CRONY DRAWDOWN instead of TROOP SURGE

[yurbud]

Marine Corps General and two time Medal of Honor winner said:

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

http://www.hackvan.com/pub/stig/anti-govt/war-is-a-racket.htm

so long as the Democrats and the mainstream media debate the war in the fairy tale propaganda terms of the far right, the war will not end.

If the Smedley Butler, naked reality dominates the debate, the right will have nothing left to say that will sound even remotely credible.

One way the Democrats could force this into the news, is if they don't have the courage to completely defund the war, they could cut off the profit motive. Freeze all contracts to American companies and give that money to the Iraqi government as block rebuilding grants, ban the use of armed mercenaries and in particular their use as interrogators (an obvious gesture of goodwill to Iraqis), stop the pressure on Iraq to privatize their oil and give contracts to American corporations and tell them they are under no obligation to keep such stipulations in their law and constitution once our troops pull out, and failure to choose American corporations or bend to their will will NOT result in further military action, coups, or interference in their government.

This could have a couple of benefits:

• Profit motive would be removed, so lobbyist pressure to stay would dramatically diminish
  
  
• Iraqis would see this as a step in the right direction toward respecting their sovereignty and not sucking their country dry and leaving the dessicated husk rotting in the sun.
  
  
• Bush would be forced to put his cards on the table. He would most likely veto it. But Democrats could then point to that veto and say Bush's cronies are more important to him than the lives of our troops or democracy and stability in Iraq, which is already true, but either not stated loudly or often enough or censored by the mainstream media.
  
  

[aquart]

1. I actually like this.

[yurbud]

3. vote it up then!

[Fridays Child]

2. k/r

[annabanana]

4. k&r. . . . . .n/t

[babydollhead]

5. kick

[nashville_brook]

6. war profiteering should be the MEME of the YEAR -- every john q citizen can grasp this

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11607

IRAQ: Security Contractors in Iraq Pumping Up Costs
Extensive paramilitary work earns profit on several levels

by Joseph Neff and Jay Price, The Raleigh-Durham News & Observer
October 24th, 2004

Jerry Zovko's contract with Blackwater USA looked straightforward: He would earn $600 a day guarding convoys that carried food for U.S. troops in Iraq. But that cost -- $180,000 a year -- was just the first installment of what taxpayers were asked to pay for Zovko's work. Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., and three other companies would add to the bill, and to their profits.

Several Blackwater contracts obtained by The News & Observer open a small window into the multibillion-dollar world of private military contractors in Iraq. The contracts show how costs can add up when the government uses private military contractors to perform tasks once handled by the Army.

Here's how it worked in Zovko's case: Blackwater added a 36 percent markup, plus its overhead costs, and sent the bill to a Kuwaiti company that ordinarily runs hotels. That company, Regency Hotel, tacked on its costs for buying vehicles and weapons and a profit and sent an invoice to a German food services company called ESS that cooked meals for the troops.

ESS added its costs and profit and sent its bill to Halliburton , which also added overhead and a profit and presented the final bill to the Pentagon.

It's nearly impossible to say whether the cost for Zovko doubled, tripled or quadrupled. Congressional investigators and defense auditors have had to fight the primary contractor, Halliburton , for details of the spending. The companies say the subcontracts are confidential and won't discuss them.

About 20,000 private security contractors are now in Iraq, escorting convoys, protecting diplomats, training the Iraqi army and maintaining weapons.

[nashville_brook]

7. AFGHANISTAN: The Reach of War; U.S. Report Finds Dismal Training of Afghan Police

here's a NYT article on how privatized security companies


http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14256

by James Glantz and David Rohde; Carlotta Gall, The New York Times
December 4th, 2006

Five years after the fall of the Taliban, a joint report by the Pentagon and the State Department has found that the American-trained police force in Afghanistan is largely incapable of carrying out routine law enforcement work, and that managers of the $1.1 billion training program cannot say how many officers are actually on duty or where thousands of trucks and other equipment issued to police units have gone.

