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

The fabulous BuZh legacy: California and NOLA

the new "Middle Class" prosperity: "Mom forced to live in car with dogs" - CNN.com

from ThisCanadian

by BlueBerry Pick'n

go read this.
seriously.

Mom forced to live in car with dogs - CNN.com.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Mother of three grown children says, "This is my life in this car right now"
Santa Barbara, California, allows homeless to sleep in cars in 12 parking lots
Affluent city has seen a rise in homelessness during California's housing crisis
Advocate: "It's just amazing the people that are becoming homeless"

...
Harvey was forced into homelessness this year after being laid off. She said that three-quarters of her income went to paying rent in Santa Barbara, where the median house in the scenic oceanfront city costs more than $1 million. She lost her condo two months ago and had little savings as backup.

"It went to hell in a handbasket," she said. "I didn't think this would happen to me. It's just something that I don't think that people think is going to happen to them, is what it amounts to. It happens very quickly, too."

Harvey now works part time for $8 an hour, and she draws Social Security to help make ends meet. But she still cannot afford an apartment, and so every night she pulls into a gated parking lot to sleep in her car, along with other women who find themselves in a similar predicament. Watch women who live in their cars »

There are 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara that have been set up to accommodate the growing middle-class homelessness. These lots are believed to be part of the first program of its kind in the United States, according to organizers. ...

Storm-Wracked Parish Considers Hired Guns
Washington Post: For DynCorp and other private security companies, the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, like Iraq, is a land of opportunity.

FEMA muzzles Katrina victims

Blackwater Down: Fresh From Iraq, Private Security Forces Roam the Streets of an American City With Impunity
“As business leaders and government officials talk openly of changing the demographics of what was one of the most culturally vibrant of America’s cities, mercenaries from companies like DynCorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut and an Israeli company called Instinctive Shooting International (ISI) are fanning out to guard private businesses and homes, as well as government projects and institutions. Within two weeks of the hurricane, the number of private security companies registered in Louisiana jumped from 185 to 235.
Some, like Blackwater, are under federal contract. Others have been hired by the wealthy elite”

Fraud, Scandal and Greed Has Crippled the Gulf Coast's Recovery, But Made Some Very, Very Rich
Profiting from Disaster, By JORDAN GREEN

Was U.S. Private Security Firm Spying for Kazakh Government?

Submitted by MichaelVail on Thu, 05/15/2008 - 5:09pm.

• Dariga Nazarbayeva
• GlobalOptions
• James Giffen
• Kazakhstan
• Spotlight
• War Machine
• World News

Harpers
Posted: 2008-05-15 17:49:57

That’s the question raised by this terrific Wall Street Journal story. The firm is GlobalOptions, an extremely well-connected company run by, among others, former FBI and CIA officials. The Kazakh government apparently retained GlobalOptions to monitor, and possibly seek to derail, a Justice Department investigation into James Giffen, an American oilman who is suspected of paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Dariga Nazarbayeva, the Kazakh president’s powerful daughter, reportedly lined up the services of the private-security firm. (I met Dariga a few years ago at a reception at the Washington offices of GlobalOptions. She invited me to visit Kazakhstan and told me that if I took her up on the invitation I was certain to meet some beautiful local women. Quite a strange encounter.) In addition to being extremely “murky” in its operations, GlobalOptions was also (as I reported a few years ago) an Iraq war profiteer.

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.

Impeachment Toolkit: Allen Roland on PTSD and vets .. MUST READ

Believe me, this article is CHILLING. With well-armed, desperate troops, very badly damaged and a declaration of MARTIAL LAW and a drive to push people to accept the "domestic mercenaries" option ..

Things will be HELL .. I mean it . LITERAL HELL ON EARTH.

There is NO rule of law at present - merely a two-tiered justice system in place in both the US and in Canada.

There is a failure of WILL to implement proper public policy - even as Baghdad falls. The huge huge soul sickness that envelops us is a disaster in the making.

Allen knows well what he is talking about about PTSD, and I have posted his great articles on healing from PTSD previously.

As the theocracy comes forward to claim control of the government, just consider the very real possibilities .. and the US is already BROKE .. and all this information is applicable to Afghani vets here in Canada as well.

