labor violations, and other questionable corporate behavior.


Technology & Telecommunications
Technology has seeped into nearly every aspect of modern life, from the food we eat to the ways we communicate. Consequently, telecommunications and technology corporations have gained huge power over the past two decades. Cable companies bicker with telephone monopolies over the internet; customer support for ubiquitous laptop computers is offshored from Silicon Valley to Bangalore; obsolete electronics pile up in developing world landfills, exposing children to toxic metals; and multinationals tinker with the technology of nature to make a tomato that doesn't spoil on a grocery shelf. Ubiquity, especially when it melds into the background of daily life, is perhaps the most powerful tool of corporate power.


Tobacco
The executives of Big Tobacco have stopped insisting that tobacco is not addictive, but have not stopped making a killing from the deadly addictive quality of their product. The steady demand, particularly in the developing world where regulation doesn't reach, breeds a booming business in smuggling, as well as aggressive marketing schemes targeting the poor, minorities, and children. International treaties and successful lawsuits have helped to slow the malignant spread of tobacco in the United States and other developed nations, but the industry remains one of the largest and most influential in national and international politics. 


Tourism & Real Estate
Tourism fuels some of the biggest development worldwide. Cruise ship operators are under fire for dumping waste in the oceans and exhaust into the skies; ski resorts an golf courses scar the land and pollute waterways. Tourism is a multibillion-dollar industry that frequently puts luxury ahead of the environment, respect for indigenous cultures, and sensitivity to land use issues. Real estate, some of it fueled by tourism, but also by the expansion of business, runs up against many of the other issues we cover - water use, land use, and the use of political influence to muscle into desirable locations, often with tax-breaks as a bonus. With real-estate the latest boom (or perhaps more appropriately "bubble") industry, issues associated with development - such as suburban sprawl - have become more immediate. 


 Transportation
Planes, trains, and automobiles ... almost every industry we cover requires a means of getting its goods from point A to point B. It could be your wintertime Granny Smith apple, shipped from Chile; or your iPod, made of parts flown in from China and assembled in California until it is trucked to your city, or flown back to your country. The gasoline in your car (which perhaps came from Detroit, Japan, Korea, or Germany) may be from Venezuela or Iraq. Almost everything you buy is better traveled than you could ever hope to be. And that translates into major profit for the corporations that own the means of transport.


War & Disaster Profiteering
CorpWatch looks at the intertwined relationship between private industry, the US Armed Forces and federal policy makers. We look at the domestic and foreign impacts of this dangerous complex.

Domestic Spying, Inc.Industries

by Tim Shorrock , Special to CorpWatch 
November 27th, 2007

A new intelligence institution to be inaugurated soon by the Bush administration will allow government spying agencies to conduct broad surveillance and reconnaissance inside the United States for the first time. Under a proposal being reviewed by Congress, a National Applications Office (NAO) will be established to coordinate how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and domestic law enforcement and rescue agencies use imagery and communications intelligence picked up by U.S. spy satellites. If the plan goes forward, the NAO will create the legal mechanism for an unprecedented degree of domestic intelligence gathering that would make the U.S. one of the world's most closely monitored nations. Until now, domestic use of electronic intelligence from spy satellites was limited to scientific agencies with no responsibility for national security or law enforcement. 

The intelligence-sharing system to be managed by the NAO will rely heavily on private contractors including Boeing, BAE Systems, L-3 Communications and Science Applications International Corporation ( SAIC ). These companies already provide technology and personnel to U.S. agencies involved in foreign intelligence, and the NAO greatly expands their markets. Indeed, at an intelligence conference in San Antonio, Texas, last month, the titans of the industry were actively lobbying intelligence officials to buy products specifically designed for domestic surveillance.

More on this link .. 

Top 100 military contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq

Blackwater grand jury hears from witnesses

Three Iraqis, including the father of a slain 9-year-old boy, appeared Tuesday before a federal grand jury investigating a deadly Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad involving Blackwater Worldwide contractors.

