SUNDAY 12 OCTOBER

Army Orders Pain Ray Trucks; New Report Shows 'Potential for Death'
By David Hambling
October 10, 2008 | 11:17:00 AM







After years of testing, the Active Denial System -- the pain ray which drives off rioters with a microwave-like beam -- could finally have its day. The Army is buying five of the truck-mounted systems for $25 million. But the energy weapon may face new hurdles, before it's shipped off to the battlefield; a new report details how the supposedly non-lethal blaster could be turned into a flesh-frying killer.

The contract for the pain ray trucks is "expected to be awarded by year's end," Aviation Week notes. "A year after the contract is signed, the combination vehicle/weapons will start be fielded at the rate of one per month."

It's been a very long time coming. As we've previously reported, there have been calls to deploy the Active Denial System in Iraq going back to 2004. But it's always been delayed for legal, political, and public relations reasons. Anything that might be condemned as torture is political dynamite. Interestingly, the version being bought is not the full-size "Version 2," but a containerized system known as Silent Guardian, which Raytheon have been trying to sell for some time. They describe Silent Guardian as "roughly 1/3 the size and power of the other Active Denial Systems," and quote it's range as "greater than 250 meters." The larger system has a range somewhere in excess of 700 meters.

Silent Guardian weighs a shade over 10,000 pounds all up, and will be mounted on an "armored ruggedized HEMTT [Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck]."

The announcement arrives on the same day as a new report from less-lethal weapons expert Dr. Jürgen Altmann that analyzes the physics of several directed energy weapons, including Active Denial, the Advanced Tactical Laser (used as a non-lethal weapon), the Pulsed Energy Projectile (a.k.a. "Maximum Pain" laser) and the Long Range Acoustic Device (a.k.a. "Acoustic Blaster").

Dr. Altmann describes the Active Denial beam in some detail, noting that it will not be completely uniform; anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the center will experience more heating than someone at the edge. And perhaps more significant is his thorough analysis of the heating it produces -- and the cumulative effect if the target does not have the chance to cool down between exposures. In U.S. military tests, a fifteen-second delay between exposures was strictly observed; this may not happen when the ADS is used for real.

"As a consequence, the ADS provides the technical possibility to produce burns of second and third degree. Because the beam of diameter 2 m and above is wider than human size, such burns would occur over considerable parts of the body, up to 50% of its surface. Second- and third-degree burns covering more than 20% of the body surface are potentially life-threatening – due to toxic tissue-decay products and increased sensitivity to infection – and require intensive care in a specialized unit. Without a technical device that reliably prevents re-triggering on the same target subject, the ADS has a potential to produce permanent injury or death. "

This potential hazard need not be a show-stopper -- existing less-lethals, such as plastic bullets and tear gas, can also be fatal under some circumstances (and I'm not even going to get into the argument about Tasers).

Dr. Altmann notes that "the present analysis has not found convincing arguments that the ADS would be immoral or illegal in each foreseeable circumstance," and that acceptance will depend very much on how it is used. If the ADS prevents small boats from approaching a U.S. vessel without harming anyone, then it will be seen as a humane option. If it is used to clear protesters out of the way it may be seen differently.

Meanwhile, the National Institute of Justice is still has a reported interest in a "hand-held, probably rifle-sized, short range weapon that could be effective at tens of feet for law enforcement officials." That's just one of the likely domestic applications of Active Denial technology which are likely to follow if the Army's experiment with ADS is successful. A lot of people will be watching this one very closely.



http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/army-ordering-p.html

Troopergate report

Palin abused her power and broke the law


11. Oktober 2008, 08:58 Uhr


An Alaska ethics report has concluded that John McCain’s running mate,
Gov. Sarah Palin, abused her power as governor when firing a state
official, a development that could hinder the Republicans as the race
for the White House narrows. In the closely watched case, the Alaska
governor was accused of pressuring the official to fire her former
brother-in-law and then firing the official when he refused. Palin
maintains the firing was over a budget dispute.


