C
ChasNemo
Guest
One has to wonder ...
Two great "natural catastrophes" in the U.S. during the Bush
Regime: Katrina and the "Witch" fires.
(1) Blackwater in New Orleans. Levees allegedly SABOTAGED,
Special Forces-style. Flooding -- mass-migration, repopulation.
Blackwater awarded Bush Admin contract for "reconstruction."
(2) Blackwater in San Diego County. Cause of fires officially
ARSON. Over 2000 homes lost -- population driven out. Blackwater
presents itself as having been capable of "preventing" that disaster
("if only we had listened" to them) and offers its help in
"rebuilding" the area.
The two cause-and-effect sequences above bear a startling
resemblance to what has frequently occurred during the "chaos" of
Iraq's "reconstruction," when policy-makers employed provocateur-style
"counter-insurgency" tactics, supported by the same privatized "urban
warfare" forces.
The military commander of an urban assault "shapes the battlespace to
best suit operational objectives by exerting appropriate influence
particularly on the elements of the urban triad." ("Doctrine for
Joint Urban Operations," September 2002 edition.) The "urban triad"
consists of the physical terrain, population demographics, and
infrastructure of the area. "Exerting appropriate influence" means
decisively shifting these three factors in a direction that favors the
attacker. In plain English, it means leveling buildings to improve
visibility and mobility, destroying the existing infrastructure to
deny water, electricity, and other necessities to the defenders, and
driving out (or killing) the civilian population so they don't get in
the way.
++++++++++
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-jacobs/blackwater-to-california_b_69931.html
<snip>
Fires of historic proportion break out all over southern California,
including an as yet to be contained fire in Potrero, hundreds of yards
from where Blackwater wants to open its 824 acre base, including
eleven live fire ranges.
As Courage Campaign and 10,000 others wrote to Senators Feinstein and
Boxer weeks ago <see below>, one of the major concerns people had
about a mercenary training facility was the risk of fire.
It already happened without Blackwater there. Think what would have
happened had Blackwater been there with tons of live ammunition?
And what about a spark from a live round used in training? Blackwater
would be required by law to have 35,000 gallons of water on such a
facility as a minimal defense to prevent itself from blowing up the
neighborhood. That's equivalent to just under three DC-10 tanker runs.
It's taken hundreds of such flights and a shift in winds to begin to
contain the fires. It is literally inconceivable that the wilderness
and small towns near such a base would be safer by having Blackwater
there.
But here's the Mark Penn/ George Orwell/Blackwater summation:
"Blackwater needs to build a base in an environmentally sensitive fire
hazard area, because we'll make you safer."
I have begun to think of Blackwater as the Wal-Mart of mercenary
firms. The laws don't apply to Wal-Mart or Blackwater. They say
whatever they have to say in order to grow. And they'll do it again as
long as we allow.
Just this week, the people of neighboring Orange County, California
succeeded in preventing Wal-Mart from opening another job-sucking
superstore. Let's work to assure that the trend continues for
Blackwater. If Mr. Prince were a true patriot, he'd announce that his
firm will not proceed to build a fire-inducing mercenary training
facility in East San Diego County. He'd give the several million he's
spending trying to cram this down the local residents' throats to help
them rebuild their lives. And he'd go shoot 'em up somewhere else.
Like maybe in the Sahara Desert.
Until that time, we have to support our friends in Potrero as they
recover from this conflagration and then face the Blackwater
juggernaut.
-------------------
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/StopBlackwater
Blackwater USA is trying to open a massive mercenary base in
California in a peaceful valley in San Diego County. The local
community is absolutely opposed to Blackwater's base and yet they are
moving forward without delay.
We need your help to stop Blackwater immediately.
This summer, the California Democratic Party passed a resolution at
its Executive Board meeting that states unequivocally:
....that the California Democratic Party opposes the Blackwater West
Project; and that all military, paramilitary, or related security/law
enforcement training operations in California, whether private,
governmental, or some combination of the two, should be conducted on,
and only on, secured U.S. military bases or other established
government-regulated facilities designed for that purpose.
Congressman Bob Filner (D-San Diego) followed suit by introducing a
bill in the House last month consistent with this resolution.
Please follow Congressman Filner, your party and your constituents to
help us block Blackwater's base.
Not only will Blackwater's proposed California paramilitary base
disrupt the live of its residents, but it will also threaten the
pristine natural habitat of the Round Potrero Valley, which includes
part of Cleveland National Forest and is adjacent to the proposed
Hauser Wilderness preserve. The regular detonation of firearms would
be a risk both to the fire-prone landscape as well as to the wildlife
that currently calls that area home, including the golden eagle and
the California condor.
-------------------------
"A September 1, 2005 press release on Blackwater USA's web site
confirmed that its forces were already on the ground in New Orleans,
to secure its petrochemical facilities ..."
http://www.counterpunch.org/maass06022006.html
Blackwater started in the late 1990s as a firm that was going to train
law enforcement, and supplement the work of the U.S. military. When
the Bush administration took power and then September 11 happened, the
company absolutely exploded -- and turned into an all-out mercenary
firm.
Blackwater was awarded the prize contract in Iraq to provide security
for the original head of the U.S. occupation, Paul Bremer. At the
time, it was a $21 million contract, but more important than the money
was the prestige that came with being the guys who were guarding the
head of the U.S. occupation.
Then in March 2004, four Blackwater contractors were ambushed and
killed in the Iraqi city of Falluja, with two of their bodies hung
from a bridge. That really put Blackwater on the map.
The company viewed this as a great moment to profit. The day after
those guys were killed, Erik Prince hired the Alexander Strategy
Group, a very powerful lobbying and PR firm. Now it's a disgraced
firm, but at the time, it was very powerful -- it had been set up and
staffed by former senior aides to former House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay.
And that really began a massive war profiteering and disaster
profiteering boom for Blackwater--not just in Iraq and Afghanistan,
but here at home as well.
Maass: YOU WERE probably the first journalist to discover that
Blackwater was on the scene in New Orleans, in the days right after
Hurricane Katrina struck. How did you come across them?
Scahill: BLACKWATER'S MEN actually beat the federal government, FEMA,
the Red Cross and all these organizations to the hurricane zone.