The Iraqis were escorted to the closed-door session by federal prosecutors who are overseeing the U.S. investigation into whether Blackwater security guards illegally fired into a crowded Baghdad intersection, resulting in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians.

An Iraqi police major told The Associated Press in Baghdad that two of his officers were flown to the United States several days ago to testify. The major, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said they were expected to remain in the United States for two weeks.

It was not known whether the officers, one of whom was identified as Serhan Dhiab, were among the three men meeting Tuesday with grand jurors at the federal courthouse in Washington.

One of the three Iraqis was Mohammed Abdul-Razzaq, whose son Ali, 9, was killed in the shooting. He left court holding what appeared to be a child's plush toy and a family portrait.

After about three hours behind closed doors, the men did not talk to reporters. But before leaving Iraq, Abdul-Razzaq told ABC News he agreed to testify because he wanted justice for "a crime that needs to be punished."

"It was a true massacre, a slaughter," said Abdul-Razzaq.

ABC identified Hussan Abdurrahman as one of the officers brought to testify. He told the network in a separate interview that the Blackwater convoy never was in danger.

"There were zero armed men in that area," said Abdurrahman.

Grand jury testimony is secret but Iraqi witnesses to the shooting have described it publicly as an unprovoked attack in which the U.S. contractors killed motorists, bystanders and children.

Blackwater, hired by the State Department to guard U.S. diplomats in Iraq, says its contractors were responding to a Baghdad car bombing when they were ambushed by insurgents, touching off a firefight.

The company is not a target of the investigation. The case has focused on as few as three or four guards and whether they acted illegally.

Over the past seven months, the grand jury has heard from Blackwater security guards, company managers and U.S. military officials.

The shooting enraged the Iraqi government, which originally sought to expel Blackwater and its 1,000 employees from the country, and strained diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad.

The shooting also raised questions at home and abroad about the U.S. reliance on heavily armed private contractors in war zones.

This case belongs at the ICC ..

and Blackwater should not be on the US Payroll

Its crimes are MANY

Somewhere in my videos is the actual video of the

"incident"

US military pre-trial hearing begins for civilian contractor charged with Iraq crime
Deirdre Jurand at 5:55 PM ET

[JURIST] A US military court opened an Article 32 hearing [press release] in Baghdad on Tuesday for a civilian military contractor accused of aggravated assault. Earlier this month, the US military charged [JURIST report] Alaa "Alex" Mohammad Ali, a dual Iraqi-Canadian citizen working as a translator in Iraq, with the February stabbing of another contractor. He is the first civilian charged by the military since a 2006 amendment to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) [text] granted the military jurisdiction over civilians accompanying US troops in a combat zone. His Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent to a civilian grand jury proceeding, was delayed [JURIST report] late last week. AP has more.

Prior to the 2006 UCMJ amendment, contractors working in Iraq were exempted [PDF text] from prosecution in that country. The amendment, found in Section 522 of the 2007 defense authorization bill [2 2766 materials; LawReader backgrounder], significantly changed the military's jurisdiction to bring civilian contractors within the military's jurisdiction during a "contingency operation" rather than its previous requirement that Congress actually declare war. Last fall, Congress took further steps [JURIST report] to bring US contractors within the jurisdiction of the military with the 2008 defense authorization bill [HR 1585 materials]. The issue of criminal jurisdiction over US military contractors working in Iraq gained notoriety last fall when several Blackwater USA [corporate website; JURIST news archive] employees allegedly killed at least eight Iraqi civilians [JURIST report]. The US Department of Justice has run into legal hurdles [JURIST report] trying to bring criminal charges against the Blackwater employees.

ACTIVISM: Appoint a Special Prosecutor!

The ACLU has just demanded that a Special Prosecutor be called immediately. I proposed this, with help, last February when BuZh admitted his guilt!!

