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Author Topic:   U.S. Mercenaries in Iraq
naiad
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posted May 19, 2007 12:49 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
May 11, 2007
Outsourcing the War
Jeremy Scahill

Editor's Note: Jeremy Scahill, bestselling author and investigative reporter for The Nation, testified May 10 before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on the impact of private military contractors on the conduct of the Iraq War. This is the full text of his remarks.

My name is Jeremy Scahill. I have submitted my full remarks and request they be entered into the record. I am an investigative reporter for The Nation magazine and the author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. I have spent the better part of the past two and a half years researching privatized warfare. I have interviewed scores of sources, filed many Freedom of Information Act requests, obtained government contracts and private company documents of firms operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

As this Committee is well aware, we are now in the midst of the most privatized war in the history of our country. This is hardly a new phenomenon, but it is one that has greatly accelerated since the launch of the "global war on terror" and the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Many Americans are under the impression that the US currently has about 145,000 active duty troops on the ground in Iraq. What is seldom mentioned is the fact that there are at least 126,000 private personnel deployed alongside the official armed forces. These private forces effectively double the size of the occupation force, largely without the knowledge of the US taxpayers that foot the bill.

But despite the similarity in size of these respective forces in Iraq, there are key differences with the way our government approaches the active-duty military and these private war contractors. For instance, we know that nearly 3,400 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq and more than 25,000 wounded. We do not know the exact number of private contractors killed or wounded. Through the US Department of Labor, we have been able to determine that at least 770 contractors had been killed in Iraq as of December 2006 along with at least 7,700 wounded. These casualties are not included in the official death count and help to mask the human costs of the war. More disturbing is what this means for our democracy: at a time when the administration seems unwilling to subject its war strategy to oversight by the Congress, we face the widespread use of private forces seemingly accountable to no effective system of oversight or law.

While tens of thousands of these contractors provide logistical support, thousands are heavily armed private soldiers roaming Iraq. We do know that there are some 48,000 employees of private military companies in Iraq alone.

These forces work for US companies like Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp as well as companies from across the globe. Some contractors make in a month what many active-duty soldiers make in a year. Indeed, there are private contractors in Iraq making more money than the Secretary of Defense and more than the commanding generals. The testimony about private contractors that I hear most often from active duty soldiers falls into two categories: resentment and envy.

They ask what message their country is sending them. While many soldiers lack basic protective equipment--facts well-known to this committee--they are in a war zone where they see the private soldiers whiz by in better vehicles, with better armor, better weapons, wearing the corporate logo instead of the American flag and pulling in much more money. They ask: Are our lives worth less?

Of course, there are many cases where war contractors have hoarded the profits at the top and money has not filtered down to the individual contractors on the ground or the armor to protect them.

The second reaction is that the active-duty soldiers see the "rock star" private contractors and they want to be like them. So we have a phenomenon of soldiers leaving active duty to join the private sector.

There is slang in Iraq now for this jump. It is called "Going Blackwater." To put it bluntly, these private forces create a system where national duty is outbid by profits. And yet these forces are being used for mission-critical activities. Indeed, in January Gen. David Petraeus admitted that on his last tour in Iraq, he himself was protected not by the active-duty military but by private "contract security."

Just as there is a double standard in pay, there is a double standard in the application of the law. Soldiers who commit crimes or acts of misconduct are prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There have been some 64 courts martial on murder-related charges in Iraq alone. Compare that to the lack of prosecution of contractors. Despite the fact that tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, have streamed in and out of Iraq since March of 2003, only two private contractors have faced any criminal prosecution. Two. One was a KBR employee alleged to have stabbed a co-worker, the other pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison. In four years, there have been no prosecutions for crimes against Iraqis and not a single known prosecution of an armed contractor.

That either means we have tens of thousands of Boy Scouts working as armed contractors or something is fundamentally wrong with the system. Brig. Gen. Karl Horst of the 3rd Infantry Division became so outraged by contractor unaccountability that he began tracking contractor violence in Baghdad. In just two months he documented twelve cases of contractors shooting at civilians, resulting in six deaths and three injuries. That is just two months and one general.

They have not been prosecuted under the UCMJ, under US civilian law or under Iraqi law. US contractors in Iraq reportedly have their own motto: "What happens here today, stays here today." That should be chilling to everyone who believes that warfare, above all government functions, must be subject to transparency, accountability and the rule of law.

These are forces operating in the name of the United States of America. Iraqis do not see contractors as separate from soldiers--understandably, they see them all as "the occupation." Contractor misconduct is viewed as American misconduct.

While there is currently a debate in Congress about how to hold these private forces accountable, the political will to act remains shockingly absent.

Given the vast size of this private force, spread across the most dangerous war zone in the world, it is not at all clear how effective oversight would work. We already know that auditors cannot visit many reconstruction sites because of security concerns. Journalists are locked in the Green Zone. The army is stretched to the max. So what entity then is supposed to have the capacity or ability to oversee the men who have been brought to Iraq to go where no one else will?

Members of Congress tell me they have been stonewalled in their attempts to gain detailed information about the activities of these companies. I think it is a disturbing commentary that I have received phone calls from several Congress members asking me for government documents on war contractors and not the other way around.

In the current discussion in the Congress on this issue, what is seldom discussed is how this system, the privatization of war, has both encouraged and enabled the growth and creation of companies who have benefited and stand to gain even more from an escalation of the war.

In closing, while I think this Congress needs to take urgent action on issues of oversight, accountability and transparency of these private forces operating with our tax dollars and in the name of the United States, there is a deeper issue that often gets overlooked. This war contracting system has intimately linked corporate profits to an escalation of war and conflict. These companies have no incentive to decrease their footprint in the war zone and every incentive to increase it.

As the country debates current and future Iraq policy, Congress owes it to the public to take down the curtain of secrecy surrounding these shadow forces that often act in the name and on the payroll of the people of this country. Thank you for your time. I am prepared to answer any questions.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070528/scahill

the privatization of war, has both encouraged and enabled the growth and creation of companies who have benefited and stand to gain even more from an escalation of the war.

This war contracting system has intimately linked corporate profits to an escalation of war and conflict. These companies have no incentive to decrease their footprint in the war zone and every incentive to increase it.

unbelievable....and indeed outrageous.