In fact, I interviewed Cofer Black --the former head of
counterterrorism at the CIA, and now one of the top people at
Blackwater-- at a mercenary conference, and he told me that they sent
a helicopter and a bunch of their guys down there without any
contracts at first. Clearly, they saw this as an opportunity to
really cash in on the disaster of Katrina.
Within days of their guys deploying down there, Blackwater was handed
a very lucrative $409,000 contract-- literally to guard a morgue in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Fourteen guys, four vehicles, for 22 days--and
they were paid $409,000.
That contract, which was not open to public bids, was awarded to
Blackwater, and it would kick off a contract spree that in just four
months would amount to over $30 million for Blackwater.
They were billing the federal government some $950 per day per man in
the hurricane zone. I had Blackwater men who told me that they were
getting paid $350 a day, plus a modest per diem. So that's $600 that
Blackwater had to play with, above what they were paying their guys.
MAASS: YOU'VE WRITTEN that the Department of Homeland Security plans
to keep its contract with Blackwater for two to five years. What are
they supposed to be doing?
Scahill: THAT'S A very good question. We don't know at this point, and
one of the reasons that we don't know is that not even members of
Congress can see these contracts. We were able to get about four
months of Blackwater's contracts, but that's only because of the
uproar that was created by the presence of mercenaries on the streets
of a U.S. city.
I was just in Washington, meeting with some congresspeople, and one
member of Congress told me that she's not even allowed to see any of
the contracts in general, but when she is, she has to go into a padded
room. She's not allowed to bring in any kind of writing equipment or
paper, and she's not allowed to say what she saw in that room after
she's viewed the contracts.
That should be a cause of great concern among people, because what
little oversight actually did exist in the federal government in this
country has really been thrown out the window by this administration.
So the answer to your question is that we don't know what Blackwater
is tasked with doing at this very moment. I did have Cofer Black
confirm to me that Blackwater's men are STILL deployed in New Orleans,
but he wouldn't say what they were doing ....
.........................
Blackwater Down
Jeremy Scahill
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/scahill
The men from Blackwater USA arrived in New Orleans right after Katrina
hit.
The company known for its private security work guarding senior US
diplomats in Iraq beat the federal government and most aid
organizations to the scene in another devastated Gulf.
About 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear
spread out into the chaos of New Orleans. Officially, the company
boasted of its forces "join[ing] the hurricane relief effort." But its
men on the ground told a different story.
As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New Orleans and the
city confiscates even legally registered weapons from civilians, the
private mercenaries of Blackwater patrol the streets openly wielding
M-16s and other assault weapons. This despite Police Commissioner
Eddie Compass' claim that "Only law enforcement are allowed to have
weapons."
Officially, Blackwater says it forces are in New Orleans to "join the
Hurricane Relief Effort." A statement on the company's website, dated
September 1, advertises airlift services, security services and crowd
control. The company, according to news reports, has since begun
taking private contracts to guard hotels, businesses and other
properties.
But what has not been publicly acknowledged is the claim, made to us
by 2 Blackwater mercenaries, that they are actually engaged in general
law enforcement activities.
In a conversation I had with four Blackwater men, they characterized
their work in New Orleans as "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting
<insurgents>." They all carried automatic assault weapons and had guns
strapped to their legs. Their flak jackets were covered with pouches
for extra ammunition.
"I worked the security detail of both Bremer and Negroponte," said one
of the Blackwater guys, referring to the former head of the US
occupation, L. Paul Bremer, and former US Ambassador to Iraq John
Negroponte. He wore his company ID around his neck in a case with the
phrase Operation Iraqi Freedom printed on it.
When asked what authority they were operating under, one guy said,
"We're on contract with the Department of Homeland Security." Then,
pointing to one of his comrades, he said, "He was even deputized by
the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use
lethal force if we deem it necessary." The man then held up the gold
Louisiana law enforcement badge he wore around his neck. Blackwater
spokesperson Anne Duke also said the company has a letter from
Louisiana officials authorizing its forces to carry loaded weapons.
"This demonstrates the utter breakdown of the government," says
Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
"These private security forces have behaved brutally, with impunity,
in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of New Orleans is frightening
and possibly illegal."
Blackwater is not alone. As business leaders and government officials
talk openly of changing the demographics of what was one of the most
culturally vibrant of America's cities, mercenaries from companies
like DynCorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut
and an Israeli company called Instinctive Shooting International (ISI)
are fanning out to guard private businesses and homes, as well as
government projects and institutions.
Within two weeks of the hurricane, the number of private security
companies registered in Louisiana jumped from 185 to 235. Some, like
Blackwater, are under federal contract.
Others have been hired by the wealthy elite, like F. Patrick Quinn
III, who brought in private security to guard his $3 million private
estate and his luxury hotels, which are under consideration for a
lucrative federal contract to house FEMA workers.
A few miles away from the French Quarter, another wealthy New Orleans
businessman, James Reiss, who serves in Mayor Ray Nagin's
administration as chairman of the city's Regional Transit Authority,
brought in some heavy guns to guard the elite gated community of
Audubon Place -- Israeli mercenaries dressed in black and armed with
M-16s. Two Israelis patrolling the gates outside Audubon told me they
had served as professional soldiers in the Israeli military, and one
boasted of having participated in the invasion of Lebanon. "We have
been fighting the Palestinians all day, every day, our whole lives,"
one of them says. "Here in New Orleans, we're not guarding against
terrorists."
Then, tapping on his machine gun, he says, "Most Americans, when they
see these things, that's enough to scare them."
The men work for ISI, which describes its employees as "veterans of
the Israeli special task forces from the following Israeli government
bodies: Israel Defense Force (IDF), Israel National Police Counter
Terrorism units, Instructors of Israel National Police Counter
Terrorism units, General Security Service (GSS or 'Shin Beth'), other
restricted intelligence agencies." The company was formed in 1993. Its
website profile says: "Our up-to-date services meet the challenging
needs for Homeland Security preparedness and overseas combat
procedures and readiness. ISI is currently an approved vendor by the
US Government to supply Homeland Security services."