And I have repeatedly asked that the readers read the information I have provided on the links. It is time that all my items get maximum exposure and put on the social networks.

I ask that we accept NO SUBSTITUTES than immediate action.

Please help this important information go viral! Post it everywhere!!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/genera_ladybroa_080215_special_prosecutor_i.htm

I ask that everyone please start writing articles which includes the special prosecutor information link in it - you can still digg that item UP and you can also digg up the Blackwater proposal!!

I have followed all this intentlly - and I don't think "running John Yoo" out of town on a rail is the answer!!

I think the momentum to finally get people to act in concert and move people out of their armchairs is here at last.

People can be of GREAT ASSISTANCE here at OpEd News- we can provide the legal information people need.

Here is a link to all the Craig Murray information on RENDITION and torture which shows WHY the Iraqi was was fought

http://www.britishblogs.co.uk/categories/5-rendition/

Here is the link to the Juan Cole information on it

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/craig-murray-on-manufacturing-terror.html

Here is the link to the Dan Froomkin Washington Post article that just ran

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/04/10/BL2008041002069_3.html?referrer=emailarticle

I have links to other articles on rendtion and torture as well - which should be part of any toolkit you may assemble:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jgub7gCkzcg&NR=1

http://ccrjustice.org/files/rendition%20to%20torture%20report.pdf

http://pkpolitics.com/missing/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdLwTu-L4Wo

http://electromagnet.us/dogspot/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=413

Let's turn OpEd News into the equivalent of Statewatch.org!

http://www.statewatch.org/observatory2.htm

People are STILL BEING TORTURED IN YOUR NAMES, even as I submit this article - please work as hard as you can to end this torture - we have the means to do so at last as the MSM is finally getting on board in North America.

Many people have taken grave risks standing up to the BuZh regime's torture agenda, Please help them have the sweet victory of seeing the real criminals behind bars at last. No outside nation should do America's dirty work for them.

It's up to US, We the People, and the people of Canada, too as it has been a refueling stop for rendition flights, supplied jet fuel, and we suspect provided torturers and "advisers", as well, in this way too long running TORTURE WAR CRIME.

Today is the day!! Download the special prosecutor information. Read it! Don'f "fall" for the misinformation and disinformation that is floating around.

The rest if the world is waiting to see what we do. You and me.

Make this the headline in EVERY PAPER IN AMERICA ..

PEOPLE DEMAND THE TORTURE STOPS!!

My own blog is strictly controlled by cointelpro and many of the items that I have posted are difficult to access - so here is a direct link to my articles on Blackwater -

http://ladybroadoak.blogspot.com/search/label/Blackwater

And I specifically refer you to this item:

http://ladybroadoak.blogspot.com/2008/01/blackwater-legal-remedy-recommendation.html

The above is a link to a close Guantanamo, hold Blackwater accountable for the war crimes proposal

It is important to hold Obama's and Hilary's feet to the fire for their insidious insuation that it is fine by them to use one mercenary (under state department management) to replace every one troop brought home.

I remind you _ we have at least two candidates who will listen to PROGRESSIVE demands: Ralph Nadar and Cynthia MacKinney!!

Please, in the name of the children and wives of all detainees (and in some cases the husbands) quit writing about elections, quite sending candidates a single penny until a special prosecutor panel is appointed.

The suffering and the killing simply must stop! and the gag on true activists in North America lifted who would see justice done.

Please sign this now to show her WE MEAN BUSINESS!!

http://www.petitiononline.com/everyman/petition.html

To: U.S. House of Representatives Online Petition to Remove Pelosi as Speaker of the House of Representatives by Scott Creighton

My OWN global petition demands signatories now!!

Here is the link:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/global-people-for-the-impeachment-of-richard-cheney

There is NO REASON to fear signing this now: The mainstream media has now turned the momentum in our favor!!