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naiad
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posted May 19, 2007 03:10 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The Shadow War in Iraq

While all of this is troubling, there is another disturbing fact which speaks volumes about the Democrats' lack of insight into the nature of this unpopular war--and most Americans will know next to nothing about it. Even if the President didn't veto their legislation, the Democrats' plan does almost nothing to address the second-largest force in Iraq--and it's not the British military. It's the estimated 126,000 private military "contractors" who will stay put there as long as Congress continues funding the war.

The 145,000 active-duty US forces are nearly matched by occupation personnel that currently come from companies like Blackwater USA and the former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, which enjoy close personal and political ties with the Bush administration. Until Congress reins in these massive corporate forces and the whopping federal funding that goes into their coffers, partially withdrawing US troops may only set the stage for the increased use of private military companies (and their rent-a-guns) which stand to profit from any kind of privatized future "surge" in Iraq.

From the beginning, these contractors have been a major hidden story of the war, almost uncovered in the mainstream media and absolutely central to maintaining the US occupation of Iraq. While many of them perform logistical support activities for American troops, including the sort of laundry, fuel and mail delivery, and food-preparation work that once was performed by soldiers, tens of thousands of them are directly engaged in military and combat activities. According to the Government Accountability Office, there are now some 48,000 employees of private military companies in Iraq. These not-quite G.I. Joes, working for Blackwater and other major US firms, can clear in a month what some active-duty soldiers make in a year. "We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of Defense," said House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha. "How in the hell do you justify that?"

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman estimates that $4 billion in taxpayer money has so far been spent in Iraq on these armed "security" companies like Blackwater--with tens of billions more going to other war companies like KBR and Fluor for "logistical" support. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of the House Intelligence Committee believes that up to forty cents of every dollar spent on the occupation has gone to war contractors.

With such massive government payouts, there is little incentive for these companies to minimize their footprint in the region and every incentive to look for more opportunities to profit--especially if, sooner or later, the "official" U.S. presence shrinks, giving the public a sense of withdrawal, of a winding down of the war. Even if George W. Bush were to sign the legislation the Democrats have passed, their plan "allows the President the leeway to escalate the use of military security contractors directly on the battlefield," Erik Leaver of the Institute for Policy Studies points out. It would "allow the President to continue the war using a mercenary army."

The crucial role of contractors in continuing the occupation was driven home in January when David Petraeus, the general running the President's "surge" plan in Baghdad, cited private forces as essential to winning the war. In his confirmation hearings in the Senate, he claimed that they fill a gap attributable to insufficient troop levels available to an overstretched military. Along with Bush's official troop surge, the "tens of thousands of contract security forces," Petraeus told the senators, "give me the reason to believe that we can accomplish the mission." Indeed, Gen. Petraeus admitted that he has, at times, been guarded in Iraq not by the US military, but "secured by contract security."

Such widespread use of contractors, especially in mission-critical operations, should have raised red flags among lawmakers. After a trip to Iraq last month, Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey observed bluntly, "We are overly dependent on civilian contractors. In extreme danger--they will not fight." It is, however, the political rather than military uses of these forces that should be cause for the greatest concern.

Contractors have provided the White House with political cover, allowing for a back-door near doubling of US forces in Iraq through the private sector, while masking the full extent of the human costs of the occupation. Although contractor deaths are not effectively tallied, at least 770 contractors have been killed in Iraq and at least another 7,700 injured. These numbers are not included in any official (or media) toll of the war. More significantly, there is absolutely no effective system of oversight or accountability governing contractors and their operations, nor is there any effective law--military or civilian--being applied to their activities. They have not been subjected to military courts martial (despite a recent Congressional attempt to place them under the Uniform Code of Military Justice), nor have they been prosecuted in US civilian courts--and, no matter what their acts in Iraq, they cannot be prosecuted in Iraqi courts. Before Paul Bremer, Bush's viceroy in Baghdad, left Iraq in 2004 he issued an edict, known as Order 17. It immunized contractors from prosecution in Iraq which, today, is like the wild West, full of roaming Iraqi death squads and scores of unaccountable, heavily-armed mercenaries, ex-military men from around the world, working for the occupation. For the community of contractors in Iraq, immunity and impunity are welded together.

Despite the tens of thousands of contractors passing through Iraq and several well-documented incidents involving alleged contractor abuses, only two individuals have been ever indicted for crimes there. One was charged with stabbing a fellow contractor, while the other pled guilty to the possession of child-pornography images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison. While dozens of American soldiers have been court-martialed--sixty-four on murder-related charges--not a single armed contractor has been prosecuted for a crime against an Iraqi. In some cases, where contractors were alleged to have been involved in crimes or deadly incidents, their companies whisked them out of Iraq to safety.

As one armed contractor recently informed the Washington Post, "We were always told, from the very beginning, if for some reason something happened and the Iraqis were trying to prosecute us, they would put you in the back of a car and sneak you out of the country in the middle of the night." According to another, US contractors in Iraq had their own motto: "What happens here today, stays here today."

"These private contractors are really an arm of the administration and its policies," argues Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who has called for a withdrawal of all U.S. contractors from Iraq. "They charge whatever they want with impunity. There's no accountability as to how many people they have, as to what their activities are."

Until now, this situation has largely been the doing of a Republican-controlled Congress and White House. No longer.

While some Congressional Democrats have publicly expressed grave concerns about the widespread use of these private forces and a handful have called for their withdrawal, the party leadership has done almost nothing to stop, or even curb, the use of mercenary corporations in Iraq. As it stands, the Bush administration and the industry have little to fear from Congress on this score, despite the unseating of the Republican majority.

On two central fronts, accountability and funding, the Democrats' approach has been severely flawed, playing into the agendas of both the White House and the war contractors. Some Democrats, for instance, are pushing accountability legislation that would actually require more US personnel to deploy to Iraq as part of an FBI Baghdad "Theater Investigative Unit" that would supposedly monitor and investigate contractor conduct. The idea is: FBI investigators would run around Iraq, gather evidence, and interview witnesses, leading to indictments and prosecutions in U.S. civilian courts.