Foto: AP

Hundreds of people showed up to demand Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen.
John McCain's GOP running mate, uphold her promise to cooperate with
the state Legislature's investigation into her firing of Public Safety
Commissioner Walt Monegan.

Weiterführende Links

• Palin pre-empts state report, clears self in probe
  
• Sensitive Palin ethics report kept secret, for now
  
• Todd Palin had unusual access to wife’s staff
  
• McCain assaults Obama on ties to former radical
  
• The Sarah Palin Quiz
  
• Palin's words marred by racial undertones
  
• Palin says Obama 'palling around' with terrorists
  
• Palin questions McCain’s concession of Michigan
  

The 300-page report by the chief investigator
to a bipartisan Alaska legislative panel that looked into the matter was
likely to be fodder for Democratic attacks, especially in light of the fact
that Palin has painted herself as a political maverick who will help McCain
clean up Washington.
The report is almost certain to be a distraction for the McCain-Palin ticket
as it tries to catch up with Democrat Barack Obama in the polls at a time
when the floundering U.S. economy is becoming ever more important with
voters.
The inquiry looked into Palin’s dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner
Walter Monegan, who said he lost his job because he resisted pressure to
fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce and custody battle with
the governor’s sister.

The McCain camp, which had tried to keep the report from being released
because they called said the process had been politically tainted, began
almost immediately to try to limit the damage.
An attorney for Palin disagreed with the findings announced by Alaskan
investigator Stephen Branchflower.
"In order to violate the ethics law, there has to be some personal gain,
usually financial. Mr. Branchflower has failed to identify any financial
gain,“ attorney Thomas Van Flein said.
McCain campaign spokesman Meg Stapleton said the "Legislative Council
seriously overreached, making a tortured argument to find fault without
basis in law or fact.“
The report comes as the race for the White House is narrowing with only three
weeks before the Nov. 4 election and political attacks at a fever pitch.
Earlier Friday, McCain stepped up his attacks on Obama with a new TV ad that
accuses him of working with a terrorist – and then lying about it.
But McCain also appeared to begin trying to control the raw anger that has
been coming out at Republican rallies, where supporters have booed and
shouted epithets when Obama’s name is mentioned.
McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday when, in an abrupt switch from
raising questions about Barack Obama’s character, he described the Democrat
as a "decent person.“
McCain has steadily escalated attacks on Obama, diverting attention from what
many perceive as the Arizona Republican’s perceived weakness on the economy
as the unemployment rate rises, home foreclosure rates increase and the
stock market gyrates wildly.

The McCain campaign has repeatedly raised
questions about Obama’s associations with William Ayers, who in 1969 helped
found the violent Weather Underground group blamed for bombing government
buildings in the early 1970s. Ayers is now a Chicago college professor.
The veteran senator’s new ad is his toughest yet against Obama yet, asserting
that "when convenient, he (Obama) worked with terrorist Bill Ayers. When
discovered, he lied about it.“
But at a Lakeville, Minnesota, town hall meeting, McCain said his differences
with Obama are over "rhetoric and record,“ not character. He was booed by
his own supporters when he said: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person
and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United
States.“
"I don’t mean that has to reduce your ferocity,“ he said. "I just mean to say
you have to be respectful.“ The comments followed several Republican rallies
this week during which angry supporters shouted "traitor,“ "terrorist,“
"treason,“ "liar,“ and even "off with his head“ when Obama was mentioned.
The Associated Press and other news organizations have reported that Obama
and Ayers are not close but that they live in the same Chicago neighborhood
and worked together on two nonprofit organization boards from the mid-1990s
to 2002. Ayers also hosted a small meet-the-candidate event for Obama in
1995 as he first ran for the state Senate.
During the campaign, Obama has denounced Ayers’ radical actions and views.
To back up its claim that Obama lied about his relationship, McCain’s
campaign juxtaposed that debate comment with a CNN report in which a
reporter asserted that "the relationship between Obama and Ayers went much
deeper, ran much longer, and was much more political than Obama said.“
But McCain’s campaign provided no other evidence that Obama "lied.“
Campaigning in Ohio on Friday, Obama didn’t mention the Ayers attacks but
chastised McCain and his Republicans for "a barrage of nasty insinuations
and attacks.“
"It’s easy to rile up a crowd by stoking anger and division,“ Obama said.
But, he said: "The American people aren’t looking for someone who can divide
this country. They’re looking for someone who will lead it.“
Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden accused McCain of trying to
"take the lowest road to the highest office in America.“
Palin, too, has been targeting Obama’s character.
On Friday, Palin accused Obama of exploiting the U.S. economic crisis for
political gain and of proposing a trillion dollars in new government
spending without explaining where that money will come from.
"Media, don’t know why they’re not asking him: ’Where is that money gonna
come from?“’ she said. "He’s got to raise taxes.“
The McCain ticket has been struggling to gain ground in the polls as the
economic crisis spreads. Obama has a sizable lead in the Gallup Poll daily
tracking survey, 51-41. Several polling organizations now put McCain even or
behind in must-win states captured by President George W. Bush in 2000 and
2004 that are key to a Republican win.