In fact, most police units had less than 50 percent of their authorized equipment on hand as of June, says the report, which was issued two weeks ago but is only now circulating among members of relevant Congressional committees.

In its most significant finding, the report said that no effective field training program had been established in Afghanistan, at least in part because of a slow, ineffectual start and understaffing.

Police training experts who have studied or had first-hand experience with the American effort in Afghanistan said they agreed with the report's findings, and some said they had warned for years that field training was the backbone of a strong program. But they said additional problems needed to be investigated, including the quality of private contractors and the cost and effectiveness of relying on them to train the police officers. In particular, the experts questioned why the report focused on United States government managers and only glancingly analyzed the performance of the principal contractor in Afghanistan, DynCorp International of Virginia.

[yurbud]

8. there is a simple way to explain this: privatization is corruption

Whenever someone wants to privatize something, they are corrupt and don't have the public interest at heart. If they think the government should stop providing some service, that's a legitimate argument to have. but when they want to put taxpayer dollars into corporate hands, they are corrupt and should be sent to normal ass-rape prison not club fed.

[nashville_brook]

10. privatization = NO ACCOUNTABILITY

as with privatized elections.

this issue lays bare the deep pit of shit we find ourselves in right now -- Pres Junior is only the poster child. it's bigger than him. he's a puppet.

[yurbud]

12. fat lady has sung for bush when everyone calls him "Junior" to his face again

Instead of "mr. President," reporters will say, "hey, Junior..."

[nashville_brook]

9. "Controlling the Corporate Mercenaries" -- Zmag

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14257

by Nick Dearden, "War on Want," Zmag
November 7th, 2006

In March 2004, four American guards were attacked and killed in the Iraqi town of Fallujah. Their charred bodies were beaten and dragged through the streets in front of television cameras, and two of the corpses were hung from a bridge over the river Euphrates. The following month, eight commandos engaged in an intense firefight with Iraqi militia during an attack on the US government headquarters in Najaf, calling in their own helicopter support to supply ammunition and take away the wounded.In November 2005, a 'trophy video' was published on the internet showing soldiers randomly shooting civilian cars from out of the back of their vehicle on the road to Baghdad airport.

The 'soldiers' involved in each of these incidents are not part of any national armed forces; they are employed by global corporations. They are paid to provide a wide range of services, from acting as armed guards for convoys and oil installations to running border patrols and training of local police and military forces, and they are regularly involved in direct combat with Iraqi militia fighters. More than 48,000 are employed by corporations as mercenaries in Iraq - a force six times larger than the official UK armed forces presence in the country. As pressure mounts for UK and US troops to be withdrawn, it is to mercenaries like these that governments increasingly look to fight the war for them.

(snip)

At Abu Ghraib prison, employees of two PMSCs (Private Military and Security Companies) were implicated in the prisoner abuse scandal, including allegedly raping a male juvenile detainee, directing the use of dogs and other forms of torture during interrogations, ordering a prisoner not to receive his prescription pain killers, and forcing a male prisoner to wear women's underwear.Despite these cases and many more, no private military contractor has been prosecuted throughout the war in Iraq because their actions are not governed by any laws. Under Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17, all foreign contractors have immunity from prosecution in Iraq.

(snip)

Several DynCorp employees in Bosnia were accused of running a prostitution ring that used under-age girls, as well as purchasing illegal weapons and forging passports. The firm's site supervisor was accused of videotaping himself raping two young women. Employees were dismissed, but did not face criminal prosecution.

(snip)

This is just the tip of the iceberg. PMSCs are also involved in stockpiling and transporting weapons into conflict zones and assisting weak governments and rebel groups, especially in Africa, to shift the balance of war. De Beers, Texaco, Chevron, British Gas, Amoco, Exxon, Mobil, Ranger Oil, BP, American Airlines and Shell have all contracted DSL (now part of UK PMSC ArmorGroup). Halliburton specialises in energy exploration and construction, but also provides logistical support to the US military.

