NC-based Blackwater investigated for illegal weapons shipments

I definitely agree that regular citizens need to monitor Blackwater and stay in touch with their representative in Congress, etc. I guess what I'm getting at is -- given that Blackwater is located in NC -- is there anything the State of NC can do to drive them out of NC or (hopefully) out of business entirely? For example, could we lobby the legislature to increase taxes on mercenary firms by, say, 1000 percent? And if the state regulates alcohol, surely it can also regulate private armies? There's also always the option of coordinating civil disobedience (I mean, it's only our democracy at stake!)

My point is that North Carolinians have a unique responsibility to stop Blackwater, and I'd be worthwhile to brainstorm ways regular citizens and/or our state government can ruin their business.

Iraq: Blackwater Guards Fired Unprovoked
September 23, 2007

Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in a shooting last week that left 11 people dead, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case was referred to the Iraqi judiciary. Iraq's president, meanwhile, demanded that the Americans release an Iranian arrested this week on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Shiite militias. The demand adds new strains to U.S.-Iraqi relations only days before a meeting between President Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Iraqi authorities had completed an investigation into the Sept. 16 shooting in Nisoor Square in western Baghdad and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths.

Please keep writing about this.

I believe a full frontal assault on our mercenary army would be a powerful center for your campaign - and would resonate strongly in your district.

You are the most knowledgeable person I know on this issue and it would be good to push it hard. I will help in any way I can, even it it's simply to promote and spread what you write.

And to the representatives of Congressman Price's office who are reading this: You can expect the drumbeat of accountability to be pounding on your doors. I know the you're looking at this seriously, but the level of urgency and inquiry needs to be stepped up tenfold. And it needs to be stepped up now.

North Carolina is home to a renegade mercenary army that trades in illegal weapons. They might have a place somewhere in this world, but it should not be in the United States of America. And it should most definitely not be in North Carolina.

For instance, the Blackwater contract specifically details that they are not subject to Iraqi laws. Part of that was because there was no sovereign Iraqi government at the time. Another, and probably more significant, part is that the American government wanted to provide legal protection for the contractors.

I have no clue about a state revoking the operating rights of a company...

Thomas S. Brock
www.brocknet.net
http://blogs.brocknet.net/brocklog/

What have YOU done today to elect a Democrat?

Paul Bremer assumed the role of ultimate authority in Iraq as head of the coalition.

The laws he passed were valid in Iraq under his occupation authority. the Iraqi government we installed in 2004 validated Paul Bremers authority.

Paul Bremer, whose boss was Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld, passed rules in Iraq shielding Blackwater and other security companies from prosecution in Iraq or under US Law. The US Courts, after an incident, ruled that The CPA rules did not come under the Authority of the US Courts because the CPA itself was NOT part of the US Government even though all of their paychecks came from the US Treasury.

Consequently, the assumption since has been that the US Army , who pays Blackwater, has no legal juristiction over thier operations in Iraq.

Read carefully what is being written in the news : For example "Blackwater "AGREES" to cooperate in the investigtion. They cannot be forced to cooperate because they are not operating within US Law or Juristiction.

This is all by design. .....and it is working brilliently for them.

Congress must stop the unchecked contracting of mercenaries by the DOD for foreign activity in war or distressed countries.

This type of outsourceing could actually lead to private armies right here in America. Our "Outsourced" Prisons system management is a prime example.

Hired Guns, Loose Cannons
Americans Will Regret Use Of Private Armies Such As Blackwater In Iraq

By ERIC MARGOLIS

Munich - Private armies have a very sinister reputation in Europe.

Memories still linger of Germany's post First World War army veterans, the Stahlhelm, and Nazi Brownshirts, who battled Communist street toughs in Munich and Berlin.

Europeans remember Italy's fascist Blackshirts and, most recently, Serb neo-fascist gangs like Arkan's Tigers and the White Eagles who committed some of the worst atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Germany also remains haunted by folk memory of the hordes of blood-crazed mercenaries who turned much of this nation into a wasteland during the savage 30 Years War. The name of the great mercenary captain, Wallenstein, still resounds, and of those most feared mercenaries of all, the ferocious Swiss, who once terrorized Europe.

Wrote Machiavelli: "where there is gold and blood, there are the Swiss." The Vatican's Swiss Guard is a faint reminder of the "furia Helvetica."

Small numbers of mercenaries have been used in many modern wars, from Vietnam to Central America. The most famed modern mercenary force is France's tough Foreign Legion.

The rise of powerful mercenary armies within the United States, and their use in Iraq and Afghanistan, is an entirely new, deeply disturbing development.

Last weekend, mercenaries from the U.S. firm Blackwater gunned down 11 Iraqi civilians during an attack on a convoy they were guarding. Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, ordered Blackwater's thousands of swaggering mercenaries expelled from Iraq. But his order was quickly countermanded by U.S. occupation authorities.

There are 180,000 to 200,000 U.S.-paid mercenaries in Iraq -- or "private contractors" as Washington and the U.S. media delicately call them. They actually outnumber the 169,000 U.S. troops there. Britain pays for another 20,000. At least half are armed fighters, the rest support personnel and technicians. Without them, the U.S. and Britain could not maintain their occupation of Iraq.

These private enterprise fighters, like the Renaissance's Italian condotierri, German landsknecht, and Swiss pikemen, are lawless, answering to no authority but their employers. Democrats in the U.S. Congress are rightly demanding these trigger-happy Rambos to be at least brought under American military law.

BLACKWATER

The U.S. State Department now has its own little army in Iraq and Afghanistan of about 3,000 Blackwater gunmen who protect American officials and their local collaborators. Some reports say the State Department has spent $678 million alone with Blackwater since 2003.

Afghanistan's U.S.-installed leader, Hamid Karzai, is surrounded at all times by 200 American bodyguards, his own people not being trusted to protect their president. Iraq's U.S.-installed leaders are similarly guarded by U.S. mercenaries.

Nearly all Washington's contracts for mercenaries are awarded without competitive bidding to firms close to the Republican Party. Blackwater's owners are major contributors. Their 7,000-acre base in the southern U. S. is likely the world's largest non-government military operation and a menacing creation straight out of the famous film, Seven Days in May.

This unprecedented use of mercenaries has masked the depths of U.S. involvement in Iraq and clearly shows how little the occupying forces can rely on the locals, whom they supposedly "liberated." It has also allowed the U.S. to sustain an imperial war that could never have been waged with conscripted American soldiers, as Vietnam showed.

UNLEASHED

Vice-President Dick Cheney took Vietnam's lesson to heart by championing use of mercenaries for nasty foreign wars. But democracies should have no business unleashing armies of hired gunmen on the world.

Worse, these private armies hardwired to the Republican Party's far right are a grave and intolerable danger to the American republic. Congress should outlaw them absolutely. The great Roman Republic held that mandatory military service by all citizens was the basis of democracy, while professional armies were a grave menace.

How ironic that colonial America, which rose up in arms in response to the British crown's use of brutal German mercenaries, is resorting to the same tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan. Europe wants no more of private armies. Americans have yet to learn this painful lesson.