I wrote my warnings about this on OpED quite a while ago -

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_virginia_070620_
about_bloody_time_2c_b.htm

The PR goes on and on and on - the Cheney ripoffs of US taxpayer funds to "reconstruct" Iraq and Afghanistan for Halliburton/KBR citadels continues. Reconstruction funds (see my SIGIR/Stuart Bowen links) continue to go missing.

And those who suffer grave physical and moral problems continue to get little or nothing. ENOUGH!! Keep the spotlight on this issue!!

I know ALL about PTSD - I have ALL seventeen symptoms. It's horrifying and can make you completely dysfunctional. No, I get no help up here in Canada although I suffer from it, save from my GP.

We have TONS of work to do ahead of us to heal as nations from these bloody, bloody soul destroying wars brought on by NEOCONS, and paid for by US, the taxpayers and productive people (and you do not need to be a vet or a taxpayer to be productive, either!!) New public health policies cannot be ignored at a US federal level, that is for SURE.

All I can say is this - FOR SHAME! Bring on the ICC hearings and bring them on SOON!!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_ladybroa_080215_
special_prosecutor_i.htm

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/global-people-for-the-impeachment-
of-richard-cheney
Please sign this impeachment petition!

Bring a focus on ALL the problems.

Send pennies, dimes, nickels and $500 bills to IAVA.org. Let them have a platform everywhere. They do a GREAT JOB, as I often say.

While BuZh and buddies (Michael Mukasey for one) allow torturous tasers to proliferate and Big Pharma continues to see POISONS in the form of atypical antipsychotics and suicide-inducing antidepressants, this is what is TRULY GOING ON!! It is HORRIFYING. Let the vets who have committed WAR CRIMES long and loudly and GRIEVE what they have done - But DON'T let them commit suicide from lack of funding or lack of concern on our parts.

Please. My own son went on mainstream TV on this issue. Now he has lost his wife and his children .. and no, he does not speak with me. That doesn't matter, I love him anyway and have NO desire to see him suffer. NONE. Particularly not in THIS horrific way. He is my SON and those are my grandchildren - the future of AMERICA with valuable BLOOD And ties to American soil who need to know their FULL HISTORY.

Help me help them. I say this again, PLEASE.

So much damage, so much healing to be done .. things to cry long and deeply about. The Empire is falling . is this what we want America's (and Canada's) "legacy" to look like as it sinks deeper into the morality void for its citizens?

Veeger

THE WALKING DEAD / P.T.S.D. REVISITED by Allen L Roland http://www.opednews.com

Army 1st Lt. Jullian Philip Goodrum in his room in the Mologne House at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Goodrum suffers from PTSD. Nina Berman / Redux

Our European friends clearly see Bush for what he really is and what we refuse to acknowledge ~ a moral coward masquerading as a world leader. Posed on his wooden horse of hubris he has become a modern day Don Quixote flailing away at the windmills of the evil world he himself has created and remaining in deliberate denial of the human chaos and unneccessary deaths he is reponsible for: Allen L Roland

And so our troops trudge on ~ fighting an enemy they can't see, fighting for an illegal occupation they don't believe in, fighting to stay moral and sane in a foreign country where they are despised and hated ~ is it any wonder that they turn suicidal when Bush extends or demands another tour so that he will not have to face his incredible moral failure on his own watch.

They have, in essence, become cannon fodder for Cheney and Bush's failed criminal neocon pipe dream. Is it any wonder that they can see no way out ~ particularly in light of a timid self serving Congress who refuses to listen to the vast majority of Americans who want them sent home now.

And get this ~ Last year, the VA's Inspector General issued a report estimating that 1,000 veterans under its care commit suicide every year.

They are, indeed, the walking dead and Aaron Glantz gives us a short update on this nightmare scenario.

Allen L Roland

http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2008/03/30.html

Suicidal and Facing a Third Tour in IraBy Aaron Glantz

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17724.htm

05/17/07 - -- -SAN FRANCISCO, May 15 (IPS) - At the beginning of May, Corporal Cloy Richards tried to kill himself.

He punched out all his windows and cut major arteries," his mother Tina Richards told IPS. "He had to go to the hospital because he almost bled to death."

loy Richards, who lives in rural Salem, Missouri, has served two deployments in the Marine Corps in Iraq. The military lists him as 80-percent combat disabled.

His mother says he has knee and arm injuries, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, and currently has a claim pending with the Army for a traumatic brain injury.

"It's something that affects us every single day," Tina said, "when he's 23 years old and he can't even climb the stairs. He has bad nightmares where he thinks he's back in Iraq."