This is a plan almost certain to backfire, if ever instituted. It raises a slew of questions: Who would protect the investigators? How would Iraqi victims be interviewed? How would evidence be gathered amid the chaos and dangers of Iraq? Given that the federal government and the military seem unable--or unwilling--even to count how many contractors are actually in the country, how could their activities possibly be monitored? In light of the recent Bush administration scandal over the eight fired US attorneys, serious questions remain about the integrity of the Justice Department. How could we have any faith that real crimes in Iraq, committed by the employees of immensely well-connected crony corporations like Blackwater and Halliburton, would be investigated adequately?

Apart from the fact that it would be impossible to effectively monitor 126,000 or more private contractors under the best of conditions in the world's most dangerous war zone, this legislation would give the industry a tremendous PR victory. Once it was passed as the law of the land, the companies could finally claim that a legally accountable structure governed their operations. Yet they would be well aware that such legislation would be nearly impossible to enforce.

Not surprisingly, then, the mercenary trade group with the Orwellian name of the International Peace Operations Association(IPOA) has pushed for just this Democratic-sponsored approach rather than the military court martial system favored by conservative Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. The IPOA called the expansion of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act--essentially the Democrats' oversight plan--"the most cogent approach to ensuring greater contractor accountability in the battle space." That endorsement alone should be reason enough to pause and reconsider.

Then there is the issue of continued funding for the privatized shadow forces in Iraq. As originally passed in the House, the Democrats' Iraq plan would have cut only about 15 percent, or $815 million, of the supplemental spending earmarked for day-to-day military operations "to reflect savings attributable to efficiencies and management improvements in the funding of contracts in the military departments."

As it stood, this was a stunningly insufficient plan, given ongoing events in Iraq. But even that mild provision was dropped by the Democrats in late April. Their excuse was the need to hold more hearings on the contractor issue. Instead, they moved to withhold--not cut--15 percent of total day-to-day operational funding, but only until Secretary of Defense Robert Gates submits a report on the use of contractors and the scope of their deployment. Once the report is submitted, the 15 percent would be unlocked. In essence, this means that, under the Democrats plan, the mercenary forces will simply be able to continue business-as-usual/profits-as-usual in Iraq.

However obfuscated by discussions of accountability, fiscal responsibility, and oversight, the gorilla of a question in the Congressional war room is: Should the administration be allowed to use mercenary forces, whose livelihoods depend on war and conflict, to help fight its battles in Iraq?

Rep. Murtha says, "We're trying to bring accountability to an unaccountable war." But it's not accountability that the war needs; it needs an end. By sanctioning the administration's continuing use of mercenary corporations--instead of cutting off all funding to them--the Democrats leave the door open for a future escalation of the shadow war in Iraq. This, in turn, could pave the way for an array of secretive, politically well-connected firms that have profited tremendously under the current administration to elevate their status and increase their government paychecks.

Blackwater's War

Consider the case of Blackwater USA.

A decade ago, the company barely existed; and yet, its "diplomatic security" contracts since mid-2004, with the State Department alone, total more than $750 million. Today, Blackwater has become nothing short of the Bush administration's well-paid Praetorian Guard. It protects the US ambassador and other senior officials in Iraq as well as visiting Congressional delegations; it trains Afghan security forces and was deployed in the oil-rich Caspian Sea region, setting up a "command and control" center just miles from the Iranian border. The company was also hired to protect FEMA operations and facilities in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where it raked in $240,000 a day from the American taxpayer, billing $950 a day per Blackwater contractor.

Since September 11, 2001, the company has invested its lucrative government payouts in building an impressive private army. At present, it has forces deployed in nine countries and boasts a database of 21,000 additional troops at the ready, a fleet of more than twenty aircraft, including helicopter gun-ships, and the world's largest private military facility--a 7,000 acre compound near the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina. It recently opened a new facility in Illinois ("Blackwater North") and is fighting local opposition to a third planned domestic facility near San Diego ("Blackwater West") by the Mexican border. It is also manufacturing an armored vehicle (nicknamed the "Grizzly") and surveillance blimps.

The man behind this empire is Erik Prince, a secretive, conservative Christian, ex-Navy SEAL multimillionaire who bankrolls the President and his allies with major campaign contributions. Among Blackwater's senior executives are Cofer Black, former head of counterterrorism at the CIA; Robert Richer, former Deputy Director of Operations at the CIA; Joseph Schmitz, former Pentagon Inspector General; and an impressive array of other retired military and intelligence officials. Company executives recently announced the creation of a new private intelligence company, "Total Intelligence," to be headed by Black and Richer.

For years, Blackwater's operations have been shrouded in secrecy. Emboldened by the culture of impunity enjoyed by the private sector in the Bush administration's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Blackwater's founder has talked of creating a "contractor brigade" to support US military operations and fancies his forces the "FedEx" of the "national security apparatus."

As the country debates an Iraq withdrawal, Congress owes it to the public to take down the curtain of secrecy surrounding these shadow forces that undergird the US public deployment in Iraq. The President likes to say that defunding the war would undercut the troops. Here's the truth of the matter: Continued funding of the Iraq war ensures tremendous profits for politically-connected war contractors. If Congress is serious about ending the occupation, it needs to rein in the unaccountable companies that make it possible and only stand to profit from its escalation.


http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070514/scahill

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naiad
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posted May 24, 2007 01:54 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
while it's not my intention to emphasize the politics in this article, it is to show how the war and the military are being manipulated for the continued financing of the private corporations and mercenaries.

SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann

Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:

Get us out of Iraq.

Yet after six months of preparation and execution—half a year gathering the strands of public support; translating into action, the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the Democrats have managed only this:

The Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president—if not the worst president, then easily the most selfish, in our history—who happily blackmails his own people, and uses his own military personnel as hostages to his asinine demand, that the Democrats “give the troops their money”;
The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans;
The Democratic leadership has given Mr. Bush all that he wanted, with the only caveat being, not merely meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government, but optional meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.
You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions—Stop The War—have traded your strength, your bargaining position, and the uniform support of those who elected you… for a handful of magic beans.
You may trot out every political cliché from the soft-soap, inside-the-beltway dictionary of boilerplate sound bites, about how this is the “beginning of the end” of Mr. Bush’s “carte blanche” in Iraq, about how this is a “first step.”
Well, Senator Reid, the only end at its beginning... is our collective hope that you and your colleagues would do what is right, what is essential, what you were each elected and re-elected to do.
Because this “first step”… is a step right off a cliff.