News Report Reveals White House Approved Torture Techniques (4/10/2008)

ACLU Calls On Congress to Appoint Special Counsel to Investigate

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (202) 675-2312 or media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON DC – ABC News reported that in dozens of top-secret White House meetings, the most senior Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, discussed and approved specific torture techniques for use on detainees. According to this report, Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft sanctioned these tactics. In light of this revelation, the American Civil Liberties Union is calling on Congress to appoint a special counsel to investigate these charges.

Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office Caroline Fredrickson said, "If current and former administration officials broke the law, they should be prosecuted for criminal acts. No one is above the law. With each new revelation, it is beginning to look like the torture operation was managed and directed out of the White House. This is what we suspected all along. Congress must get to the bottom of these reports."

ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Christopher Anders said that it is time for the administration to stop blaming the front line interrogators alone for tactics it had approved: "After years of the administration pointing the finger at what it said were a few interrogators, if this story is correct, it instead looks more like there were direct orders for specific acts of torture straight from the White House. These are the tools of dictators, not leaders of a democracy."

According to the ABC story, then-Attorney General Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions, asking aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

Fredrickson added, "Kudos to ABC News for being the first to report this important story."

Link to the ABC News story:
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/story?id=4583256&page=1

Link to ACLU letter calling for a special counsel:
http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/lettertocongress_2007_1213.pdf

Blackwater can kill you...no really!

Blackwater Fever is the common (but rarely heard) name for a deadly strain of malaria and recently Iraqis have put this name back into popular use - and they are linking it to the other deadly Blackwater, the private security firm hired by the Bush Administration. This is the impression we are leaving globally - yikes!

read more | digg story

BBC on mercenaries, great podcasts

Armies for Hire

Ways to Listen

Armies for Hire - Part Two

The Sharp End

ARMIES FOR HIRE

PART ONE

The Dogs of Peace
Private military contractors in Iraq

PART TWO

The Sharp End
Private military contractors in Afghanistan

First broadcast May 2007

Since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been a staggering boom in the demand for civilian soldiers who carry arms for private companies.

In this two-part BBC World Service series, presenter Peter Snow moves with the men and women operating in conflict zones, shedding light into this notoriously secretive world, while also hearing how military experts now believe that these "legitimate" mercenaries are already an essential ingredient in world security in the 21st century.

We discover who they are, why they are needed, what they do, and who - if anyone - they are accountable to.

Part Two: The Sharp End

This second programme focuses on the work of private military contractors in Afghanistan.

With tasks ranging from the training of Afghan police to protecting missions, Armies for Hire investigates the major issue of accountability, the economic benefits, and the high death toll and human cost to those operating at the sharp end.

It also takes a look into how the huge demand for private military personnel after the fall of Baghdad lured many unsuitable and untrained contractors into the industry.

Series Producers: Kate Bland and Pat Gilbert (Just Radio).

Blackwater updates

Background first:
Iraq expels American security contractor Blackwater
March 12, 2008

Blackwater was used in New Orleans after Katrina.

For more on Blackwater, see the work done by The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill.

Also see:
Private Contractors Outnumber US Troops in Iraq by T. Christian Miller of the Los Angeles Times.

Reasons contractors in Iraq are bad news:

• Questionable jurisdiction…no wait, completely free from any legal jurisdiction, according to Order 17 Paul Bremer put in place just before leaving.
• Hides true number of troops and casualties from American public
• Breaks down military order…can refuse to provide troops needs when under fire
• Morale buster.
• Minimum wage troops performing alongside contractors performing similar duties for much more money.

Iraq expels American security firm

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
Monday, September 17, 2007

The Iraqi government Monday ordered Blackwater USA, the security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, to stop work and leave the country after the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy.

The order by the Interior Ministry, if carried out, would deal a severe blow to U.S. government operations in Iraq by stripping diplomats, engineers, reconstruction officials and others of their security protection.

The presence of so many visible, aggressive Western security contractors has angered many Iraqis, who consider them a mercenary force that runs roughshod over people in their own country.