Richards said her son sustained most of his injuries after his first tour in Iraq, adding that the family protested his second deployment to no avail. After four years on active duty, Cloy Richards is now in the individual ready reserve and faces the possibility of a third deployment to Iraq.

New guidelines released by the Pentagon in December allow commanders to redeploy soldiers suffering from traumatic stress disorders

According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, service-members with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance" may be considered for duty downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a "treatable" problem.

PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to an event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. A person having a flashback may lose touch with reality and believe that the traumatic incident is happening all over again.

"It's just terrifying," said Dr. Karen Seal, a clinician at San Francisco's Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centre who treats soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological illnesses.

Seal told IPS that patients under her care have been deployed despite serious mental health conditions.

"I feel like writing them a medical excuse," she said, "but that's not my responsibility as a VA clinician. Because I'm a VA provider, I don't have the authority to do that."

According to a study co-authored by Seal and her colleagues at the Centre, about one- third of the more than 100,000 returning veterans seen at VA facilities between Sep. 30, 2001 and Sep. 30, 2005 were diagnosed with mental illness or a psycho-social disorder such as homelessness and marital problems, including domestic violence. Over half suffered from more than one disorder.

Other researchers suggest those statistics may only represent the tip of the iceberg. Many veterans, they note, don't come forward to seek care. The stigma associated with post- traumatic stress disorder may account for part of this gap, they say.

In addition, according to recent report by Linda Bilmes of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, waiting lists for returning veterans are "so long as to effectively deny treatment to a number of veterans."

In the May 2006 edition of Psychiatric News, Bilmes notes that VA Undersecretary of Health Policy Coordination Frances Murphy wrote that when services are available, "waiting lists render that care virtually inaccessible."

There is also the issue of geography.

"One of the disconnects and failures in planning for this war is that the Veterans Administration is essentially configured in an urban way," Bilmes told IPS. "That makes a lot of sense for recruiting specialists and staffing the facilities. However, recruiting for the military in this war tends to come primarily from small, rural America. So, what we don't have is enough mental health care for veterans in these rural communities when they come home."

Last Thursday, the VA's Inspector General issued a report estimating that 1,000 veterans under its care commit suicide every year.

The report also found that vets are at increased risk of suicide because many VA clinics don't have 24-hour care or adequate mental health screening, and lack properly trained personnel.

The report, which was requested last year by Rep. Michael Michaud, a Democrat of Maine, said clinics should work harder so veterans can seek treatment without feeling stigmatised, and recommended additional screening for patients with traumatic brain injury, a type of brain damage caused by projectiles like roadside bombs which many are calling the "signature injury" of the Iraq war.

"The problem is that traumatic brain injury, which is an anatomic, physiologic problem, sort of intermingles with post-traumatic stress disorder," Dr. William Schecter, the chief of surgery at San Francisco General Hospital, explained to IPS. "This is going to be a lifelong challenge for the individuals who have suffered these injuries." (END/2007)

Security contractor Blackwater ends bid for Calif. training site

By ALLISON HOFFMAN Associated Press Writer

Article Launched: 03/07/2008 03:29:26 PM PST

SAN DIEGO—Military security contractor Blackwater Worldwide has pulled its plans to build a training facility in a remote area about 45 miles east of San Diego.

Company project manager Brian Bonfiglio said in a letter submitted Friday to the San Diego County planning department that the site near the small community of Potrero no longer meets Blackwater's business needs.

"After examining the capacity of our existing facilities and our business development goals, we have decided not to pursue plans for a training campus in Potrero,"

Bonfiglio wrote.

The company had planned to convert a former chicken ranch into a camp that would host weeklong training courses for law enforcement and military personnel. The initial proposal for Blackwater West included 11 firing ranges, a driving track and a helipad in a valley tucked into rocky desert mountains.

Tiny Potrero, home to about 850 people, found itself split by the plan, with environmentalist and anti-war factions ardently opposing those who welcomed the prospect of an economic boost for the area. In December, voters recalled five members of a local planning board who supported the project.

"I feel giddy," said Jan Hedlun, a planning group member who led local opposition to the project. She said word was spreading fast as opponents celebrated by faxing around copies of Bonfiglio's letter, which was posted online Friday by The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Bonfiglio said the repeated marches and ound levels in the bowl-shaped valley exceeded the county limits and would have been prohibitively expensive to fix.

