Buh Bye

Resigning today was Howard 'Cookie' Krongard, the Inspector General of the State Dept. He had been the subject of complaints from State Dept. employees and then had an embarrasing hearing in Congress with some confusion about his brother Alvin 'Buzzy' being on blackwaters board while he was investigating them.

The soft touches at the FBI

The bleeding heart FBI agents gave blackwater credit for 3 out of 17 kills, what do you think, have they lost their edge?

"A separate military review of the Sept. 16 shootings concluded that all of the killings were unjustified and potentially criminal. One of the military investigators said the F.B.I. was being generous to Blackwater in characterizing any of the killings as justifiable."

If the new AG gets to rule on this one, his answer might be something like 'well if what they did was a crime then it would be illegal, but even though i dont like it i can't say if it is or not since it could subject the people who did it to possible legal ramifications, and since i wasnt present at the incident it wouldn't be prudent to make that judgement'

New news

From the 'it took you 4 1/2 years to think of that?' department, we've now decided we should supervise the armies we hire.

Abbreviated for brevity

I could probably go on for a few pages on these, but in the interest of keeping things short I won't.

Update on Waxman's Blackwater investigating

Laws schmaws, we've got a fence to build!

To get your law degree you have to take the bar exam, which I've hard is tough. To become attorney general, I guess all you have to do is agree that torture is illegal.

More acid please, carbonic.

Cowboy Country

Amateurish raids by immigration, complete with cowboy hats. Shoot-em up mercenaries paid billions in Iraq. Drunken shootings by same mercenaries. Legalised torture secretly justified in secret memos. The list can go on, but I should stop here before I induce vomiting.
The first 'CEO administration' seems to be keeping with that label. Their meetings are punctual, he is 'the decider'; and instant results, lackadaiscal planning and oversight, and profit above all else rule the day. With the largest military budget in the world, we don't have an army large enough to keep the peace in Iraq without heavy reliance on mercenaries like Blackwater. Mercenaries who have conviniently been exempted from US, US military, and Iraqi law by our occupation authority in Iraq, until now. The staggering costs of our occupation are floodling into the pockets of Bush's friends and donors, who our own audits show are overcharging, and not completing work they were paid for.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a spoiled rich kid from New England who likes to pretend he's a Texas cowboy, who failed in every business venture his daddy paid for him to try, who liked to think he was an airplane fighter but got a stateside post during Vietnam from his papa that he didn't bother showing up for, became president of the US?

3 strikes (wax on, wax off)

The bad news has been coming more and more frequently this summer, with three rather significant events happening this week. Yesterday was Alberto Gonzales' last day at the justice department (please hold your applause till the end). Then later in the day yesterday the Iraqi govt. rejected Blackwater Inc.'s right to operate in Iraq due to an incident in Baghdad where quite a few Iraqis were killed. For the cherry on top, it was announced that the inspector genereal of the State Dept. is under investigation for fraud, abuse, profiteering, and basically doing a shitty job. The man behind it all is Rep. Henry A. Waxman, (D-Calif.)

It just came out the Waxman is going to hold hearings about Blackwater. Though the facts are not yet completely clear, Iraq's govt. is trying to get Blackwater out of the country after a Baghdad incident where between 8 and 20 people were killed by its employees. It's not publicized (or even publically available) how many Blackwater and other mercenaries are in Iraq, Afghanistan, who knows where else, but many estimates have put it near or greater then the number of actual US combat troops. Our wars and occupations are being fought by private soldiers of fortune almost as much as by the military. With huge no-bid contracts, no oversight, no accountability, supposed immunity from any criminal prosecution, and an overstretched US military, Blackwater was living the dream. Little mention was made concerning the wisdom of committing so largely to soldiers-for-hire. Eisenhower talked about the military-industrial complex, and the danger of having such a large permanent group with a large profit motive to fight wars. The same can be said about private warfighting companies...profits will motivate then to fight, start, and prolong conflicts. The Blackwater CEO has certainly made back the money he spent helping Bush get elected.

Three cheers for Bush's privatization of every and all things possible.