Sunday’s shooting was the latest in a series of incidents in which Blackwater and other foreign contractors have been accused of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens. None has faced charges or prosecution.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki late Monday and the two agreed to conduct a “fair and transparent investigation” and hold any wrongdoers accountable, said Yassin Majid, an adviser to the prime minister. Rice was expected to visit the Mideast on Tuesday.

Majid made no mention of the order to expel Blackwater, and it was unlikely the United States would agree to abandon a security company that plays such a critical role in American operations in Iraq.

A State Department official confirmed the call but said he could not describe the substance. The U.S. clearly hoped the Iraqis would be satisfied with an investigation, a finding of responsibility and compensation to the victims’ families — and not insist on expelling a company that the Americans cannot operate here without.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight civilians were killed and 13 were wounded when contractors believed to be working for Blackwater USA opened fire on civilians Sunday in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Mansour in western Baghdad.

“We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities,” Khalaf said.

He said witness reports pointed to Blackwater involvement but added that the shooting was still under investigation. One witness, Hussein Abdul-Abbas, said the explosion was followed by about 20 minutes of heavy gunfire and “everybody in the street started to flee immediately.”

U.S. officials said the motorcade was traveling through Nisoor Square on the way back to the Green Zone when the car bomb exploded, followed by volleys of small-arms fire that disabled one of the vehicles but caused no American casualties.

According to TIME.com, which obtained a U.S. incident report, a separate convoy arriving to help was “blocked/surrounded by several Iraqi police and Iraqi national guard vehicles and armed personnel.”

American officials refused to discuss Iraqi casualties, nor would they confirm that Blackwater personnel were involved. They also refused to explain the legal authority under which Blackwater operates in Iraq or say whether the company was complying with the order. It also was unclear whether the contractors involved in the shooting were still in Iraq.

While Blackwater has recently undertaken an effort to improve its image by emphasizing its humanitarian efforts and vision for “a safer world,” it didn’t immediately step forward to defend itself Monday. Several messages left with officials were not returned, and vice chairman Cofer Black, a former director of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, declined to comment when reached at his Virginia home.

The incident drew attention to one of the controversial American practices of the war — the use of heavily armed private security contractors who Iraqis complain operate beyond the control of U.S. military and Iraqi law.

The events in Mansour also illustrate the challenge of trying to protect U.S. officials in a city where car bombs can explode at any time, and where gunmen blend in with the civilian population.

“The Blackwater guys are not fools. If they were gunning down people, it was because they felt it was the beginning of an ambush,” said Robert Young Pelton, an independent military analyst and author of the book “Licensed to Kill.”

“They’re famous for being very aggressive. They use their machine guns like car horns. But it’s not the goal to kill people.”

In one of the most horrific attacks of the war, four Blackwater employees were ambushed and killed in Fallujah in 2004 and their charred bodies hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

But Iraqis have long complained about high-profile, heavily armed security vehicles careering through the streets, with guards pointing weapons at civilians and sometimes firing warning shots at anyone deemed too close. And Iraqi officials were quick to condemn the foreign guards.

Al-Maliki late Sunday condemned the shooting by a “foreign security company” and called it a “crime.”

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani described the shooting as “a crime about which we cannot be silent.”

“Everyone should understand that whoever wants good relations with Iraq should respect Iraqis,” al-Bolani told Al-Arabiya television. “We are implementing the law and abide by laws, and others should respect these laws and respect the sovereignty and independence of Iraqis in their country.”

Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi told Iraqi television that “those criminals” responsible for deaths “should be punished” and that the government would demand compensation for the victims’ families.

Despite threats of prosecution, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Alhurra television that contractors cannot be prosecuted by Iraqi courts because “some of them have immunity.”

In April, the Defense Department said about 129,000 contractors of many nationalities were operating in Iraq — nearly as many as the entire U.S. military force before this year’s troop buildup.