Unlike ISI or BATS, Blackwater is operating under a federal contract
to provide 164 armed guards for FEMA reconstruction projects in
Louisiana. That contract was announced just days after Homeland
Security Department spokesperson Russ Knocke told the Washington Post
he knew of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private
security firms. "We believe we've got the right mix of personnel in
law enforcement for the federal government to meet the demands of
public safety," he said.
Before the contract was announced, the Blackwater men told me, they
were already on contract with DHS and that they were sleeping in camps
organized by the federal agency.
One might ask, given the enormous presence in New Orleans of National
Guard, US Army, US Border Patrol, local police from around the country
and practically every other government agency with badges, why private
security companies are needed, particularly to guard federal projects.
"It strikes me...that that may not be the best use of money," said
Illinois Senator Barack Obama.
Blackwater's success in procuring federal contracts could well be
explained by major-league contributions and family connections to the
GOP. According to election records, Blackwater's CEO and co-founder,
billionaire Erik Prince, has given tens of thousands to Republicans,
including more than $80,000 to the Republican National Committee the
month before Bush's victory in 2000. This past June, he gave $2,100 to
Senator Rick Santorum's re-election campaign. He has also given to
House majority leader Tom DeLay and a slew of other Republican
candidates, including Bush/Cheney in 2004. As a young man, Prince
interned with President George H.W. Bush, though he complained at the
time that he "saw a lot of things I didn't agree with--homosexual
groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act,
those kind of bills. I think the Administration has been indifferent
to a lot of conservative concerns."
Prince, a staunch right-wing Christian, comes from a powerful Michigan
Republican family, and his father, Edgar, was a close friend of former
Republican presidential candidate and antichoice leader Gary Bauer. In
1988 the elder Prince helped Bauer start the Family Research Council.
Erik Prince's sister, Betsy, once chaired the Michigan Republican
Party and is married to Dick DeVos, whose father, billionaire Richard
DeVos, is co-founder of the major Republican benefactor Amway. Dick
DeVos is also a big-time contributor to the Republican Party and will
likely be the GOP candidate for Michigan governor in 2006. Another
Blackwater founder, president Gary Jackson, is also a major
contributor to Republican campaigns.
After the killing of four Blackwater mercenaries in Falluja in March
2004, Erik Prince hired the Alexander Strategy Group, a PR firm with
close ties to GOPers like DeLay. By mid-November the company was
reporting 600 percent growth. In February 2005 the company hired
Ambassador Cofer Black, former coordinator for counterterrorism at the
State Department and former director of the CIA's Counterterrorism
Center, as vice chairman.
Just as the hurricane was hitting, Blackwater's parent company, the
Prince Group, named Joseph Schmitz, who had just resigned as the
Pentagon's Inspector General, as the group's chief operating officer
and general counsel.
While juicing up the firm's political connections, Prince has been
advocating greater use of private security in international
operations, arguing at a symposium at the National Defense Industrial
Association earlier this year that firms like his are more efficient
than the military.
In May Blackwater's Jackson testified before Congress in an effort to
gain lucrative Homeland Security contracts to train 2,000 new Border
Patrol agents, saying Blackwater understands "the value to the
government of one-stop shopping."
With President Bush using the Katrina disaster to try to repeal Posse
Comitatus (the ban on using US troops in domestic law enforcement) and
Blackwater and other security firms clearly initiating a push to
install their paramilitaries on US soil, the war is coming home in yet
another ominous way.
As one Blackwater mercenary said, "This is a trend. You're going to
see a lot more guys like us in these situations."
-------------------------
Joint Chiefs report on urban warfare --
US plans to destroy Iraqi infrastructure
By Patrick Martin
30 October 2002
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/oct2002/urb-o30.shtml
A new report on urban warfare by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff is a
blueprint for the use of America's overwhelming military and
technological supremacy to brutalize and terrorize a far weaker
opponent into submission. It suggests that in any invasion of Iraq,
American military planners are prepared to use massive firepower to
destroy Iraq's major cities.
The report, dated September 16, 2002, was made available on the web
site of the New York Times, which described the document in an article
October 21. The study, which can be accessed at
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/international/021021dod_report.pdf,
is entitled "Doctrine for Joint Urban Operations." (In Pentagon
terminology, "joint" designates an operation combining air, naval,
ground and special operations forces under a single command).
The Times article is fundamentally dishonest, portraying the new
strategy as aimed at bypassing cities, avoiding combat losses and
minimizing civilian deaths. A careful reading of the report suggests
the opposite conclusion: despite occasional lip service to such
humanitarian concerns, it makes a case for using advanced weaponry on
a massive scale--with an inevitably catastrophic impact on the civilian
population--as a substitute for the perils and difficulties of house-to-
house ground combat.
The military planners note that urban combat is costly for both
attackers and defenders, extremely time-consuming, and fraught with
risks. The report states: "Ground combat ... is the most difficult and
costly type of military urban operation. All those aspects of urban
ground combat that have historically extracted a terrible price on
attacker, defender, and noncombatant alike remain present today,
multiplied by the increased size and complexity of urban areas and
increase in the number of inhabitants ("Doctrine for Joint Urban
Operations," II-14).
The complex physical environment restricts the power of space-based
reconnaissance systems and reduces the leverage of the side possessing
more advanced technology. According to the report: "Cities reduce the
advantages of the technologically superior force. The physical terrain
of cities tends to reduce line of sight (LOS) and the ability to
observe fires, inhibits command, control, and communications
capability, makes aviation operations more difficult, and decreases
the effectiveness of naval surface fire support and indirect fire
support. It also degrades logistics, and often reduces ground
operations to the level of small unit combat. In addition, the
constraints imposed by a need to minimize civilian casualties and
preserve infrastructure further reduce technological advantage" (I-7,
I-8).
It is significant that the document frequently cites three historical
examples in which superior attacking forces met strategic defeat, even
when they enjoyed initial or sustained tactical success. In the battle
of Stalingrad, the Nazi offensive against the Soviet Union met
shattering defeat after a Soviet counteroffensive trapped the German
Sixth Army and forced it to surrender. In Hue, the largest city
captured outright by the Vietnamese liberation forces during the Tet
Offensive of February 1968, US Marines took heavy losses recapturing
the city, while public opinion in America turned sharply against the
war. In Grozny in 1994-95, four attacking Russian army columns were
fought to a standstill by Chechen guerrilla fighters, and anti-war
sentiment within Russia grew rapidly.