And this President!
How shameful it would be to watch an adult... hold his breath, and threaten to continue to do so, until he turned blue.
But how horrifying it is… to watch a President hold his breath and threaten to continue to do so, until innocent and patriotic Americans in harm’s way, are bled white.

You lead this country, sir?
You claim to defend it?
And yet when faced with the prospect of someone calling you on your stubbornness—your stubbornness which has cost 3,431 Americans their lives and thousands more their limbs—you, Mr. Bush, imply that if the Democrats don’t give you the money and give it to you entirely on your terms, the troops in Iraq will be stranded, or forced to serve longer, or have to throw bullets at the enemy with their bare hands.
How transcendentally, how historically, pathetic.
Any other president from any other moment in the panorama of our history would have, at the outset of this tawdry game of political chicken, declared that no matter what the other political side did, he would insure personally—first, last and always—that the troops would not suffer.
A President, Mr. Bush, uses the carte blanche he has already, not to manipulate an overlap of arriving and departing Brigades into a ‘second surge,’ but to say in unequivocal terms that if it takes every last dime of the monies already allocated, if it takes reneging on government contracts with Halliburton, he will make sure the troops are safe—even if the only safety to be found, is in getting them the hell out of there.
Well, any true President would have done that, Sir.
You instead, used our troops as political pawns, then blamed the Democrats when you did so.

Not that these Democrats, who had this country’s support and sympathy up until 48 hours ago, have not since earned all the blame they can carry home.

“We seem to be very near the bleak choice between war and shame,” Winston Churchill wrote to Lord Moyne in the days after the British signed the Munich accords with Germany in 1938. “My feeling is that we shall choose shame, and then have war thrown in, a little later…”

That’s what this is for the Democrats, isn’t it?

Their “Neville Chamberlain moment” before the Second World War.
All that’s missing is the landing at the airport, with the blinkered leader waving a piece of paper which he naively thought would guarantee “peace in our time,” but which his opponent would ignore with deceit.
The Democrats have merely streamlined the process.
Their piece of paper already says Mr. Bush can ignore it, with impugnity.

And where are the Democratic presidential hopefuls this evening?
See they not, that to which the Senate and House leadership has blinded itself?

Judging these candidates based on how they voted on the original Iraq authorization, or waiting for apologies for those votes, is ancient history now.

The Democratic nomination is likely to be decided... tomorrow.
The talk of practical politics, the buying into of the President’s dishonest construction “fund-the-troops-or-they-will-be-in-jeopardy,” the promise of tougher action in September, is falling not on deaf ears, but rather falling on Americans who already told you what to do, and now perceive your ears as closed to practical politics.
Those who seek the Democratic nomination need to—for their own political futures and, with a thousand times more solemnity and importance, for the individual futures of our troops—denounce this betrayal, vote against it, and, if need be, unseat Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi if they continue down this path of guilty, fatal acquiescence to the tragically misguided will of a monomaniacal president.

For, ultimately, at this hour, the entire government has failed us.

Mr. Reid, Mr. Hoyer, and the other Democrats... have failed us.
They negotiated away that which they did not own, but had only been entrusted by us to protect: our collective will as the citizens of this country, that this brazen War of Lies be ended as rapidly and safely as possible.
Mr. Bush and his government... have failed us.
They have behaved venomously and without dignity—of course.
That is all at which Mr. Bush is gifted.
We are the ones providing any element of surprise or shock here.
With the exception of Senator Dodd and Senator Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidates have (so far at least) failed us.

They must now speak, and make plain how they view what has been given away to Mr. Bush, and what is yet to be given away tomorrow, and in the thousand tomorrows to come.

Because for the next fourteen months, the Democratic nominating process—indeed the whole of our political discourse until further notice—has, with the stroke of a cursed pen, become about one thing, and one thing alone.
The electorate figured this out, six months ago.
The President and the Republicans have not—doubtless will not.
The Democrats will figure it out, during the Memorial Day recess, when they go home and many of those who elected them will politely suggest they stay there—and permanently.
Because, on the subject of Iraq...
The people have been ahead of the media....
Ahead of the government...
Ahead of the politicians...
For the last year, or two years, or maybe three.

Our politics... is now about the answer to one briefly-worded question.
Mr. Bush has failed.
Mr. Warner has failed.
Mr. Reid has failed.
So.
Who among us will stop this war—this War of Lies?
To he or she, fall the figurative keys to the nation.
To all the others—presidents and majority leaders and candidates and rank-and-file Congressmen and Senators of either party—there is only blame… for this shameful, and bi-partisan, betrayal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18831132/

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Azalaksh
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Posts: 982
From: New Brighton, MN, USA
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posted May 26, 2007 04:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Azalaksh     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks for putting these up naiad.....
I've written my representatives. I am consumed by a terrible cold anger.....

We need people in Congress and the presidency who actually understand what "half a trillion dollars" could have meant to THIS country. I doubt that we would have been any less "secure" if all that money had stayed here.

Puts me in mind of a quote:

"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both"
~ Benjamin Franklin

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naiad
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posted August 12, 2007 08:45 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
welcome Zala.

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Contractors accused of firing on civilians, GIs
Huge private force operates in Iraq with little supervision or accountability

Contractors from Blackwater USA practice a vehicle ambush drill on the company's land near Moyock, N.C., in a Feb. 20, 2004, file photo. Blackwater has at least $800 million in government contracts in Iraq and has become the focus of numerous controversies, including the May 30 shooting death of an Iraqi deemed to be driving too close to a security detail.

Updated: 11:33 p.m. CT Aug 11, 2007

There are now nearly as many private contractors in Iraq as there are U.S. soldiers — and a large percentage of them are private security guards equipped with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bullet-proof trucks.

They operate with little or no supervision, accountable only to the firms employing them. And as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war, this private army has been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys.

Not one has faced charges or prosecution.

There is great confusion among legal experts and military officials about what laws — if any — apply to Americans in this force of at least 48,000.

Murky set of rules
They operate in a decidedly gray legal area. Unlike soldiers, they are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under a special provision secured by American-occupying forces, they are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there.

The security firms insist their employees are governed by internal conduct rules and by use-of-force protocols established by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation government that ruled Iraq for 14 months following the invasion.