http://www.welt.de/english-news/article2561612/Palin-abused-her-power-and-broke-the-law.html

Yemen / Somalia
150 migrants thrown in shark-infested waters

11. Oktober 2008, 13:49 Uhr


Dozens of bodies washed ashore in Yemen on Friday after smugglers threw
nearly 150 migrants from Somalia overboard in shark-infested waters,
the latest such tragedy in one of the most lawless stretches of ocean
in the world.



Foto: REUTERS

Somali refugees walk on their way to the southern Yemeni port city of
Aden upon their arrival to the coast of Ahwar on a smuggling boat
across the Gulf of Aden. Fighting in Somalia and new smuggling routes
to Yemen lead hundreds of people to risk their lives by crossing the
Gulf of Aden on small boats run by smugglers.

Weiterführende Links

• Explosion in Syrian capital kills 17 people
  
• Olmert decries 'evil wind of extremism'
  
• Israel's president slams Ahmadinejad speech
  
• Iran president Ahmadinejad blasts 'bullying powers'
  
• PM Olmert tells Cabinet he will resign
  
• UN nuke meeting indirectly criticizes Israel
  
• Jewish ’modesty patrols’ sow fear in Israel
  

The Gulf of Aden between Yemen and the Horn of
Africa has already become notorious for Somali piracy. The hijacking of a
ship carrying a cargo of heavy weapons two weeks ago heightened concern over
the chaos in a key shipping route – and prompted NATO on Thursday to send
warships to help U.S. Navy vessels already patrolling the region.
The latest migrant deaths raised calls for those ships to also act against
human trafficking across the same waters, which is also fueled by the
turmoil in Somalia, a country where there is no government control and armed
groups are rampant.
"It’s essentially the same problems that allow piracy and smuggling,“ said
Roger Middleton, an expert on East Africa at the Chatham House think tank in
London.

Dire economic conditions and violence in Somalia drives the waves of
migrants, while the general lawless that gives pirates a free hand also
opens the door for smugglers. "People are very desperate,“ Middleton said.
He welcomed the NATO deloyment of ships against piracy, calling it
"excellent news“ that could also help in stopping human trafficking.
Around 32,000 migrants have made the hazardous sea journey to Yemen this year
– 22,000 of them Somalis, according to figures from the Yemeni government
and the U.N. refugee agency.
Smugglers are known to cram dozens of men, women and children onto small
boats and often beat and abuse the migrants during the journey, which can
take up to three days. To avoid Yemeni patrols, the smugglers often dump
their passengers far from shore and force them to swim the rest of the way.
In the latest instance, around 150 migrants departed Somalia on Monday, and
when their vessel reached about 3 miles (5 kilometers) off Yemen’s southern
Shabwa coast, the smugglers ordered everyone off, U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva on Friday.
Twelve of the passengers were put on a smaller boat to take them to shore,
while the rest were forced to swim. Redmond said 47 were believed to have
survived, but around 100 were missing and feared drowned.
By Friday, 30 bodies have been found washed up on shore and were buried
immediately in keeping with Islamic customs of quick burial, a Yemeni
security official said. He estimated that up to 118 may have drowned. He
spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to
media.