US military planners are clearly concerned that a bloodbath in Basra
or Baghdad could produce the same effect within the United States.
"Shaping the battlespace"
The answer to this problem, according to the document, is the use of
firepower and the isolation of targeted cities prior to assault. It
singles out the importance of what is called, in Pentagon jargon,
"shaping the battlespace." The military commander of an urban assault
"shapes the battlespace to best suit operational objectives by
exerting appropriate influence on adversary forces, friendly forces,
the information environment, and particularly the elements of the
urban triad" (II-10).
Translation from military jargon is again required. The "urban triad,"
according to the report, consists of the physical terrain, population
and infrastructure of the city. "Exerting appropriate influence" on
the urban triad means decisively shifting these three factors in a
direction that favors the attacker. In plain English, it means
leveling buildings to improve mobility, destroying the infrastructure
to deny water, electricity and other systems to the defenders, and
driving out (or killing) the civilian population so that they don't
get in the way.
The document calls for "the use of fires to create conditions
favorable for operation movement maneuver" and "the use of operational
movement and maneuver to create conditions for employing fires." The
Joint Chiefs insist there should be no limitation on US commanders in
terms of the weaponry employed: "In any urban combat maneuver, the
best approach is to use the full range of combined arms technology and
weaponry available to the joint force" (III-15).
The report recommends operations to achieve the physical, moral and
informational isolation of the urban area by surrounding it prior to
any assault. In the context of a heavily populated urban area, that
means depriving civilians of food, water, electrical power and access
to adequate medical care--essentially starving the population into
submission through siege methods.
These tactics may not suffice, leaving the attacker ultimately no
alternative but a frontal assault. According to the report, "The joint
force's chances of success in executing this form of maneuver can be
greatly enhanced by its ability to apply overwhelming combat power
against specific objectives with speed, firepower, and
shock" (III-17).
While the report suggests that precision weapons make attacks on
specific urban targets more effective, it also concedes that the urban
terrain is the least favorable for the use of such weapons, because of
the difficulty in obtaining accurate fixes using satellite equipment
such as GPS, and because of the large number of noncombatants who will
be in close proximity to most targets.
The role of the media
Given the inevitable carnage that would ensue, the report advises
careful planning of public affairs operations "to produce maximum
cooperation between the media and joint forces ... successful
engagement of the media can aid the dissemination of information in
the operational area and help produce and maintain domestic and
international support" (III-37).
Again, translating from this bureaucratic language, the US military is
counting on the servile American media to whitewash the upcoming
devastation of Iraqi cities, to downplay the casualty toll, and to
obediently retail such official lies as the claim--frequently made
after US atrocities--that civilian victims were being used as "human
shields" by the enemy.
Underscoring the premium which the military places on the collusion of
the media--especially in light of the American debacle in Vietnam--the
report notes that the US military defeated the Vietnamese attacks on
urban areas in the Tet Offensive, but lost the "information battle"
and, ultimately, the war itself.
The report cites approvingly the political lessons learned by the
Russian military in the first Chechnya campaign of 1994-1995, with the
result that "during the second Chechnya campaign of 1999-2000 the
Russian government made every effort to control the media and ensure
that the Russian view of the war dominated public opinion. Russia won
this information war from day one of the fighting."
The report speaks in Orwellian terms of a "strategy of reprogramming
mass consciousness," denoting the techniques that are to be used to
justify American conduct of a new war against Iraq (III-40, III-41)
The Times article makes no mention of the document's focus on public
relations as a key battlefield--a clear indication that the newspaper,
like the rest of the corporate-controlled media, is anxious to play
the role of cheerleader and propagandist for the war effort.
War crimes planned in advance
Pentagon planners are acutely aware that the methods required for the
conquest of Iraq will make American commanders and soldiers
potentially liable to prosecution for war crimes. A section of the
report on urban warfare is aimed at reassuring military personnel that
the US government will defend their actions as justified and legal
under the US interpretation of the laws of war.
The report states: "Although civilians, noncombatants, and civilian
property may not be specifically targeted, incidental injury and
collateral damage are not unlawful if: caused incident to an attack on
a lawful target, and the incidental injury and collateral damage are
not excessive in light of the anticipated military advantage from the
attack" (III-51).
Not only the killing of innocent civilians, but the use of chemical
and incendiary weapons can be justified, the document declares. While
acknowledging that the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which the US is
a signatory, "prohibits the use of all chemical weapons, including
riot control agents," the report goes on to declare, "the United
States holds the position that use of riot control agents to control
prisoners of war or civil disturbances is not a method of warfare and
therefore not covered by the convention" (III-52). In other words, the
US cannot gas enemy soldiers, but it reserves the right to gas
prisoners and civilians!
The same section of the report declares: "Incendiary weapons are
lawful so long as they are not employed so as to cause unnecessary
suffering. Weapons with incidental incendiary effects are exempted, as
are munitions with a combined effect." This language is so loose as to
constitute not a restriction, but rather a license to burn down
cities.
Finally, the Joint Chiefs' document takes up the treatment of
noncombatants in the aftermath of victory, i.e., once the military
takes on an essentially police role in urban areas. The report
contrasts the failure of Israeli methods during the 1982 invasion of
Lebanon, when brutality toward Palestinian refugees and Lebanese
civilians sparked protracted guerrilla warfare, with what it presents
as a model for "success" in such police actions: the role of the
British military in Northern Ireland.
The report makes the astonishing suggestion that "the British have
been generally successful in exercising control of the urban
population without provoking popular backlash by their presence" and
that "British performance in Belfast provides a model of both inter-
Service and inter-agency cooperation."
By placing the future American occupation of Baghdad somewhere on a
continuum between Israeli conduct in Beirut and British conduct in
Belfast, the report demonstrates that the Pentagon envisions a brutal
colonial-style dictatorship, not the creation of a democratic
renaissance in the Middle East, as Bush administration propaganda
pretends.