"The decision was ultimately made yesterday based on the fact that there was no feasible mitigation with regard to our noise tests," Bonfiglio told The Associated Press on Friday. "You'd basically have to put roofs on every single range. It's not workable."

Bonfiglio said he did not know whether Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., planned to explore other sites in the West for additional training camps.

The company had said the Potrero camp would be an ideal complement to its headquarters in Moyock, and a satellite training center in Mount Carroll, Ill., about 150 miles west of Chicago. The site is a short drive from San Diego and its array of military bases and federal law-enforcement field offices—including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.

"The need is still there," Bonfiglio said.

He said the company did not abandon the Potrero project, which he estimated had already cost more than $1 million in consultants' fees, because it is struggling financially.

The company had come under congressional scrutiny after the shootings of 17 civilians in Baghdad by contract guards in September. FBI investigators and Justice Department attorneys were in Iraq at the end of February to re-examine evidence from the Sept. 16 shooting and determine whether charges might be brought in U.S. courts.

Infragard at work: Case United Airlines

Blunderov,

The Soviet Union was a polite place too. Perhaps for similar reasons. Police states don't need to be impolite. They have other methods available. Speaking of police states, it isn't just closer than you think. It is already here. This was brought to my attention in a fairly forcible way courtesy of United Express.

Returning from a trip to Los Angeles I made a number of decisions which, it was to become apparent, were of dubious merit. The first was to fly with United. The second was to route through Denver. Even before I left Los Angeles, my flight to Cedar Rapids was shown on the notice boards as delayed. I let my family know the expected arrival time. When I arrived in Denver, I checked on the departure time and gate and went to eat. When I returned to the previously posted gate after eating, it was as if my scheduled flight had never been. Queries from United Staff sent me to what I initially thought of as the poorly named "Passenger Service" where a person whose sole job was apparently to be pleasant while clutching any useful information to her bosom then directed me to a second "Passenger Service" point on the other end of the concourse. Walking there, I discovered a closed and empty counter. While this was hardly less communicative than the first service representative it wasn't going to get me to Cedar Rapids. Returning to the gate I got sent to yet another Passenger Service point. Clearly I had come to the right place. I took a position at the rear of the vast queue of unhappy victims of United. An hour passed as four overworked agents dealt with passengers at a rate just fast enough to encourage the United Victims to imagine that the queue was moving at a glacial rate. So glacial that there was serious concern that the glaciers might all have evaporated before I got to the front of the ever growing queue.

Two hours later, with two hundred people in a line that now stretched back across the concourse, an elderly southern European walked up to the counter and started complaining. He was not even slightly aggressive, nor did he swear. He simply shouted that the service stank, that they needed more agents, etc.

Moments later four burly, black clothed Gestapo arrived, cuffed the lone protester (doing what any European might have done quite safely at home), and marched him off. To my embarrassment, nobody in the crowd said anything, despite the fact that his arrest seemed to trigger United fetching another supervisor, some more agents and a slightly faster movement of the queue. My mild objections (I know about US cops' tendency to regard any objections as “interfering with an officer in the performance of his duty”) were met by the polite observation that there were more handcuffs available. As I wanted to get home, I shut the fuck up (blush).

It still didn't help me get home.

When I finally (three hours later) reached the head of the queue, I learned from an agent as useless as he was polite - and he was terribly polite, that the next direct flight was on Monday afternoon. I settled for an indirect connection. An early morning flight from Denver to Minneapolis. Followed by an early afternoon flight from Minneapolis to Chicago. Finally a late afternoon flight from Chicago to Cedar Rapids. With an arrival 18 hours later than planned. And 8 hours driving by my family. I could have driven from Denver to home in the same time period. And probably would have arrived more rested.

As punishment I was put up for the night in a very industrial, smelly, $20 a night kind of dive. United also provided me with "meal vouchers," one to the tune of $9 and another to the tune of $4. The stand-up take-away food I bought at the airport with them cost $ 16 and $14.

The US government gave the airline industry $15 billion last year. More than it has given the railways in all their years of operation. I'm writing to everyone I know to suggest that next year, if they have any money at all, that the government give it to Amtrack. For all that Amtrack is horrible, they could hardly do worse with it than United. And it might actually do the country some good when the cheap-oil runs out.

Kind Regards

Hermit

New Marketing Slogans: “Victims of United, Unite” and “Fly United, Get Arrested”