In a sign of how frequent such drownings are, he
cautioned that it was not certain whether all the 30 came from the boat,
saying he could not rule out that other smuggling incidents occurred over
the past week. During the first half September, some 165 bodies were found
on the shore, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The UNHCR estimates at least 230 migrants have died this year and 365 remain
missing, including 100 from the latest incident. In 2007, over 1,400 were
reported dead and missing, according to the rights group Medecins Sans
Frontiers.
The Gulf of Aden is not the only dangerous sea crossing for migrants.
Hundreds of Africans die every year trying to make the journey across the
Mediterranean to Spain, Italy and Greece. But the Aden traffic is
particularly dense, with tens of thousands crossing a single concentrated
geographical area – and, as MSF said in a June report, it is "largely
ignored.“
"This is one of the most dramatic situations in the world,“ the U.N. high
commissioner for refugees, Antonio Guterres said at a press conference in
Geneva. "The way smugglers and traffickers treat people is absolutely
outrageous and corresponds to one of the worst crimes that we can see in
today’s world.“
He urged the international community to look "not only for pirates but also
to look for these (human trafficking) situations in the Gulf of Aden.“
NATO defense ministers agreed Thursday to send a seven-ship force to the
region to deter pirate attacks and escort U.N. food aid vessels into Somalia
after the seizure two weeks ago of the Ukrainian tanker MV Faina and its
cargo of weapons. The NATO warships join vessels from the U.S. 5th Fleet,
which already patrol the area.
Pirates have seized more than two dozen ships this year off the Horn of
Africa, but the hijacking of the Faina has drawn the most international
concern because of its dangerous cargo – 33 tanks and other heavy weapons.
Six U.S. warships are surrounding the Faina to prevent pirates from unloading
its cargo of 33 tanks and other heavy weapons, and a Russian warship is
headed to the region. On Friday, a spokesman for the pirates threatened to
blow up the Faina in three days if no ransom is paid.
A diplomat at the NATO meeting that decided on the deployment to the Gulf of
Aden said detering human trafficking was not discussed as part of its
mission. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about the
deliberations.
Lt. Nate Christensen, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet, said the U.S. Navy is
focused on combating smuggling in the Gulf of Aden as well as piracy, and he
expected the increase in the force will help.
"We look for weapons smuggling, drug smuggling, and human smuggling,“ he
said. "That’s part of the lawful maritime order that we try to create
there.“ He would not provide specific details on how U.S. ships deal with
migrant boats, citing operational secrecy.
"The more ships, the more coalition assets, the more people, the more navies
we have involved in this problem, that’s the way this is going to end,“
Christensen said. "It’s not something the U.S. or six ships can solve on
their own down there. It requires even regional governments to get involved.“
–––
Ahmed al-Haj reported on this story from San’a. Lee Keath reported from
Cairo, Egypt. Associated Press Writers Sebastian Abbot in Cairo, Frank
Jordans in Geneva, Switzerland, and Jennifer Quinn in London contributed to
this report.\\


http://www.welt.de/english-news/article2562661/150-migrants-thrown-in-shark-infested-waters.html

New Killer Drones Could be Piloted by Teenagers



By Noah Shachtman October 10, 2008 | 1:15:00 PMCategories: Drones









Today, only experienced Air Force pilots are allowed to
remotely-operate the American fleet of killer drones. Tomorrow, the
heavily-armed robotic planes could be flown by 19 year-olds, barely out
of basic training.