Two great "natural catastrophes" in the U.S. during the Bush
Regime: Katrina and the "Witch" fires.
(1) Blackwater in New Orleans. Levees allegedly SABOTAGED,
Special Forces-style. Flooding -- mass-migration, repopulation.
Blackwater awarded Bush Admin contract for "reconstruction."
(2) Blackwater in San Diego County. Cause of fires officially
ARSON. Over 2000 homes lost -- population driven out. Blackwater
presents itself as having been capable of "preventing" that disaster
("if only we had listened" to them) and offers its help in
"rebuilding" the area.
The two cause-and-effect sequences above bear a startling
resemblance to what has frequently occurred during the "chaos" of
Iraq's "reconstruction," when policy-makers employed provocateur-style
"counter-insurgency" tactics, supported by the same privatized "urban
warfare" forces.
The military commander of an urban assault "shapes the battlespace to
best suit operational objectives by exerting appropriate influence
particularly on the elements of the urban triad." ("Doctrine for
Joint Urban Operations," September 2002 edition.) The "urban triad"
consists of the physical terrain, population demographics, and
infrastructure of the area. "Exerting appropriate influence" means
decisively shifting these three factors in a direction that favors the
attacker. In plain English, it means leveling buildings to improve
visibility and mobility, destroying the existing infrastructure to
deny water, electricity, and other necessities to the defenders, and
driving out (or killing) the civilian population so they don't get in
the way.
++++++++++
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-jacobs/blackwater-to-california_b_69931.html
<snip>
Fires of historic proportion break out all over southern California,
including an as yet to be contained fire in Potrero, hundreds of yards
from where Blackwater wants to open its 824 acre base, including
eleven live fire ranges.
As Courage Campaign and 10,000 others wrote to Senators Feinstein and
Boxer weeks ago <see below>, one of the major concerns people had
about a mercenary training facility was the risk of fire.
It already happened without Blackwater there. Think what would have
happened had Blackwater been there with tons of live ammunition?
And what about a spark from a live round used in training? Blackwater
would be required by law to have 35,000 gallons of water on such a
facility as a minimal defense to prevent itself from blowing up the
neighborhood. That's equivalent to just under three DC-10 tanker runs.
It's taken hundreds of such flights and a shift in winds to begin to
contain the fires. It is literally inconceivable that the wilderness
and small towns near such a base would be safer by having Blackwater
there.
But here's the Mark Penn/ George Orwell/Blackwater summation:
"Blackwater needs to build a base in an environmentally sensitive fire
hazard area, because we'll make you safer."
I have begun to think of Blackwater as the Wal-Mart of mercenary
firms. The laws don't apply to Wal-Mart or Blackwater. They say
whatever they have to say in order to grow. And they'll do it again as
long as we allow.
Just this week, the people of neighboring Orange County, California
succeeded in preventing Wal-Mart from opening another job-sucking
superstore. Let's work to assure that the trend continues for
Blackwater. If Mr. Prince were a true patriot, he'd announce that his
firm will not proceed to build a fire-inducing mercenary training
facility in East San Diego County. He'd give the several million he's
spending trying to cram this down the local residents' throats to help
them rebuild their lives. And he'd go shoot 'em up somewhere else.
Like maybe in the Sahara Desert.
Until that time, we have to support our friends in Potrero as they
recover from this conflagration and then face the Blackwater
juggernaut.
-------------------
http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/StopBlackwater
Blackwater USA is trying to open a massive mercenary base in
California in a peaceful valley in San Diego County. The local
community is absolutely opposed to Blackwater's base and yet they are
moving forward without delay.
We need your help to stop Blackwater immediately.
This summer, the California Democratic Party passed a resolution at
its Executive Board meeting that states unequivocally:
....that the California Democratic Party opposes the Blackwater West
Project; and that all military, paramilitary, or related security/law
enforcement training operations in California, whether private,
governmental, or some combination of the two, should be conducted on,
and only on, secured U.S. military bases or other established
government-regulated facilities designed for that purpose.
Congressman Bob Filner (D-San Diego) followed suit by introducing a
bill in the House last month consistent with this resolution.
Please follow Congressman Filner, your party and your constituents to
help us block Blackwater's base.
Not only will Blackwater's proposed California paramilitary base
disrupt the live of its residents, but it will also threaten the
pristine natural habitat of the Round Potrero Valley, which includes
part of Cleveland National Forest and is adjacent to the proposed
Hauser Wilderness preserve. The regular detonation of firearms would
be a risk both to the fire-prone landscape as well as to the wildlife
that currently calls that area home, including the golden eagle and
the California condor.
-------------------------
"A September 1, 2005 press release on Blackwater USA's web site
confirmed that its forces were already on the ground in New Orleans,
to secure its petrochemical facilities ..."
http://www.counterpunch.org/maass06022006.html
Blackwater started in the late 1990s as a firm that was going to train
law enforcement, and supplement the work of the U.S. military. When
the Bush administration took power and then September 11 happened, the
company absolutely exploded -- and turned into an all-out mercenary
firm.
Blackwater was awarded the prize contract in Iraq to provide security
for the original head of the U.S. occupation, Paul Bremer. At the
time, it was a $21 million contract, but more important than the money
was the prestige that came with being the guys who were guarding the
head of the U.S. occupation.
Then in March 2004, four Blackwater contractors were ambushed and
killed in the Iraqi city of Falluja, with two of their bodies hung
from a bridge. That really put Blackwater on the map.
The company viewed this as a great moment to profit. The day after
those guys were killed, Erik Prince hired the Alexander Strategy
Group, a very powerful lobbying and PR firm. Now it's a disgraced
firm, but at the time, it was very powerful -- it had been set up and
staffed by former senior aides to former House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay.
And that really began a massive war profiteering and disaster
profiteering boom for Blackwater--not just in Iraq and Afghanistan,
but here at home as well.
Maass: YOU WERE probably the first journalist to discover that
Blackwater was on the scene in New Orleans, in the days right after
Hurricane Katrina struck. How did you come across them?
Scahill: BLACKWATER'S MEN actually beat the federal government, FEMA,
the Red Cross and all these organizations to the hurricane zone.
