More on Mercenaries, "Security Contractors"...

Yeah, so I'm guessing that this week's 'toon is about the zillionth "Bush as Darth Vader" parody you've seen, but I've had Star Wars on the brain lately. Partly because of all the 30th anniversary crap on TV, but also because I've been playing the demo for "Lego Star Wars" on my Mac (where you reenact the movies in a world made of Legos). Totally freakin' addictive game... and the little cut-scenes, with the SW characters as stubby little Lego people, are hilarious.

Here's some articles:

• There are currently 100,000 civilian contractors operating in Iraq, which is approaching the number of U.S. soldiers there. The so-called "security contractors" there are operating virtually free of any kind of oversight or accountability, and until recently, were not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
  
  Jeremy Scahill is "the man" when it comes to investigating this subject. Check out two articles of his on Iraq, and two articles on the use of Blackwater mercenaries in post-Katrina New Orleans.
  
  Johann Hari also has an excellent column on this topic:
  

  In April 2004, mercenaries working for a private militia named Blackwater were guarding US occupation headquarters in Najaf when a protest by Shia Iraqi civilians began to stir outside. According to the Washington Post and eyewitnesses, Blackwater opened fire on the protesters, unleashing so many rounds so rapidly they had to pause every 15 minutes to allow their gun barrels to cool down. A video of this attack made it on to the Web, where a mercenary can be seen describing the Iraqis they are gunning down as "fuckin' niggers".

  
  He also notes that mercenaries in Iraq have been allowed to use "experimental ammunition" that the military is forbidden from using. The bullets are made from "blended metal" so as to leave wounds that are "untreatable." Nice.


• So we have mass murder by psycho racist mercenaries... anything else?
  
  Check out a previous post and cartoon on war profiteering, inspired by Robert Greenwald's documentary, Iraq For Sale.
  
  See also an AP article on a lawsuit against Blackwater by the families of mercenaries killed in Iraq, which alleges that the men were killed because they were not given proper armor (Blackwater has successfully moved the suit into private arbitration).
  
  Of course, there's the involvement of CACI Int'l in documented cases of torture.
  
  The ACLU is currently suing Boeing, alleging the company has facilitated the shipping of detainees to secret CIA prisons.
  
  And, Zia Mian writes that some contractors have violated laws banning human trafficking in the shipping of laborers to Iraq to do the slop work.
  
  All paid for by you and I, the taxpayers.


• I also previously posted on this column by Chris Hedges, where he argues that the radical Christian Right's infiltration of the military and police "signals the final and perhaps most deadly stage in the long campaign... to dismantle America's open society and build a theocratic state." When I first read this, I was a little skeptical, and I felt he was taking the argument a bit far. No more.
  
  The Founder of Blackwater is a right-wing, Christian conservative named Erik Prince, who is extremely well-connected within the Republican party. Reading Scahill's column on Blackwater's activites in post-K New Orleans, you have to wonder if you're going to be seeing mercenary "security contractors" coming soon to a street near you.

Fighting Words: 6/11/07 Cartoon

"Dark Time For the Empire"...

More on war profiteering...

My main source for this week's 'toon was the latest documentary from Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films, Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers, which I was able to view thanks to my friends at Not A Number (who, by the way Seattle folks, carry my latest t-shirts and buttons!).

The arguments are well-made throughout this excellent film, but there were also several images that I hadn't seen before that I found interesting. One was the image of thousands of private contractors' supply trucks doing daily routes in and out of various areas in Iraq, like a scene out of Road Warrior. It gave a good sense of the wastefulness of the profiteers' daily activities there, as many of the trucks continued to do their routes on the taxpayers' dime even though they were nearly or completely empty.

A second image that I found striking was that of scores of soldiers at a camp somewhere in the sweltering heat of Iraq, who were forced to stand in huge lines every day at chow time because the contractor was so slow with their food service. Meanwhile, many of these companies' employees and executives were living in conditions that were, shall we say, a bit more luxurious.

One last item that found its way into the cartoon was the segment on the use of "burn pits," which I found particularly stomach-turning. I don't want to give the whole movie away, though... go see it!

Here also are some articles to check out:

• Two Alternet articles, one on the 10 Most Brazen War Profiteers, and another on #1 on that list, C.A.C.I. International, who has recently been on a legal warpath in an effort to intimidate their critics in the media and blogosphere.


• James Glanz on the closing of the government office that was meant to oversee these private contractors in Iraq, and Paul Krugman on Bechtel folding up the tent and going home, which he says means that "the U.S.-led reconstruction effort in Iraq is basically over."


• An interview with Jeffrey St. Clair, who, in the process of talking about the "sub-atomic" intertwining of politicians and corporations, interestingly calls John McCain "the most fraudulent politician in Washington."

Fighting Words: 12/4/06 Cartoon

"Profiteer: Corporate Contractor!"...

See some previous video game spoofs here, here, and here. I love this format, but I've never actually owned a video game console of any kind. I have wasted many an hour playing other peoples' machines, though...