The Army and Marine Corps use Shadow unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
to spy on suspected militants. Not only are they smaller, cheaper,
lighter, and lower-flying than the Air Force's array of missile-laden
Predator and Reaper drones. But Shadows are considered a "tactical
assets," meant to watch over
relatively small patches of ground, for relatively small units.
Predators, on the other hand, are "theater" or "operational-level"
assets -- controlled by generals, and sent all over.

As a result, ground forces often
use the most junior of noncommissioned officers to fly their Shadows --
teenagers who've sometimes never even been in combat. In contrast,
the Air Force only allows rated pilots -- guys trained to operate a
B-52 or an F-15 -- to fly their Predators. "You have to understand
flight, know how to talk to a controller," then Air Force Colonel Tom
Ehrhard told me a few years back. "It takes an aviator to do that."

But those aviators are worn out from non-stop drone-piloting duty. And it often takes a while to get a big UAV like a Predator over to where a captain or a colonel needs it.

Which is why there's a new military development program underway to "weaponize Shadow" for Special Forces, Inside Defense reports. "The goal is to pair firepower with sophisticated visual sensors, giving
lower-echelon UAV operators capabilities heretofore reserved for
operational-level unmanned systems."

Which means those young privates and corporals and specialists could be controlling killer drones, some day soon.

It's part of a broader Pentagon effort to make armed UAVs cheaper, and more plentiful. John Wilcox, with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, tells Inside Defense, "We're also going to look at weaponizing a couple more small
UAVs." With one-to-five-pound weapons, these tny killers could take out high-value targets -- "or hold a target at risk until
bigger and better operational platforms with more ordnance get onto the
battlefield."



http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/10/armed-shadows.html#more

y'see, this is what the war in afghanistan/pakistan/iraq/wherever is all about. it's about toys for the boys.




More Killer Drone Bangs For The Buck


By David Hambling October 09, 2008 | 11:01:00 AMCategories: Ammo and Munitions, Drones








Remote-controller Predator and Reaper drones armed with Hellfire missiles have
proved extremely effective in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. But if
the Hellfire missile has a problem, it's the cost: about $100,000 every
time you pull the trigger* . Can we do the same job cheaper and better?


My article in this month's Defense Technology International (starts
on page 54) looks at weapons options for unmanned aircraft. Weight is a
big driver; you can only hang two of the hundred-pound Hellfire
missiles on a Predator, and the missile is too big for smaller drones.
Cost is a factor too, and there are a lot of competitors in the drive
to produce smaller, cheaper guided missiles.

Raytheon's new Griffin missile is a
typical example of the development in this area. It's been assembled
using component from previous missile programs for a rapid solution,
and it's small enough that you can swap each Hellfire for three
laser-guided Griffins.

Another approach is to upgrade the existing 2.75" rockets commonly
used on helicopters with laser guidance kits to create instant,
low-cost laser-guided missiles with a minimum of effort. Unfortunately,
it's taken twelve years so far to develop the Advanced Precision kill Weapon System (APKWS II) based on the existing Hydra rocket. But there are a number of other contenders working on this idea too and we may get a $10,000, 35-pound Hellfire-substitute soon.

However, in order to make make something significantly smaller and
cheaper than existign weapons, you have to start from scratch -- that's
what Steve Felix of the Naval Air Warfare Center did. He is Program
Manager for the Spike missile which
is described as the smallest guided missile in the world. Originally
designed to as a portable, shoulder-fired weapon, it's been adapted for
unmanned aircraft.

Spike weighs just five pounds, but it's a formidable weapon. The
guidance system is highly original; in one mode it uses an
electro-optical seeker, basically a video camera. Lock on before launch
and it follows the target -- even something agile like a motorbike. In
another mode for night operation, the seeker can be set to home in on a
laser spot, turning Spike into a laser-guided missile.

In a test firing in February, Spike engaged a remote-controlled van
with a crossing speed of twenty miles an hour, at a range of a mile and
a half. You can see the effects in the photo. Although the warhead
weighs less than two pounds, high precision increases its lethality.
It's designed to penetrate the target before detonating, so it could be
used to target the window of a specific room in a building rather than
demolishing whe whole thing like larger weapons.