But many soldiers on the ground — who earn in a year what private guards can earn in just one month — say their private counterparts should answer to a higher authority, just as they do. More than 60 U.S. soldiers in Iraq have been court-martialed on murder-related charges involving Iraqi citizens.

No prosecutions
Some military analysts and government officials say the contractors could be tried under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which covers crimes committed abroad. But so far, that law has not been applied to them.

Security firms earn more than $4 billion in government contracts, but the government doesn’t know how many private soldiers it has hired, or where all of them are, according to the Government Accountability Office. And the companies are not required to report violent incidents involving their employees.

Security guards now constitute nearly 50 percent of all private contractors in Iraq — a number that has skyrocketed since the 2003 invasion, when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said rebuilding Iraq was the top priority. But an unforeseen insurgency, and hundreds of terrorist attacks have pushed the country into chaos. Security is now Iraq’s greatest need.

Efforts to boost accountability
The wartime numbers of private guards are unprecedented — as are their duties, many of which have traditionally been done by soldiers. They protect U.S. military operations and have guarded high-ranking officials including Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Baghdad. They also protect visiting foreign officials and thousands of construction projects.

At times, they are better equipped than military units.

Their presence has also pushed the war’s direction. The 2004 battle of Fallujah — an unsuccessful military assault in which an estimated 27 U.S. Marines were killed, along with an unknown number of civilians — was retaliation for the killing, maiming and burning of four Blackwater guards in that city by a mob of insurgents.

“I understand this is war,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., whose efforts for greater contractor accountability led to an amendment in next year’s Pentagon spending bill. “But that’s absolutely no excuse for letting this very large force of armed private employees, dare I say mercenaries, run around without any accountability to anyone.”

‘The Iraqis are very angry’
Blackwater has an estimated 1,000 employees in Iraq, and at least $800 million in government contracts. It is one of the most high-profile security firms in Iraq, with its fleet of “Little Bird” helicopters and armed door gunners swarming Baghdad and beyond.

The secretive company, run by a former Navy SEAL, is based at a massive, swampland complex in North Carolina. Until 9-11, it had few security contracts.

Since then, Blackwater profits have soared. And it has become the focus of numerous contractor controversies in Iraq, including the May 30 shooting death of an Iraqi deemed to be driving too close to a Blackwater security detail.

“The shooting of that Iraqi driver has intensified tensions,” Schakowsky said. “The Iraqis are very angry.”

Company spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell, in an e-mail to The Associated Press, said the shooting was justified. “Based on incident reports and witness accounts, the Blackwater professional acted lawfully and appropriately,” she wrote. There was no response to AP inquiries seeking further details.

Numerous allegations
Other alleged shootings involving private contractors include:

—An incident in which a supervisor for a Virginia-based security company said he was “going to kill somebody today” and then shot at Iraqi civilians for amusement, possibly killing one, according to two employees.

The two, former Army Ranger Charles L. Sheppard III and former Marine Corps sniper Shane B. Schmidt, were fired by the company, Triple Canopy, and responded with a wrongful termination lawsuit. Their suit did not identify the shift leader they said deliberately opened fire on civilians in at least two incidents while their team was driving in Baghdad. He was described only as a former serviceman from Oklahoma.

On its Internet site, the company said all three were fired for failing to immediately report incidents involving gunfire. Triple Canopy, after an initial investigation, reported no one had been hurt and handed its information to the U.S. government.

Patricia Smith, a lawyer representing Sheppard and Schmidt, said the U.S. Justice Department declined to investigate. The Justice Department declined comment on the case.

On Aug. 1, a Fairfax County, Va., jury ruled that Triple Canopy did not wrongly fire the two men. But jury forewoman Lea Overby also issued a scathing note on behalf of the panel, saying the company displayed “poor conduct, lack of standard reporting procedures, bad investigation methods and unfair double standards.”

The judge’s jury instructions, Overby said, left no choice but ruling against the former employees. “But we do not agree with the Triple Canopy’s treatment of (them),” she wrote.

Some shootings caught on tape
—Disgruntled employees of London-based Aegis Defence Services, holder of one of the biggest U.S. security contracts in Iraq — valued at more than $430 million — posted videos on the Internet in 2005 showing company guards firing automatic weapons at civilians from the back of a moving security vehicle.

In one sequence, a civilian car is fired on, causing the driver to lose control and slam into a taxi. Another clip shows a white car being hit by automatic weapons fire and then coming slowly to a stop.

In the videos, the security vehicle doesn’t stop. It speeds on, leaving the civilians and their shot-up vehicles behind.

After initially denying involvement, Aegis, run by former Scots Guard Lt. Col. Tim Spicer, issued a statement saying the shootings were legal and within rules-of-force protocols established by the now-defunct CPA. Those guidelines allow security guards to fire on vehicles that approach too close or too quickly. U.S. Army auditors, in their own investigation, agreed with Aegis.

An unknown number of victims
In the chaos of Iraq, where car bombings and suicide attacks occur over and over on any given day, such contractor shootings are commonplace, military officials say. The numbers of Iraqis wounded or killed by private guards is not known.

—Sixteen American security guards were arrested and jailed by U.S. Marines in battle-scarred Fallujah in 2005 following a day of shooting incidents in which they allegedly fired on a Marine observation post, a combat patrol and civilians walking and driving in the city, about 40 miles west of Baghdad.

The guards, employed by Zapata Engineering of North Carolina, were imprisoned for three days. “They were detained because their actions posed a threat to coalition forces. I would say that constitutes a serious event,” Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Lapan said at the time.

The contractors were released and returned to the U.S., where they claimed the Marines humiliated and taunted them in prison, calling them “mercenaries” and intimidating them with dogs. The private guards denied taking part in the shootings.

Last year, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service closed its criminal investigation of the case “for lack of prosecutive merit,” a spokesman said. None of the 16 men where charged.

But days after the shootings, Marine Maj. Gen. Stephen T. Johnson, commander of western Iraq, banned the 16 contractors from every military installation in the area.

‘Your actions endangered ... lives’
In letters to each man, the general wrote: “Your convoy was speeding through the city and firing shots indiscriminately, some of which impacted positions manned by U.S. Marines.

“Your actions endangered the lives of innocent Iraqis and U.S. service members in the area.”