PMSCs are a dangerous and lawless outgrowth of our military industry. But the government has sat back and allowed them to spiral out of control because they play an increasingly large part in our war planning.

PMSCs allow governments to maintain a global reach while avoiding the need to send troops and thereby evading accountability from a public increasingly unwilling to pay the costs of war. Indeed it is believed that the UK and US would now struggle to wage war without PMSCs operating as their paramilitary partners. Given how fast the industry has already expanded, it is essential that legislation ends these fantasies before they get any more concrete. But this will not be achieved simply by outlawing the right of corporations to have troops on the ground.

[yurbud]

15. my list needs a bullet point on letting Iraqis repeal CPA edicts

[nashville_brook]

11. question: is PRIVATIZATION the EXIT STRATEGY?

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14205


UK: Blair accused of trying to 'privatise' war in Iraq

by Kim Sengupta, The Independent (UK)
October 30th, 2006

The Government has been accused of reneging on pledges to control private security companies operating in Iraq because it wants to "privatise the war" as part of its exit strategy. The Government has not only failed to bring in legislation promised four years ago, but has actively encouraged security firms in Iraq by giving them multimillion -pound contracts to take over duties which could have been performed by British forces, says the report published today by the charity War on Want.

(snip)

"How can Tony Blair hope to restore peace and security in Iraq while allowing mercenary armies to operate completely outside the law?"

The study charts how the result has been boom times for security firms with the industry making $100bn a year (£53bn), mainly from Iraq and Afghanistan, with British firms among some of the top earners. Just one firm, Aegis Defence Services, run by Col Tim Spicer, who was formerly enmeshed in the controversy over supplying arms to Sierra Leone, has increased its turnover from £554,000 before the war began in 2003 to £62m last year.

While British troop levels in Iraq currently stand at 7,200 - with plans to halve this number in the next six months - there are almost 21,000 British private security guards, part of an international force of 48,000 described by US senators as the "largest private army in the world".

The report, "Corporate Mercenaries: The threat of private military and security companies," comes on the same day the British security industry holds its first annual conference in London, and also on the deadline given by the US General George Casey to improve security in Iraq. On Friday a National Audit Office report is expected to warn that Britain's armed forces are failing to recruit and retain sufficient soldiers to deliver the " required military capability".

In Iraq, all non-Iraqi military personnel and private military contractors were made immune from prosecution under the Coalition Provisional Authority's Order 17 for acts performed within terms of their contract by Paul Bremer, the American head of the CPA in June 2004.

[yurbud]

14. great find, like everything else in this war profit comes first even when it will make things worse

[Karenina]

13. TTT

:kick:

[yurbud]

18. what is TTT?

[Karenina]

20. To The Top!!!

And AWAY WE GO!!!! :loveya:

[me b zola]

16. Great post

wish I had gotten here in time to recommend, but instead I'll just have to give a little kick. :kick:

[yurbud]

19. For those too late to vote up on DU, repent and vote on DIGG and netscape

for general audience consumption.

http://digg.com/politics/Crony_drawdown_NOT_troop_surge

http://news.netscape.com/story/2006/12/24/crony-drawdown-not-troop-surge

I put a fiery conclusion on this on my blog version.

Even though they didn't particularly run on it, they won on a wave of revulsion against the war. If they do not take this kind of creative, aggressive action, Americans can only assume that our democracy is as much a sham as any Third World dictatorship that has show elections, and will conclude that merely voting and hoping that their elected representative won't screw them to please a corporate donor isn't enough and that more fundamental action is required instead.

[conscious evolution]

17. kick

This makes sense.
Unfortunately,because it makes sense it will probable never happen.
But I will kick the idea anyway.
Because I have hope!