(Using smaller warheads should reduce collateral damage which is a
huge issue in the current campaign. For example, it now seems the U.S.
air strikes on August 22nd may have killed more civilians than previously admitted. )

Spike is being built to a budget: Felix's target is $5,000 a round.
That would make it about 95% cheaper than the Hellfire. While Spike may
not be suitable for taking out heavy tanks (Hellfire's original brief),
it looks like a useful tool for the sort of missions currently being
undertaken. And at that weight and price, you can carry a lot more
bangs for your buck.

Spike looks to be a trend setter. As the DTI article explains,
even tinier missiles are in the pipeline from both the Air Force and
Army. Watch out for small drones with smaller missiles in
ever-increasing numbers.

* See the Air Force's current missile shopping list (warning, big PDF) -- the FY2008 budget has 642 of them for $63,585,000

(Photo: Naval Air Warfare Center )
http://blog.wired.com/defense/

LSD Cured My Headache

By
Arran Frood, Independent UK. Posted October 10, 2008.

Cluster headaches cause such severe pain that some sufferers are driven
to suicide. Now one man believes he's found a surprising cure.

This is the story of a man known online as Flash -- a man driven to
the brink of suicide by the debilitating effects of cluster headaches.
After years of ineffectual treatments, Flash stumbled on what he
declared was a new treatment, as controversial as it was, he claimed,
effective: hallucinogenic drugs.Flash was ridiculed by the
cluster headache community for his "miracle cure". But when a survey of
fellow sufferers who self-medicated with hallucinogens was published in
the mainstream journal Neurology, the results gave weight to his
claims. The Harvard Medical School scientists who conducted the survey
have now applied for a preliminary clinical trial on the subject.


read the story:http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/102400/lsd_cured_my_headache/

Pics: What Happened to Georgia's Navy?


By Noah Shachtman October 08, 2008 | 2:08:00


Gavin Sheridan is just back from Georgia, where he documented the aftermath of the August war with Russia. Today, he looks at what happened to the Georgian Navy:




Continue reading "Pics: What Happened to Georgia's Navy?" »








follow the links. they're the highlighted bits ya dumbass.


http://blog.wired.com/defense/

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."

* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

* If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.!!




http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/100068/the_wild_stuff_that_makes_its_way_around_the_internet/

As
far as privatization goes, Blackwater depends on government outfits
like the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) to fall
by the wayside so that the North Carolina-based mercenary outfit can
pick up State contracts to do DSS’s old job—guard U.S. diplomats
abroad. Protecting U.S. interests, notably people in war zones, is how
Blackwater built its business. As of late 2007, the company had lost
none of its protected charges in either Iraq or Afghanistan, both
places where they have a heavy presence (Blackwater’s force in Iraq is
two-thirds of what DSS has in total around the globe). 15 But its services have not been without controversy.
Last
September, Blackwater mercenaries gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians when a
Blackwater-protected State convoy ran into traffic at Nisour Square in
Baghdad. In a stark and troubling sign of Blackwater’s usurpation of
government responsibilities, it was reported that a Blackwater employee
was allowed to write the initial State Department report on the
incident, which—contradicting later reports, most notably the Iraqi
government’s—cited gunfire from the crowd as having set off the melee. 16 An official with knowledge of the investigation subsequently told the New York Times
that the incident had been characterized by chaos and confusion,
including infighting between Blackwater employees when one of them did
not heed a ceasefire call. 17
Though the incident was neither the first nor last of reported
Blackwater abuses, it was the first that garnered the attention of
Congress. A hearing was called, and Prince, in line with Blackwater’s
previous statements, denied any wrongdoing. Absurdly, he even denied
that Blackwater had shot and killed innocent civilians. 18
None of the abuses, however, have been prosecuted either in Iraq—where
U.S. contractors enjoy immunity—or in the United States.
That
immunity, however, is proving severely problematic as the Bush
administration attempts to heal strained relations with it Iraqi
allies, who remain outraged over the Nisour Square incident and other
abuses committed by private security contractors. Contractor immunity,
in fact, was one of the major holdups in U.S.-Iraqi negotiations for a
controversial security agreement to replace the current U.N. mandate. 19
But
given the hard-fought resistance to giving up contractor immunity—and
the failure to prosecute alleged crimes upon return to the United
States—some observers have begun to wonder if the private contractors
haven’t overtaken the U.S. military in the Iraq pecking order. Pointing
to a telling incident in which U.S. Army and Blackwater vehicles
collided and Blackwater guards subsequently disarmed military
personnel, researcher Madhavi Bhasin wrote, “The Iraqi Government has
come to realize that the U.S. is attempting to run the Iraqi state
through private contractors who cannot be held accountable for their
misdeeds.” 20

