The Orwellian-named mercenary trade group, the International Peace Operations Association, didn’t waste much time in offering the ‘services’ of its member companies to swoop down on Haiti for some old fashioned humanitarian assistance disaster profiteering. Within hours of the massive earthquake in Haiti, the IPOA created a special web page for prospective clients, saying: ‘In the wake of the tragic events in Haiti, a number of IPOA’s member companies are available and prepared to provide a wide variety of critical relief services to the earthquake’s victims.’
The growing use of private armies not only subjects target populations to savage warfare but makes it easier for the White House to subvert domestic public opinion and wage wars.
Global Poverty and The Economic Crisis. Selected Articles 22-27 August, 2009
How dominance creates megalomanic illusions of insuperable control, and how this illusion in turn is crystallized into a prevailing ideology of dominance. I am surprised that so few, heretofore, have pointed out that from a public point of view these ideologies are delusional, indeed perhaps insane. In this essay I will argue however that what looks demented from a public viewpoint makes sense from the narrower perspective of those profiting from the provision of private entrepreneurial violence and intelligence.
Filed in Creative-i on Capitalism, Creative-i on the USA
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Also tagged BP, Chevron, Conoco, Diligence LLC, exxon-mobil, Kissinger, PMCs, private military contractors, Robert M. Gates, SAIC, Shell, Zbigniew Brzezinski
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Just days before two former Blackwater employees alleged in sworn statements filed in federal court that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, ‘views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,’ the Obama administration extended a contract with Blackwater for more than $20 million for ’security services’ in Iraq, according to federal contract data obtained by The Nation.
Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the Worlds Most Powerful Mercenary Army, discusses the dwindling ranks of antiwar Democrats in Congress, the cruise missile liberals that support war in Darfur without questioning the aims of U.S. imperialism, the mercenary surge accompanying the troop surge in Afghanistan, the history of bipartisan executive assassination programs and the birther conspiracy theories that completely miss the point. Parts 1-4
Given all the recent interest in Blackwater and all things related to its founder, Erik Prince, currently under investigation for multiple murders (see video below), I remembered that we had both been sent very threatening letters from Blackwater’s lawyers a couple of years ago, that we cease and desist etc, publishing defamatory information about Blackwater’s [...]
Guards employed by Blackwater, the US security company, shot Iraqis and killed victims in allegedly unprovoked and random attacks, it was claimed yesterday. A Virginia court also received sworn statements from former Blackwater employees yesterday alleging that Erik Prince, the company’s founder, ‘views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe’.
The Somali pirates who took control of the 17,000-ton ‘Maersk Alabama’ cargo-ship in the early hours of Wednesday morning probably were unaware that the ship they were boarding belonged to a U.S. Department of Defense contractor with ‘top security clearance,’ which does a half-billion dollars in annual business with the Pentagon, primarily the Navy
According to a recent government audit, first reported in The New York Times, at least 310 PSCs from around the world have received contracts from U.S. agencies to protect American and Iraqi officials, installations, convoys and other entities in Iraq since 2003, at a cost of about $6 billion.
Filed in Creative-i on Iraq, Creative-i on the USA
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Also tagged Aegis Defense, Agility Logistics, ArmorGroup, DynCorp, EOD Technology, PMCs, private military contractors, Sabre International Security, SOC-SMG, Triple Canopy, Unity Resources Group
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We find Obama threatening, several times, to attack Iran if they don’t do what the United States wants them to do nuclear-wise; threatening more than once to attack Pakistan if their anti-terrorist policies are not tough enough or if there would be a regime change in the nuclear-armed country not to his liking
Filed in Creative-i on Capitalism, Guest Writers
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Also tagged afghanistan, Al Gore, ANC, books, bush, canada, carter, cia, clinton, cold war, cuba, democratic party, development, ecology, economy, empire, EU, GE, geneva conventions, genocide, george bush, human rights, humanitarian law, ICTY, imf, imperialism, impunity, international law, iraq war, islam, israel, kuwait, left, marx, McCain, media, MIT, MoD, NATO, New York, new york times, obama, occupation, pakistan, pol pot, progressive, Ralph Nader, revolution, right, roles, serbia, taliban, Tony Blair, torture, uk, un, united nations, united states, usa, values, Venezuela, vietnam, vietnam war, war, war crime, washington, washington post, water, world bank, WTO, Zbigniew Brzezinski
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After the fall of Soviet Communism some political scientists came to believe that the terms Left and Right no longer made sense, that they were actually the same. Before his death in 1980, Jean-Paul Sartre went so far as to speak of Left and Right as “empty boxes,” as if they had been buried by Stalinism. Other political thinkers began using in their place terms such as progressive and conservative.
Filed in Creative-i on Socialism, Guest Writers
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Also tagged ANC, books, cia, communism, constitution, culture, democracy, democratic party, democrats, EU, fascism, GE, independent, internet, italy, left, MIT, MoD, progressive, PUP, revolution, right, socialism, stalin, stalinism, un, united states, usa, values, war, washington, water
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By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet. January 29, 2008.
Protesters who re-enacted one of Blackwater’s worst civilian massacres in Iraq got jail time, while the real killers remain free.
Last week in Currituck County, N.C., Superior Court Judge Russell Duke presided over the final step in securing the first criminal conviction stemming from the deadly actions of Blackwater Worldwide, [...]
Mercenary armies are not new. Before conscription most wars were fought with hired hands, often consisting of soldiers from many countries serving under a single flag, so the use of mercenaries in Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia (and let us not forget the hired killers who fought under the South African flag all across [...]
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