Blackwater and Iraq

The AP published a story on Monday, based on interviews with top Blackwater executives, reporting that the soldiers-for-hire company is considering going out of the security business.  

That seems extremely unlikely to me, but it got me thinking about what this company that never does anything without a reason might be up to.  Here's what occurred to me as a possible interpretation:  

The U.N. mandate that makes the U.S. invasion and continued occupation of Iraq "legitimate" in terms of international law, if in no other, expires at the end of the year.

For months, the Iraqi parliament and U.S. negotiators have been working to try to hammer out an agreement or contract between the two governments for what happens at the end of that time -- a document that "legitimizes" continued U.S. presence there. (For anyone who's been following the story of that negotiation, Maliki's public statement about timed withdrawal of U.S. forces was very old news, indeed.)

After much posturing by both the Suni and Shiite members, including walkouts and threats of disbanding parliament and throwing the whole country back into the chaos that preceded the Iraqi election, it appears that there are two items which both major Iraqi factions agree are non-negotiable: 1) the timed (subject to conditions "on the ground") withdrawal of U.S. troops, and 2) under absolutely no circumstances will there be amnesty for actions (atrocities) committed by private contractors in Iraq.

The parliament and the U.S. are still miles apart on reaching a final agreement, and in fact may not, presenting an even more interesting set of circumstances for the U.S. administration, but it now appears clear that the two items above are set in stone from the Iraqi point of view.

If I were Blackwater and I knew that, I'd be making noises about getting out of the security business, too. I'd be setting the stage for telling the DOD that business considerations make it impossible for us to continue in that line of business; sorry, but the contract's canceled; here's a little of your money back; thanks for the good time -- and airlifting my guys out of there in the dark of night before they're all rounded up in some kind of war crimes proceeding.

No one (except Bushco) is more hated by the Iraqi people than the Blackwater mercenaries, and now that the end of the occupation appears near, they want their pound of flesh! And while I'd rather give them Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, et. al., (and I'd throw in Wm Kristol and some of the other neocon cheerleaders for free), it's hard to find fault with their sentiments.

Much has been said about where U.S. troops would be without Blackwater, and it's possible that the out-of-business noise is a threat to Bushco to harden U.S. dedication to an agreement that includes Blackwater amnesty.

Or not. Everything I've suggested here may be nothing more than me farting in the bathtub, but it seemed worth throwing the suggestion out there.      

All in your head

Pass it on!

Happy Fourth of July

The Government Versus The American People

U.S. News reports today on the apparently random seizing of laptops and cameras (and loose memory cards) by U.S. customs agents.As John Amato writes at Crooks & Liars:

A controversial customs practice creates a legal backlash:

Returning from a brief vacation to Germany in February, Bill Hogan was selected for additional screening by customs officials at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. Agents searched Hogan’s luggage and then popped an unexpected question: Was he carrying any digital media cards or drives in his pockets? “Then they told me that they were impounding my laptop,” says Hogan, a freelance investigative reporter whose recent stories have ranged from the origins of the Iraq war to the impact of money in presidential politics.Shaken by the encounter, Hogan says he left the airport and examined his bags, finding that the agents had also removed and inspected the memory card from his digital camera. “It was fortunate that I didn’t use that machine for work or I would have had to call up all my sources and tell them that the government had just seized their information,” he said. When customs offered to return the machine nearly two weeks later, Hogan told them to ship it to his lawyer…read on

I don’t know why, but I thought of this movie as I read the article: “The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming. (h/t Mike Finnegan)

This is just one more example of the inexcusable excesses our customs agents perpetrate every day on American citizens. Here's the excerpt from the original article that I think represents most clearly the attitude that has permeated our government:

Now, businesses and other organizations are pushing back, Congress is investigating, and lawsuits have been filed challenging how the program selects travelers for inspection. The ninth circuit ruling was the result of more than 20 lawsuits involving electronics seized from travelers who were nearly all of Muslim, Middle Eastern, or South Asian descent.

Citing the lawsuits, customs officials decline to say how many computers, storage drives, cellphones, and BlackBerrys they have confiscated or what happens to them afterward. Officials declined to testify at a recent Senate hearing, although they wrote in a prepared statement that officers "have the responsibility to check items such as laptops and other personal electronic devices to ensure that any item brought into the country complies with applicable law and is not a threat to the American public." (emphasis mine)

If the Customs folks were a corporation or a private individual, this position would at least make sense.

Abraham Lincoln, revered by Democrats and Republicans alike, used these words to close his famous Gettysburg Address: "...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth"

So if the government's (theoretically) ours, what's our interest in their refusing to answer a question about how frequently seizure occurs and the disposition of the seized items, whether there are pending lawsuits or not.

If nothing else, the incident clearly demonstrates how far we have come, from a government of the people, by the people, for the people, to the Cheny-Bush America where we now have the government versus the people.

O'Reilly In One Minute