In fact, I interviewed Cofer Black --the former head of
counterterrorism at the CIA, and now one of the top people at
Blackwater-- at a mercenary conference, and he told me that they sent
a helicopter and a bunch of their guys down there without any
contracts at first. Clearly, they saw this as an opportunity to
really cash in on the disaster of Katrina.
Within days of their guys deploying down there, Blackwater was handed
a very lucrative $409,000 contract-- literally to guard a morgue in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Fourteen guys, four vehicles, for 22 days--and
they were paid $409,000.
That contract, which was not open to public bids, was awarded to
Blackwater, and it would kick off a contract spree that in just four
months would amount to over $30 million for Blackwater.
They were billing the federal government some $950 per day per man in
the hurricane zone. I had Blackwater men who told me that they were
getting paid $350 a day, plus a modest per diem. So that's $600 that
Blackwater had to play with, above what they were paying their guys.
MAASS: YOU'VE WRITTEN that the Department of Homeland Security plans
to keep its contract with Blackwater for two to five years. What are
they supposed to be doing?
Scahill: THAT'S A very good question. We don't know at this point, and
one of the reasons that we don't know is that not even members of
Congress can see these contracts. We were able to get about four
months of Blackwater's contracts, but that's only because of the
uproar that was created by the presence of mercenaries on the streets
of a U.S. city.
I was just in Washington, meeting with some congresspeople, and one
member of Congress told me that she's not even allowed to see any of
the contracts in general, but when she is, she has to go into a padded
room. She's not allowed to bring in any kind of writing equipment or
paper, and she's not allowed to say what she saw in that room after
she's viewed the contracts.
That should be a cause of great concern among people, because what
little oversight actually did exist in the federal government in this
country has really been thrown out the window by this administration.
So the answer to your question is that we don't know what Blackwater
is tasked with doing at this very moment. I did have Cofer Black
confirm to me that Blackwater's men are STILL deployed in New Orleans,
but he wouldn't say what they were doing ....
.........................
Blackwater Down
Jeremy Scahill
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/scahill
The men from Blackwater USA arrived in New Orleans right after Katrina
hit.
The company known for its private security work guarding senior US
diplomats in Iraq beat the federal government and most aid
organizations to the scene in another devastated Gulf.
About 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear
spread out into the chaos of New Orleans. Officially, the company
boasted of its forces "join[ing] the hurricane relief effort." But its
men on the ground told a different story.
As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New Orleans and the
city confiscates even legally registered weapons from civilians, the
private mercenaries of Blackwater patrol the streets openly wielding
M-16s and other assault weapons. This despite Police Commissioner
Eddie Compass' claim that "Only law enforcement are allowed to have
weapons."
Officially, Blackwater says it forces are in New Orleans to "join the
Hurricane Relief Effort." A statement on the company's website, dated
September 1, advertises airlift services, security services and crowd
control. The company, according to news reports, has since begun
taking private contracts to guard hotels, businesses and other
properties.
But what has not been publicly acknowledged is the claim, made to us
by 2 Blackwater mercenaries, that they are actually engaged in general
law enforcement activities.
In a conversation I had with four Blackwater men, they characterized
their work in New Orleans as "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting
<insurgents>." They all carried automatic assault weapons and had guns
strapped to their legs. Their flak jackets were covered with pouches
for extra ammunition.
"I worked the security detail of both Bremer and Negroponte," said one
of the Blackwater guys, referring to the former head of the US
occupation, L. Paul Bremer, and former US Ambassador to Iraq John
Negroponte. He wore his company ID around his neck in a case with the
phrase Operation Iraqi Freedom printed on it.
When asked what authority they were operating under, one guy said,
"We're on contract with the Department of Homeland Security." Then,
pointing to one of his comrades, he said, "He was even deputized by
the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use
lethal force if we deem it necessary." The man then held up the gold
Louisiana law enforcement badge he wore around his neck. Blackwater
spokesperson Anne Duke also said the company has a letter from
Louisiana officials authorizing its forces to carry loaded weapons.
"This demonstrates the utter breakdown of the government," says
Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
"These private security forces have behaved brutally, with impunity,
in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of New Orleans is frightening
and possibly illegal."
Blackwater is not alone. As business leaders and government officials
talk openly of changing the demographics of what was one of the most
culturally vibrant of America's cities, mercenaries from companies
like DynCorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut
and an Israeli company called Instinctive Shooting International (ISI)
are fanning out to guard private businesses and homes, as well as
government projects and institutions.
Within two weeks of the hurricane, the number of private security
companies registered in Louisiana jumped from 185 to 235. Some, like
Blackwater, are under federal contract.
Others have been hired by the wealthy elite, like F. Patrick Quinn
III, who brought in private security to guard his $3 million private
estate and his luxury hotels, which are under consideration for a
lucrative federal contract to house FEMA workers.
A few miles away from the French Quarter, another wealthy New Orleans
businessman, James Reiss, who serves in Mayor Ray Nagin's
administration as chairman of the city's Regional Transit Authority,
brought in some heavy guns to guard the elite gated community of
Audubon Place -- Israeli mercenaries dressed in black and armed with
M-16s. Two Israelis patrolling the gates outside Audubon told me they
had served as professional soldiers in the Israeli military, and one
boasted of having participated in the invasion of Lebanon. "We have
been fighting the Palestinians all day, every day, our whole lives,"
one of them says. "Here in New Orleans, we're not guarding against
terrorists."
Then, tapping on his machine gun, he says, "Most Americans, when they
see these things, that's enough to scare them."
The men work for ISI, which describes its employees as "veterans of
the Israeli special task forces from the following Israeli government
bodies: Israel Defense Force (IDF), Israel National Police Counter
Terrorism units, Instructors of Israel National Police Counter
Terrorism units, General Security Service (GSS or 'Shin Beth'), other
restricted intelligence agencies." The company was formed in 1993. Its
website profile says: "Our up-to-date services meet the challenging
needs for Homeland Security preparedness and overseas combat
procedures and readiness. ISI is currently an approved vendor by the
US Government to supply Homeland Security services."
