“Don’t attack terrorist groups because Bush was an idiot” isn’t really a good argument, in my book. Really, how are we going to keep ourselves, our families, the world, safe?

A lot of the dead Iraqis killed each other, gleefully, by the way: I really think we need to stop blaming their deaths on Americans. At worst, we acted to enable the bloodshed and we didn’t actively prevent most of it: this culpability is huge enough without placing all America’s finger on the trigger.

Why in the world would they want to get rid of the number 1 boogeyman in their propaganda machine to steal American’s civil rights? They are much more useful alive and well-funded. This article sounds like just more nonsense aimed at getting people to believe our government is actually worried about terrorism, instead of actively engaging in it.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, can we get the name straight? What is Blackwater called today?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, Blackwater has, you know, twenty different iterations, and they have all sorts of companies…The official name of the company, how they do business overtly with the US government, is through U.S. Training Center…

AMY GOODMAN: And the New York Times refers to them as Xe Services, X-E.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, that’s so last week. Amy. I mean, you know, they change—it changes pretty much every week.

I’ve always found random searching pretty inefficient; they’d be better advised to undertake an organised search of the vehicle.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8215722.stm

Remarkably similar, and close in time too, to the techniques used in the reign of terror in Summer 2003 [ which events in turn were used as justification of Bush's 'successful' (so the US Media Korps claimed) so-called "Surge"- a follow-up op to the torture-them-into-submission policy, in my book]) Bagdad, when it was reported that “power drills” had been used on the people whose bodies were found- at a rate of dozens, each and every night – dumped in prominent places throughout Bagdad – at a time when the USA’s Occupying Army was responsible for the security of the civilian populace. (oh wait, the US had “declared” that they had “transferred Sovreignity”, so not their fault, no sir! Convenient too that the Red cross observers and the UN observers had been driven out…)

More work by America’s “secondary Army” (of hired terrorists, deniable terrorists, foreign terrorists?) …gee, kinda like the SS was to the Wehrmacht, eh?

Any of those Iraqi “power drill” torture-killers of prisoners brought to justice yet?

Oh right, they’re all Iranians, according to the USA…and it’s not up to the US to protect iraqis, after all.

Israel, a nation of some few million, is under a state of siege: so what’s the USA’s excuse to spead war across a continent?

Joh Yoo, on torture: “The Israelis have had some success with it”.

And targeted assassinations? Of ancient quadraplegics in wheelchairs, while also taking out whoever happened to be around? Yay for the Mossad…

Speaking of Israel, now that Hamas has stopped firing rockets, when will the peace talks re-start? Oh right when the Israelis want them to.

is not that what Al-Qaeda was, in the 1980s, whem they fought Jihad against the Soviet army in Afghanistan, on US taxpayers’ dime?

How’d that work out?

And in general, the history of “praetorian guards”, and their influence on the State which employs them, is monotonous in its repetitiveness…but US people cannot be bothered to use heir freedom to study history, eh? No problems here, move along, eh Joe? Hey, Joe?
Maybe you’ll listen to a former paratrooper, if not me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLnKUiybiFo

Where are y’all going, with that in your head?

http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern08212009.html

Written by an ex-CIA guy no less.

I’ve never been prouder to NOT be an American…

Maybe they wanted their hands unbound by the Law?
To do other things? Apparently, the Laws of War were too “restrictive”: so they hired “outside help” to do their dirtiest work, their most heinous crimes. “Unfortunate excesses”, they call these, excused by the “patriotism” of the murderers..

Please revisit my Cryptome link above: serious allegations are made about Blackwater/Xe (who IIRC had $0.00 worth of contracts prior to Bush’s time ruling the “Homeland”: and how many billions of $$ worth now?)…and if they are true? What then? Can we expect more armed ‘protesters’, this time to prevent any domestic US prosecutions from taking place?

Because “Special Irregular Forces” historically make a habit of ignoring ANY Laws they do not agree with, and which cannot be enforced by a superior power…eventually, the King/Ruler/Sovereign becomes too fearful of them to reign them in …. they are a most serious threat to freedom, to Americans’ freedoms.

And you are truly blind, if you cannot see the potential threat to you and your fellow Citizens, of a Lawless Power, given unlimited & secret resources, always unquestioningly backed up by a cheerleading Corporate Mass Media. And their allies, both paid and unpaid (“useful idiots”, the Nazis would call these latter), on the Internet.

she is one smart cookie!

Organizations who’s entire purpose is to perform illegal activities without being caught really should have better oversight.

(Note: espionage is universally illegal)

but there’s more!From the “Big Mac Index” folks:

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14291547

So those guys killed by the Fallujans WERE Blackwater boys, eh? Well, well….

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/world/americas/21mexico.html?_r=2

Time to book a Mexican vacation?

Which is exactly why assassination has been largely avoided by governments as a strategy, in the same way that the Geneva convention tried to limit warfare and why torture is abhored by most governments.

Isn’t it time we stopped doing this stuff?

That said, if engaging in violence IS a nessisary evil in maintaining world peace,..

And you do not see the obvious fallacy in that statement?!

Also, if a security company’s idea of maintaining security is to blast every man, woman and child to smithereens at a moments notice, how do you suppose they would tackle an operation as precarious as the assasination of a certain individual?

My guess is it would be a messy affair.

Of course, using a covert team, doesn’t result in flagged draped coffins either.

In any case, who cares which guy pulls the trigger? Pay a government employee to pull the trigger, or pay a former government employee somewhat more to pull the same trigger. Why are we in such a twist over this secondary standing army of ours? It’s the same harmful policy, no matter who the actors are.

I never hear people whinging about our socialized military, or our socialised firemen, or our socialized policemen.

That said, if engaging in violence IS a nessisary evil in maintaining world peace, I do believe subterfuge such as this would be more effective, and more importantly, less likely to harm innocents than open field warfare (which leads to less hostile conversions; which = win state for the wargamers). But that does have to be tempered with accountability, which of course Blackwater is very humanitarian at manning up to thier failings.

Yeah sorry for the Xeni