About 4,600 contractors are in combat roles, such as protecting supply convoys along Iraq’s dangerous, bomb-laden highways.

Blackwater, a secretive North Carolina-based company run by a former Navy SEAL, is among the biggest and best known security firms, with an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq and at least $800 million in government contracts.

In May 2007, a Blackwater employee shot and killed a civilian who was thought to be driving too close to a company security detail.

Last Christmas Eve, an inebriated Blackwater employee shot and killed a security guard for an Iraqi vice president, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials. The contractor made his way to the U.S. Embassy where Blackwater officials arranged to have him flown home to the United States, according U.S. officials who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The contractor has been fired and Blackwater is cooperating with federal investigators, company spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell has said.

___

AP correspondents Deborah Hastings in New York, Mike Baker in Raleigh, N.C., and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Did Washington Inquiry Into Blackwater Hasten Its Potrero Retreat?

Posted on March 11th, 2008 by Frank Gormlie

Is it just a coincidence that Blackwater beat a retreat out of Potrero on the eve of a Washington inquiry into claims that it violated tax and labor laws? On March 7th we learned that Blackwater pulled its application for the Potrero mercenary camp, and then, in an Associated Press article by Anne Flaherty that appeared March 10th, it was reported that a senior House Democrat has called for a far-reaching federal investigation into Blackwater Worldwide, alleging that the private security contractor violated tax and labor laws by classifying its guards as independent contractors rather than company employees.

It is very possible that the company decided to cut its losses out in the West in order to concentrate on the upcoming inquiry in the East, which it knew was developing ever since Blackwater reps have faced the Klieg lights of Congressional questionings. If the inquiry in the East goes badly for the company, it won’t be able to afford to even purchase the egg ranch out here an hour’s drive from downtown San Diego.

The AP article quoted Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell calling Waxman’s charges “completely without merit, ” and then she continued: “Blackwater’s classification of its personnel is accurate, and Blackwater has always been forthcoming about this aspect of its business with its customer, the U.S. government.”

However, Rep. Henry Waxman, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Blackwater’s claims on its business status “appear dubious.” Waxman requested that the Internal Revenue Service and the Labor Department investigate whether Blackwater defrauded the government of tax revenue and violated labor laws. He did this with letters sent Monday, the 10th, to the agencies. Further, Waxman asked the Small Business Administration (SBA) to determine whether the company had violated federal regulations by claiming it was eligible for small business preferences. Waxman is a Democratic House representative from California.

“The implications of Blackwater’s actions are significant,” Waxman said in a memorandum to the Committee. “Committee staff have estimated that Blackwater has avoided paying or withholding up to $50 million in federal taxes by treating its guards as independent contractors rather than employees.”

Waxman asserted that Blackwater’s claim as a small business has earned it more than $144 million in contracts, despite being one of the largest private military contractors and receiving nearly $1.25 billion in federal business since 2000.

Blackwater mouthpiece Tyrell stated that the company “looks forward to continuing its cooperation with all inquiries that may result from these letters” and that “the company regrets the chairman’s decision to publicly air misleading information.”

Blackwater is unlike other security companies operating in Iraq in that it claims that the guards that it trains, equips and deploys to Iraq and elsewhere are independent contractors, not company employees - independent contractors that are hired directly by the federal government, the article reported. Naturally, with U.S. law, companies must pay Social Security and other federal taxes on employees.