Ideological Hodgepodge
Blackwater’s
tentacles into the world of right-wing ideology go well beyond the
basics of militarism and privatization. Blackwater’s chief operating
officer Joseph Schmitz, for example, was involved in several
controversies during his time as inspector general (IG) of the Defense
Department. One of them, bizarrely, was his obsession with a Prussian
Army officer who was a hero in the American Revolutionary War and whose
motto—“Always Under the Protection of the Almighty”—Schmitz spent
months working into a new logo for the IG’s office, 21 with questionable disregard for the separation of church and state.
Schmitz,
as the Pentagon’s IG, was responsible for defense contracts. His watch
saw the largest increase in military contracting ever—certainly a boon
to Blackwater’s business. But in 2005, Schmitz resigned from the IG
under pressure for malfeasance in his oversight—including questionably
exonerating Iraq war architect Richard Perle for peddling his influence within the Pentagon. 22
Though he may have lacked oversight, Schmitz was certainly not
shortsighted. His Catholicism, ideological politics, and doling out of
contracts to Blackwater surely helped his chances of getting a gig with
Prince’s outfit, which is where he landed the month after he resigned.
Another
Blackwater figure with ideological underpinnings is Cofer Black, the
head of Total Intelligence Solutions and former head of the CIA’s
Counterterrorism Center. While at the CIA (where he worked until 2002),
Black oversaw one of the Bush administration’s forays into expanding
the powers of the executive; many of those overreaches have been
criticized for putting the executive branch above the law and beyond
oversight. The program that Black was responsible for was no exception.
According to Dana Priest of the Washington Post, under
Black’s watch the Counterterrorism Center ran the “extraordinary
rendition” program in which suspects were kidnapped by the CIA, taken
to secret “black sites,” and interrogated with harsh methods that have
given rise to accusations of torture. 23 After 9/11, Black had famously told Congress that, “the gloves came off.” 24
Perhaps, indeed, the gloves came off. And in addition to possibly
conducting torture, those bare hands apparently also dialed up
Blackwater—just two weeks after the attacks, Prince told Bill O’Reilly
of Fox News, “The phone is ringing off the hook.” 25
A
constant enemy of the aggressive economic right is taxation, and
Blackwater Worldwide is no exception. In October 2007, Rep. Henry
Waxman (D-CA) sent a letter to Prince notifying him that there was
evidence that “Blackwater may have engaged in significant tax evasion.” 26
The question arose from Blackwater’s classification of its armed guards
as “independent contractors,” for which the company is not responsible
for taxes like Social Security and Medicare, “for which it is legally
responsible.” Waxman’s letter noted that Blackwater’s modus operandi
was different than the two other military contractors doing private
security for the State Department in Iraq, and that in at least one
case, the Internal Revenue Service had deemed the independent
contractor status as “without merit.”
But
that’s not the only way Prince and Blackwater have apparently sought to
shortchange the government, even as their cups runneth over with
taxpayer money in the form of contracts. Scahill reports that Prince
registered Greystone Limited, a new division of Blackwater, with the
government in 2004. But unlike other Blackwater subsidiaries, Greystone
was not incorporated in Virginia, North Carolina, or even the domestic
tax haven of Delaware. Instead, wrote Scahill, “Greystone was
registered offshore in the Caribbean island-nation of Barbados. It was
duly classified by the U.S. government as a ‘tax-exempt’ ‘corporate
entity.’” 27
Though
the offshore incorporation of Greystone happened in 2004, it was not
until late 2007, just as the Nisour Square scandal broke, that
Blackwater changed its name to reflect its global base and outreach,
tweaking “Blackwater USA” to “Blackwater Worldwide”—a subtle change,
but a meaningful one in light of Blackwater’s increasing enterprises
and growing scope. Bill Sizemore of the Virginian-Pilot
reported that the name change coincided with significant expansions,
citing Blackwater’s desire for or recent foray into “a role providing
private armed forces in support of international peacekeeping and
nation-building operations,” acquisition of “an oceangoing ship for
training and potential paramilitary use,” and a share of a federal
“five-year federal counter narcotics contract that could be worth up to
$15 billion.” 28
Sizemore
also noted that Blackwater is expanding into the time-honored
right-wing enterprise of traditional defense contractors—not training
and private mercenary work, but rather weapons and equipment
development, manufacturing, and sales. National Public Radio’s Corey
Flintoff reported last fall that Blackwater now provides everything
“from bomb-sniffing dogs to drone reconnaissance aircraft.” 29 Newsweek
also reported that Blackwater “has a prototype of a spy blimp—an
unmanned dirigible that could hover for days,” and that Prince’s “focus
seems to be more on developing the latest high-tech gadgetry to sell to
the government.” 30