Since American contractors first swarmed into Iraq, animosity has run high between soldiers and private security guards. Many of the latter are highly trained ex-members of elite military groups including Navy SEALS, Green Berets and Army Rangers.

“Most military guys resent them,” said former Marine Lt. Col. Mike Zacchea, who spent two years in Iraq training and building the Iraqi army. “There’s an attitude that if these guys really wanted to do the right thing, they would have stayed in the military.”

‘Free agents on the battlefield’
Zacchea, now retired in Long Island, N.Y., said that as a senior battalion adviser, he was offered jobs by several security companies, with average salaries of $1,000 a day. He wasn’t interested. “I didn’t want to go to Iraq as a mercenary. I don’t believe in it. I don’t think what they’re doing is right.

“Really, these guys are free agents on the battlefield. They’re not bound by any law. They’re non-uniformed combatants. No one keeps track of them.”

In late 2004, the Reconstruction Operations Center (ROC) opened in Baghdad. Its purpose was to track movement of contractors and military troops around the country and to keep records of violent incidents.

Participation, however, is voluntary.

Military leaders say the government should demand that contractors report their movements and use of weapons. Last year, officials of the 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad told visiting GAO auditors that lack of coordination continued to endanger the lives soldiers and contractors. Private security details continued to enter battle zones without warning, the military leaders said. In some cases, military officers complained they had no way of communicating with private security details.

Many large contractors say their guards coordinate with the ROC, and file “after-incident reports” of shooting episodes. But government auditors in Iraq reported last year that some contractors said they stopped detailing such shootings because they occurred so often it wasn’t possible to file reports for each one.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20231579/page/3/

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted August 12, 2007 11:45 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
As with every other radical group from which you choose to post articles naiad...like the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, it pays for people to know a little about them before believing a word they have to say.

Here's some free advertising for The Nation.

The Nation
The oldest and most leftwing of all popular American weekly magazines

Supported the Russian Revolution and was first U.S. magazine to publish the Soviet Constitution

Opposed America's Cold War policies after World War II and generally supported the Communist bloc

Founded in 1865 by politically radical abolitionists, The Nation is the oldest weekly magazine in the United States and the farthest Left of all popular American magazines.

This periodical today is overseen by Victor Navasky, a former Columbia University journalism professor and editor at the New York Times Magazine who assembled a handful of investors in 1995 to buy the magazine from investment banker Arthur Carter.

At the time, The Nation was losing $500,000 per year. Experts advised Navasky to close the magazine and sell its mailing list of 100,000 readers, which alone was worth an estimated $2 million to direct marketers. Unless it changed its far-Left views, business advisors agreed, the magazine was unlikely to become profitable. In fact it had lost money every year for more than 125 years.

Navasky decided instead to seek investors willing to subsidize its leftist views. The investors he gathered included, among others, the present Editor, Katrina vanden Heuvel, multi-millionaire granddaughter of Jules Stein; former Corporation for Public Broadcasting Chairman Alan Sagner; novelist E.L. Doctorow; actor Paul Newman; and Peter Norton, computer software creator of Norton Utilities.

The magazine's first major backer, who helped it launch in 1865 with $100,000, was the Boston lead pipe manufacturer who had supplied John Brown with munitions for his raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859. Its first literary editor was the son of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison.

By 1881 The Nation had shrunk to little more than a book review insert in Henry Villard's New York Evening Post newspaper, as it wallowed through a succession of editors. In 1918 Henry's son Oscar Garrison Villard (who helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) took over The Nation and shifted it politically far to the Left, where it remains today. The Russian Revolution was underway, and the magazine was the first in America to publish the Soviet Constitution.

Villard retired in 1932. He was succeeded by Freda Kirchwey, a Stalinist who moved the magazine to the far left on issues of birth control and sexual freedom, and supported the Communists in the Spanish Civil War. She became a target of radical wrath, however, when she refused to endorse the pro-Soviet Progressive Party campaign of Henry Wallace in 1948, which was launched to oppose the Cold War.

Carey McWilliams replaced Kirchwey as The Nation's Editor in 1955. The magazine took the Soviet side in challenging America's Cold War policies, attacking the U.S. defense program and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It also provided a platform for pro-Soviet Marxists like Gabriel Kolko and Howard Zinn, and for a young consumer advocate named Ralph Nader. (In 2004, however, the Editors of The Nation would ridicule Nader and his presidential campaign, favoring instead Democratic candidate John Kerry.)

In 1977 The Nation was purchased by a group of investors brought together by Hamilton Fish V. Fish and his investors sold The Nation in 1995 to former Wall Street investment banker Arthur Carter, who in turn sold it to Navasky, vanden Heuvel and their group.

Arthur Carter is now a member of the Board of Trustees of The Nation Institute, a tax-exempt non-profit entity closely linked to The Nation magazine and designed to increase the profits of the periodical. The Institute's book-publishing affiliate features titles like the I Hate Republicans Reader; The Bush-Hater's Handbook: A Guide to the Most Appalling Presidency of the Past 100 Years; and the I Hate George W. Bush Reader. Fish is President of its Board of Trustees.

Marc Cooper, the former host of the syndicated radio program RadioNation, is a Contributing Editor for The Nation.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6779

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted August 12, 2007 12:04 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
So, what are the bubble headed morons from The Nation biiitching and moaning about now?

Seems like there's always something...or in their case, everything about America to complain about. Mostly, they complain the US is not the Soviet Union whom they supported in every disagreement with the US.

Now, they're complaining about military contractors. But they never mention what those military contractors are doing...like providing security for gasoline tankers and other contractors rebuilding Iraq...and Afghanistan.

None of that would be necessary if Kommander Korruption hadn't cut US military forces by about 40% during his disasterous 8 years of corruption in the White House.

And what are leftist demoscats complaining about as well? Seems they think US military forces are stretched too thin in Iraq..and elsewhere. Their solution is to surrender to terrorists in Iraq and international terrorism everywhere. But, these same leftist buffoons were front and center voting for Kommander Korruptions military force reduction when Clinton cut the US Army from 18 divisions to 10.

They were also front and center voting to reduce the overall military budgets all during the disaster that was the Clinton administration. The result of that was the military being reduced to scavenger hunts to find parts for tanks and fighters to keep some operating. That's right, the US military was taking parts off some tanks and aircraft to keep some operational.