Waxman raised this very issue last year, the article said, after he obtained a March letter from the IRS that warned that the company’s classification of a security guard as an independent contractor was “without merit.” This had been the result of an inquiry filed by a Blackwater guard. Upon Blackwater’s appeal, the company alleged that it had received assurances from the SBA that its security guards did not have to be classified as company employees.
The article continued:

the primary factor in determining whether a worker is an employee or independent contractor is the degree of control the business has over its worker. Incorrectly classifying a worker could mean steep penalties for the company, including a $25,000 penalty if the IRS determines an appeal is frivolous or groundless. In its March letter to Blackwater, the IRS noted the company paid all of the guard’s travel expenses and signed a written agreement detailing the type of work required. “A worker who is required to comply with another person’s instructions about when, where and how he or she is to work is ordinarily an employee,” the IRS stated in the letter. Waxman said Blackwater is trying to have it both ways. In defending itself against last year’s shootings involving its security guards, company officials asserted that they retained tight control of its guards and even fired some 122 guards in Iraq due to improper conduct. At the same time, Blackwater contends it does not have enough control over its guards to classify them as company employees, Waxman said.

Blackwater may very well have to pay the federal government millions of dollars. If so, it had a cover to pull the Potrero plan without admitting that it was retreating due to the community’s pressure. It is simply cutting its losses. And the Potrero operation would have been so much easier and cheaper if everyone had just shut up and gone about their own business.

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Waxman Asks IRS To Investigate Blackwater

By Patrick O'Connor

(The Politico) House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) called on the Internal Revenue Service Monday to initiate an investigation into whether Blackwater Worldwide failed to pay millions in federal taxes, reviving a long-dormant congressional inquiry of the North Carolina-based security firm that has protected U.S. personnel in Iraq.

In a letter to acting IRS Commissioner Linda E. Stiff, Waxman asked the agency to review whether Blackwater had complied with federal tax law by designating its security guards as "independent contractors" instead of "employees," directing IRS investigators to "take any appropriate enforcement action." In separate requests, Waxman also asked the Dept. of Labor and the Small Business Administration to open similar investigations.

Aides on the Oversight Committee estimate the security firm has failed to pay $50 million in federal taxes since 2000 under the guidelines of its contract with the State Department, according to an internal memorandum distributed to panel members Modnay. Waxman first notified Blackwater CEO Erik Prince in October 2007 that he believed the company had evaded paying millions of dollars in federal taxes for improperly classifying the security guards who work for his firm. As evidence, committee aides cite more than $144 million in small business set-asides the firm has claimed since 2000 and a series of previous legal arguments, including an IRS ruling from March of last year.

The private security firm has been in the congressional crosshairs since Democrats took power. Prince was forced to testify before the Oversight panel last fall about his company's contracts with the federal government after U.S. media outlets chronicled a spasm of violence in Iraq involving Blackwater security personnel.

Stephen M. Ryan, a lawyer in the Washington office of McDermott, Will & Emery who represented Blackwater before Congress last year, was out of the office Monday morning and unavailable to comment on the oversight chairman's request.

The firm has received nearly $1.25 billion in federal contracts since 2000, according to the Oversight memorandum.

Copyright 2008 POLITICO

Blackwater Under Fire Again

By Laura Palotie, Inc.com

Published: March 11, 2008

House Democrats are calling for an investigation into whether a controversial private security firm working in Iraq and Afghanistan violated federal small-business contract size standards.

In letters to the Internal Revenue Service, the Small Business Administration and the Secretary of Labor, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) claimed Blackwater Worldwide had improperly classified its security guards as independent contractors in order to be eligible for federal small-business contracts, among other benefits.

Blackwater says Waxman's claims were unwarranted.

In the past eight years, the company has received about $144 million in federal small-business contracts, despite earning more than $1.25 billion in government business, according to Waxman.

By listing its employees as independent contractors, Blackwater has also sidestepped anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws applied to federal contractors, Waxman said. He added the company has issued contradictory statements on the degree of control it exercises over its security guards overseas.

Last year, Congress tightened rules on federal contractors in Iraq following reports of civilian deaths involving Blackwater workers. In March 2004, four Blackwater workers were killed and dragged through the streets of Fallujah, Iraq.

Sen. John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, has pressed the Bush administration to investigate the company since October. He says Blackwater has avoided over $31 million in taxes by classifying its employees as contractors.

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