“The Future of War”?
But
Blackwater is going global in other new and troubling ways. Scahill
devotes a whole chapter of his new book to “Blackwater’s Man in Chile.”
This is the “real” vast right-wing conspiracy going international.
Through extensive interviews with Blackwater’s Latin-American recruiter
himself, Scahill documents the relationship between Blackwater and Jose
Miguel Pizarro Ovalle, the Chilean responsible for placing nearly 1,000
of his countrymen in Iraq under the employ of Blackwater. Pizarro is a
passionate apologist for brutal right-wing Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet, the general who in 1973 led a CIA-, U.S. government-, and
multinational corporation–backed coup d’état to overthrow Chile’s
democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende.
In
the congressional hearings last October, Prince tried to deflect
accusations that his group is indeed a mercenary outfit. “People call
us mercenaries,” he told the committee. “We have Americans working for
America protecting Americans,” he said—omitting the fact that
Blackwater employs non-Americans as well. 31 A New York Times
blog noted that Prince’s answer is “in stark contrast to the Oxford
English Dictionary definition: ‘A professional soldier working for a
foreign government.’ But that’s the second definition in The American
Heritage Dictionary. Here’s the first: ‘Motivated solely by a desire
for monetary or material gain.’” 32
That
is the essence of the problem with Blackwater. Scahill, an undisputed
expert on Blackwater who has been called before Congress to testify
about the mercenary group, quotes Michael Ratner, the president of the
Center for Constitutional Rights: “The increasing use of contractors,
private forces or as some would say ‘mercenaries’ makes wars easier to
begin and to fight—it just takes money and not the citizenry.” 33
In a time when the Right misled the people of America into a war in
Iraq that appears to be based on neoconservative ideology and
aggressive nationalist economic interest in oil, this is a particularly
potent criticism of Prince’s right-wing principles. As Scahill writes,
the saga of Prince and Blackwater is “the living embodiment of the
changes wrought by the revolution in military affairs and the
privatization agenda radically expanded by the Bush administration
under the guise of the war on terror. But more fundamentally, it is a
story about the future of war, democracy, and governance.” 34
Ali Gharib is a Washington, D.C.-based reporter. He contributes to PRA’s Right Web (http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/) and is also a writer for the Inter Press Service.


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