So, when Donald Rumsfelf said..we go to war with the army we have..not with the army we wish we had, demoscats got hysterical denouncing him. But, the shortage of military personnel and equipment is their fault and the direct result of their own votes to uphold the disasterous policies of Bill Clinton.

So, we have contractors doing a lot of security work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks to Kommander Korruption and the brain dead leftist morons in the Congress of the United States.

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted August 12, 2007 12:12 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
A Recipe for Military Readiness

All the armed forces need a revamp — and have for over a decade.

By Jim Talent

The Army is stressed, Time reports in its April 16, 2007 issue. According to Time:

* The Air Force and Navy have gotten too much money over the years
* The services have spent too much on high tech equipment
* The Army is not good enough at anti-guerilla warfare
* The Army should be bigger


A Recipe for Military Readiness 04/19


On one point, Time is undoubtedly correct. The active duty Army should be bigger. On the other points, Time is either simply wrong or has concentrated on debatable operational issues rather than the strategic dilemma America now faces.

The problem with America’s military is not that the Navy and Air Force got too much money (that is not true) or that the services have bought too much high tech equipment (they actually haven’t bought nearly enough). The problem is that all three of the services have been systematically underfunded since the beginning of the Clinton administration. The stress we now see in the Army is the logical and foreseeable result of underfunding by President Clinton throughout the 1990s, an inadequate response by the current administration, and the effects of four years of grinding combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A brief history is warranted. (For more detail, see my article on the military in the March 5, 2007, issue of National Review.) Ronald Reagan understood a fundamental truth: Defense policy is foreign policy, because influence in the world depends on force plus resolution, in addition to a nation’s economic might. So President Reagan increased defense spending by double digits in his first two years in office, reversing the underfunding of the Carter years. The result was a recapitalized military with equipment that used the latest technology. That military was the foundation of America’s successes in the 1980s and ’90s: the collapse of the Soviet Union, the victory in Desert Storm, and the end of genocide in Bosnia.

When Bill Clinton assumed power in 1993, he returned to the policies of the Carter years. He dramatically underfunded our military. During Operation Desert Storm, the active Army had 18 divisions — each with 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers; the Clinton administration cut it to its current size of 10, despite clear, bipartisan warnings from Congress and newly retired Chiefs of Staff that the Army could not carry out the national military strategy on a sustained basis at that level of strength. There were similar cuts in the Air Force and Navy.

Even worse, the Clinton administration did not buy enough equipment even for the reduced force. His administration took a “procurement holiday.” It cut modernization budgets and bought anywhere from 50-90 percent fewer “platforms” — ships, planes, and vehicles — than the military needed to maintain its capital stock. These decisions were driven by short-term budget concerns rather than objective evaluations of military requirements. For example, the administration usually justified cuts in personnel numbers on the grounds that a transformed military needed fewer troops, but then failed to fund the modernization programs that were necessary for transformation.

President Bush has increased military funding, but not enough to make up for the underfunding of the 1990s. After 9/11, the administration should have increased force structure and vastly increased acquisition funding. Instead, this year the government is funding the regular military budget (not counting day-to-day war expenses) at 3.3 percent of GDP, a very low level historically.

The result is a force that, across the board, desperately needs more troops and more modern equipment. The Army is the focus of attention now, and certainly Army training is suffering, though morale, recruiting, and retention are much better than Time suggests. But the larger problem with the Time article is that it judges preparedness in terms of the capabilities needed by one service in the current conflict. The only effective way to prepare a military is the way Reagan did it — by honestly evaluating and funding all the capabilities that will be needed to deal with every substantial threat over the foreseeable future. Had the Clinton administration used that standard, or had the Bush administration promptly and decisively changed course after 9/11, many of our troops would not be on their third or fourth rotation, and they would not have to make ongoing Herculean efforts to sustain a deteriorating fleet of weapon systems and support vehicles.

Clearly a substantial and sustained increase in regular defense funding is vital to the safety of the United States, not just now, but to prepare for future challenges like the rising power of China. Policymakers who say they support a strong military should be judged by whether they support the Heritage Foundation’s “4 percent for Freedom” solution — spending a minimum of 4 percent of the GDP on the regular defense budget over the next decade. That policy would generate, on average, an extra 40 billion dollars per year to increase the size of the Army and Marines and recapitalize the equipment of all three services. The American Enterprise Institute, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Air Force chief of staff are among those who have publicly supported spending at least that much, and I know of no reasonable defense expert who believes we can protect American security with less.

— Jim Talent is a distinguished fellow in military affairs at the Heritage Foundation. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1993-2001) and the U.S. Senate (2002-2007). He was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and, for four years, chairman of the committee’s Seapower Committee.
http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/staff-college/38413-recipe-military-readiness.html

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naiad
unregistered
posted August 15, 2007 01:40 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
in support of the military/industrial corporate state ~

Bush to propose trimming Army Reserve

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush will use his new budget to propose cutting the size of the Army Reserve to its lowest level in three decades and stripping up to $4 billion from two fighter aircraft programs.
The proposals, likely to face opposition on Capitol Hill, come as the Defense Department struggles to trim personnel costs and other expenses to pay for the war in Iraq and a host of other pricey aircraft and high-tech programs. Bush will send his 2007 budget to Congress on Feb. 6.

The proposed Army Reserve cut is part of a broader plan to achieve a new balance of troop strength and combat power among the active Army, the National Guard and reserves to fight the global war on terrorism and to defend the homeland.

The Army sent a letter to members of Congress on Thursday outlining the plan. A copy was provided to The Associated Press.

Under the plan, the authorized troop strength of the Army Reserve would drop from 205,000 — the current number of slots it is allowed — to 188,000, the actual number of soldiers it had at the end of 2005. Because of recruiting and other problems, the Army Reserve has been unable to fill its ranks to its authorized level.

Army leaders have said they are taking a similar approach to shrinking the National Guard. They are proposing to cut that force from its authorized level of 350,000 soldiers to 333,000, the actual number now on the rolls.

Some in Congress have vowed to fight the National Guard cuts. Its soldiers and resources are controlled by state governors unless Guard units are mobilized by the president for federal duty, as Bush did after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"I remain convinced that we do not have a large enough force," Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Proposals to cut funding in two key jet fighter programs were described by defense analysts and congressional aides, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because the reductions have not been announced.