Unlike ISI or BATS, Blackwater is operating under a federal contract
to provide 164 armed guards for FEMA reconstruction projects in
Louisiana. That contract was announced just days after Homeland
Security Department spokesperson Russ Knocke told the Washington Post
he knew of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private
security firms. "We believe we've got the right mix of personnel in
law enforcement for the federal government to meet the demands of
public safety," he said.
Before the contract was announced, the Blackwater men told me, they
were already on contract with DHS and that they were sleeping in camps
organized by the federal agency.
One might ask, given the enormous presence in New Orleans of National
Guard, US Army, US Border Patrol, local police from around the country
and practically every other government agency with badges, why private
security companies are needed, particularly to guard federal projects.
"It strikes me...that that may not be the best use of money," said
Illinois Senator Barack Obama.
Blackwater's success in procuring federal contracts could well be
explained by major-league contributions and family connections to the
GOP. According to election records, Blackwater's CEO and co-founder,
billionaire Erik Prince, has given tens of thousands to Republicans,
including more than $80,000 to the Republican National Committee the
month before Bush's victory in 2000. This past June, he gave $2,100 to
Senator Rick Santorum's re-election campaign. He has also given to
House majority leader Tom DeLay and a slew of other Republican
candidates, including Bush/Cheney in 2004. As a young man, Prince
interned with President George H.W. Bush, though he complained at the
time that he "saw a lot of things I didn't agree with--homosexual
groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act,
those kind of bills. I think the Administration has been indifferent
to a lot of conservative concerns."
Prince, a staunch right-wing Christian, comes from a powerful Michigan
Republican family, and his father, Edgar, was a close friend of former
Republican presidential candidate and antichoice leader Gary Bauer. In
1988 the elder Prince helped Bauer start the Family Research Council.
Erik Prince's sister, Betsy, once chaired the Michigan Republican
Party and is married to Dick DeVos, whose father, billionaire Richard
DeVos, is co-founder of the major Republican benefactor Amway. Dick
DeVos is also a big-time contributor to the Republican Party and will
likely be the GOP candidate for Michigan governor in 2006. Another
Blackwater founder, president Gary Jackson, is also a major
contributor to Republican campaigns.
After the killing of four Blackwater mercenaries in Falluja in March
2004, Erik Prince hired the Alexander Strategy Group, a PR firm with
close ties to GOPers like DeLay. By mid-November the company was
reporting 600 percent growth. In February 2005 the company hired
Ambassador Cofer Black, former coordinator for counterterrorism at the
State Department and former director of the CIA's Counterterrorism
Center, as vice chairman.
Just as the hurricane was hitting, Blackwater's parent company, the
Prince Group, named Joseph Schmitz, who had just resigned as the
Pentagon's Inspector General, as the group's chief operating officer
and general counsel.
While juicing up the firm's political connections, Prince has been
advocating greater use of private security in international
operations, arguing at a symposium at the National Defense Industrial
Association earlier this year that firms like his are more efficient
than the military.
In May Blackwater's Jackson testified before Congress in an effort to
gain lucrative Homeland Security contracts to train 2,000 new Border
Patrol agents, saying Blackwater understands "the value to the
government of one-stop shopping."
With President Bush using the Katrina disaster to try to repeal Posse
Comitatus (the ban on using US troops in domestic law enforcement) and
Blackwater and other security firms clearly initiating a push to
install their paramilitaries on US soil, the war is coming home in yet
another ominous way.
As one Blackwater mercenary said, "This is a trend. You're going to
see a lot more guys like us in these situations."
-------------------------
Joint Chiefs report on urban warfare --
US plans to destroy Iraqi infrastructure
By Patrick Martin
30 October 2002
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/oct2002/urb-o30.shtml
A new report on urban warfare by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff is a
blueprint for the use of America's overwhelming military and
technological supremacy to brutalize and terrorize a far weaker
opponent into submission. It suggests that in any invasion of Iraq,
American military planners are prepared to use massive firepower to
destroy Iraq's major cities.
The report, dated September 16, 2002, was made available on the web
site of the New York Times, which described the document in an article
October 21. The study, which can be accessed at
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/international/021021dod_report.pdf,
is entitled "Doctrine for Joint Urban Operations." (In Pentagon
terminology, "joint" designates an operation combining air, naval,
ground and special operations forces under a single command).
The Times article is fundamentally dishonest, portraying the new
strategy as aimed at bypassing cities, avoiding combat losses and
minimizing civilian deaths. A careful reading of the report suggests
the opposite conclusion: despite occasional lip service to such
humanitarian concerns, it makes a case for using advanced weaponry on
a massive scale--with an inevitably catastrophic impact on the civilian
population--as a substitute for the perils and difficulties of house-to-
house ground combat.
The military planners note that urban combat is costly for both
attackers and defenders, extremely time-consuming, and fraught with
risks. The report states: "Ground combat ... is the most difficult and
costly type of military urban operation. All those aspects of urban
ground combat that have historically extracted a terrible price on
attacker, defender, and noncombatant alike remain present today,
multiplied by the increased size and complexity of urban areas and
increase in the number of inhabitants ("Doctrine for Joint Urban
Operations," II-14).
The complex physical environment restricts the power of space-based
reconnaissance systems and reduces the leverage of the side possessing
more advanced technology. According to the report: "Cities reduce the
advantages of the technologically superior force. The physical terrain
of cities tends to reduce line of sight (LOS) and the ability to
observe fires, inhibits command, control, and communications
capability, makes aviation operations more difficult, and decreases
the effectiveness of naval surface fire support and indirect fire
support. It also degrades logistics, and often reduces ground
operations to the level of small unit combat. In addition, the
constraints imposed by a need to minimize civilian casualties and
preserve infrastructure further reduce technological advantage" (I-7,
I-8).
It is significant that the document frequently cites three historical
examples in which superior attacking forces met strategic defeat, even
when they enjoyed initial or sustained tactical success. In the battle
of Stalingrad, the Nazi offensive against the Soviet Union met
shattering defeat after a Soviet counteroffensive trapped the German
Sixth Army and forced it to surrender. In Hue, the largest city
captured outright by the Vietnamese liberation forces during the Tet
Offensive of February 1968, US Marines took heavy losses recapturing
the city, while public opinion in America turned sharply against the
war. In Grozny in 1994-95, four attacking Russian army columns were
fought to a standstill by Chechen guerrilla fighters, and anti-war
sentiment within Russia grew rapidly.