One plan would eliminate funding for an alternative engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, the military's next-generation combat plane.

The second would cut money for F-22 fighters during 2007. But it is actually a contract restructuring that would add that money back — and more — over the long run by stretching out the program for an additional two years and buying up to four more planes. The new plan calls for buying 60 aircraft through 2010, rather than 56 in the next two years.

The Joint Strike Fighter engine is being built by General Electric and England-based Rolls Royce, and the plan to dump them as suppliers has triggered intense lobbying, including a handwritten note from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Bush.

On the homefront, the close to $2 billion cut would hit General Electric engine plants, and possibly jobs, in Ohio and Massachusetts and a Rolls Royce plant in Indiana.

"This is a big question for GE," said Loren Thompson, military analyst with the Lexington Institute think tank. "They could get shut out of the fighter engine business over the next 10 years."

The proposal would benefit Connecticut-based Pratt & Whitney, which got the original contract for the Lockheed Martin aircraft, and delivered its first engine last month.

GE spokesman Dan Meador said the alternate engine program provides competition for Pratt & Whitney, helping to drive down costs while also providing a back-up if problems arise.

"It's very important to GE and Rolls Royce, and we're performing well," he said.

Defense officials, however, said the Pratt & Whitney engine has performed well and within budget, and noted that a number of other jet fighter programs — including the F-22 — have just one engine maker. Pratt & Whitney also makes the engines for the F-22.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-01-28-pentagon-budget_x.htm

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pidaua
Knowflake

Posts: 67
From: Back in AZ with Bear the Leo
Registered: Apr 2009

posted August 15, 2007 03:03 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for pidaua     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Great points jwhop... I would have to say though in some cases posting facts for some people is the equivalent to throwing pearls before swine.

------------------
Welcome back from the Sandbox Bear...I love you...Forever and a Day....

www.IMWITHFRED.com

Fred Thompson 2008 :D

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naiad
unregistered
posted August 15, 2007 04:00 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

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pidaua
Knowflake

Posts: 67
From: Back in AZ with Bear the Leo
Registered: Apr 2009

posted August 15, 2007 05:57 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for pidaua     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Cast pearls before swine

Meaning:
Offer or show something valuable, good, or beautiful to someone who does not understand its value

If you are casting pearls before swine, you are wasting your time showing or offering something very helpful or valuable to someone who does not understand or appreciate it.

Cast Pearls before Swine (To).

If pearls are cast to swine, the swine would only trample them under foot.

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naiad
unregistered
posted August 15, 2007 07:21 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

refined, pearl wearing swine

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted August 17, 2007 02:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Yep, there are some who would prefer to get their news from Pravda. In the alternative they choose any leftist source; those who never get close to the truth.

Showing the truth to leftists has the same effect as showing a cross to a vampire

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naiad
unregistered
posted August 18, 2007 08:09 AM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
lol

the facts are too telling, aren't they?

we can't deny the facts, so we'll just deflect and deflect and deflect....

you don't like the source, but you can't deny its truth. haha, even when the politics of the source supports your stance, if you don't like the facts it presents, if they don't support your favorite disinformation and celebrity dictator, you dis it as well....

(see http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/003530.html )

(it would seem that any source that i reference, across the political spectrum, is fodder for hostility and ridicule, as i'm seeking truth, not propaganda and self-interest. )

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naiad
unregistered
posted September 13, 2007 10:35 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
laughing all the way....his privatized corporate military will remain, and now their contracts will increase even further...what a sham.


Bush orders gradual troop cuts in Iraq By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent


WASHINGTON - President Bush, defending an unpopular war, ordered gradual reductions in U.S. forces in Iraq on Thursday night and said, "The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home."

Yet, Bush firmly rejected calls to end the war, insisting that Iraq will still need military, economic and political support from Washington after his presidency ends.

Bush said that 5,700 U.S. forces would be home by Christmas and that four brigades — for a total of at least 21,500 troops — would return by July, along with an undetermined number of support forces. Now at its highest level of the war, the U.S. troop strength stands at 168,000.

"The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is: return on success," the president said, trying to summon the nation's resolve once again to help Iraq "defeat those who threaten its future and also threaten ours."

With no dramatic change in course, Bush's decision sets the stage for a fiery political debate in Congress and on the 2008 presidential campaign trail. Democrats said Bush's modest approach was unacceptable.

"An endless and unlimited military presence in Iraq is not an option," said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a former Army Ranger, who delivered the Democratic response.

"Democrats and Republicans in Congress — and throughout the nation — cannot and must not stand idly by while our interests throughout the world are undermined and our armed forces are stretched toward the breaking point," Reed said. "We intend to exercise our constitutional duty and profoundly change our military's involvement in Iraq."

The reductions announced by Bush represented only a slight hastening of the originally scheduled end of the troop increase that Bush announced in January. When the cutbacks are complete, about 132,000 U.S. forces will be in Iraq.

Bush's speech was the latest turning point in a 4 1/2-year-old war marred by miscalculations, surprises and setbacks.

Almost since the fall of Baghdad, in April 2003, U.S. commanders and administration officials in Washington mistakenly believed they were on track to winding down U.S. involvement and handing off to the Iraqis. Instead, the insurgency intervened and the reality of a country in chaos conspired to deepen the U.S. commitment.

Bush said Iraqi leaders "have asked for an enduring relationship with America.

"And we are ready to begin building that relationship in a way that protects our interests in the region and requires many fewer American troops."

Bush described the withdrawals, and the U.S. forces still fighting in Iraq, as a compromise on which war supporters and opponents could agree.

"The way forward I have described tonight makes it possible, for the first time in years, for people who have been on opposite sides of this difficult debate to come together," Bush said.

That appeared highly unlikely, however, based on the reaction of Democratic leaders who want deadlines for withdrawals.

"The American people long ago lost faith in the president's leadership of the war in Iraq because his rhetoric has never matched the reality on the ground," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "The choice is between a Democratic plan for responsible redeployment and the president's plan for an endless war in Iraq."

Majority Democrats in Congress are unable to muster enough votes to force an end to the war. So they are hoping to win Republican support with legislation to limit the mission of U.S. forces to training Iraq's military and police, protecting U.S. assets and fighting terrorists.

cont. -- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070914/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq

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