US military planners are clearly concerned that a bloodbath in Basra
or Baghdad could produce the same effect within the United States.
"Shaping the battlespace"
The answer to this problem, according to the document, is the use of
firepower and the isolation of targeted cities prior to assault. It
singles out the importance of what is called, in Pentagon jargon,
"shaping the battlespace." The military commander of an urban assault
"shapes the battlespace to best suit operational objectives by
exerting appropriate influence on adversary forces, friendly forces,
the information environment, and particularly the elements of the
urban triad" (II-10).
Translation from military jargon is again required. The "urban triad,"
according to the report, consists of the physical terrain, population
and infrastructure of the city. "Exerting appropriate influence" on
the urban triad means decisively shifting these three factors in a
direction that favors the attacker. In plain English, it means
leveling buildings to improve mobility, destroying the infrastructure
to deny water, electricity and other systems to the defenders, and
driving out (or killing) the civilian population so that they don't
get in the way.
The document calls for "the use of fires to create conditions
favorable for operation movement maneuver" and "the use of operational
movement and maneuver to create conditions for employing fires." The
Joint Chiefs insist there should be no limitation on US commanders in
terms of the weaponry employed: "In any urban combat maneuver, the
best approach is to use the full range of combined arms technology and
weaponry available to the joint force" (III-15).
The report recommends operations to achieve the physical, moral and
informational isolation of the urban area by surrounding it prior to
any assault. In the context of a heavily populated urban area, that
means depriving civilians of food, water, electrical power and access
to adequate medical care--essentially starving the population into
submission through siege methods.
These tactics may not suffice, leaving the attacker ultimately no
alternative but a frontal assault. According to the report, "The joint
force's chances of success in executing this form of maneuver can be
greatly enhanced by its ability to apply overwhelming combat power
against specific objectives with speed, firepower, and
shock" (III-17).
While the report suggests that precision weapons make attacks on
specific urban targets more effective, it also concedes that the urban
terrain is the least favorable for the use of such weapons, because of
the difficulty in obtaining accurate fixes using satellite equipment
such as GPS, and because of the large number of noncombatants who will
be in close proximity to most targets.
The role of the media
Given the inevitable carnage that would ensue, the report advises
careful planning of public affairs operations "to produce maximum
cooperation between the media and joint forces ... successful
engagement of the media can aid the dissemination of information in
the operational area and help produce and maintain domestic and
international support" (III-37).
Again, translating from this bureaucratic language, the US military is
counting on the servile American media to whitewash the upcoming
devastation of Iraqi cities, to downplay the casualty toll, and to
obediently retail such official lies as the claim--frequently made
after US atrocities--that civilian victims were being used as "human
shields" by the enemy.
Underscoring the premium which the military places on the collusion of
the media--especially in light of the American debacle in Vietnam--the
report notes that the US military defeated the Vietnamese attacks on
urban areas in the Tet Offensive, but lost the "information battle"
and, ultimately, the war itself.
The report cites approvingly the political lessons learned by the
Russian military in the first Chechnya campaign of 1994-1995, with the
result that "during the second Chechnya campaign of 1999-2000 the
Russian government made every effort to control the media and ensure
that the Russian view of the war dominated public opinion. Russia won
this information war from day one of the fighting."
The report speaks in Orwellian terms of a "strategy of reprogramming
mass consciousness," denoting the techniques that are to be used to
justify American conduct of a new war against Iraq (III-40, III-41)
The Times article makes no mention of the document's focus on public
relations as a key battlefield--a clear indication that the newspaper,
like the rest of the corporate-controlled media, is anxious to play
the role of cheerleader and propagandist for the war effort.
War crimes planned in advance
Pentagon planners are acutely aware that the methods required for the
conquest of Iraq will make American commanders and soldiers
potentially liable to prosecution for war crimes. A section of the
report on urban warfare is aimed at reassuring military personnel that
the US government will defend their actions as justified and legal
under the US interpretation of the laws of war.
The report states: "Although civilians, noncombatants, and civilian
property may not be specifically targeted, incidental injury and
collateral damage are not unlawful if: caused incident to an attack on
a lawful target, and the incidental injury and collateral damage are
not excessive in light of the anticipated military advantage from the
attack" (III-51).
Not only the killing of innocent civilians, but the use of chemical
and incendiary weapons can be justified, the document declares. While
acknowledging that the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which the US is
a signatory, "prohibits the use of all chemical weapons, including
riot control agents," the report goes on to declare, "the United
States holds the position that use of riot control agents to control
prisoners of war or civil disturbances is not a method of warfare and
therefore not covered by the convention" (III-52). In other words, the
US cannot gas enemy soldiers, but it reserves the right to gas
prisoners and civilians!
The same section of the report declares: "Incendiary weapons are
lawful so long as they are not employed so as to cause unnecessary
suffering. Weapons with incidental incendiary effects are exempted, as
are munitions with a combined effect." This language is so loose as to
constitute not a restriction, but rather a license to burn down
cities.
Finally, the Joint Chiefs' document takes up the treatment of
noncombatants in the aftermath of victory, i.e., once the military
takes on an essentially police role in urban areas. The report
contrasts the failure of Israeli methods during the 1982 invasion of
Lebanon, when brutality toward Palestinian refugees and Lebanese
civilians sparked protracted guerrilla warfare, with what it presents
as a model for "success" in such police actions: the role of the
British military in Northern Ireland.
The report makes the astonishing suggestion that "the British have
been generally successful in exercising control of the urban
population without provoking popular backlash by their presence" and
that "British performance in Belfast provides a model of both inter-
Service and inter-agency cooperation."
By placing the future American occupation of Baghdad somewhere on a
continuum between Israeli conduct in Beirut and British conduct in
Belfast, the report demonstrates that the Pentagon envisions a brutal
colonial-style dictatorship, not the creation of a democratic
renaissance in the Middle East, as Bush administration propaganda
pretends.