Blackwater

[Off_White]

I'm starting a new line of magnetic ribbons for your car that say "support our security contractors" but I'm uncertain what color to make them. What color is still available?

[archenemy]

Puce.

[canyondweller]

I'm starting a new line of magnetic ribbons for your car that say "support our security contractors" but I'm uncertain what color to make them. What color is still available?

 

I've got a couple Blackwater t-shirts around, somewhere. I'm sure you'd where it with pride.

[archenemy]

I would. But only if you'll wear my Hitler World Tour shirt.

[Off_White]

I've got a couple Blackwater t-shirts around, somewhere. I'm sure you'd where it with pride.

 

Really? I'd love to have one.

[archenemy]

What? My shirt isn't good enough. BW has nothing on Hitler. Nothing.

[Off_White]

Oh, I didn't think you were offering it to me. I'm pretty sure you and I are not the same size though, so I'd have to cut off the panel and attach it to my leather jacket with safety pins.

[archenemy]

hott.

[olyclimber]

i would like one of these blackwater shirts. size large.

[SmallShoes]

I'll take a medium.

[Dechristo]

...and I'll take her crystal ball.

[Fairweather]

Well, I built me a raft and shes ready for floatin

Ol mississippi, shes callin my name

Catfish are jumpin

That paddle wheel thumpin

Black water keeps rollin on past just the same

 

Old black water, keep on rollin

Mississippi moon, wont you keep on shinin on me

Old black water, keep on rollin

Mississippi moon, wont you keep on shinin on me

Old black water, keep on rollin

Mississippi moon, wont you keep on shinin on me

Yeah, keep on shinin your light

Gonna make everything, pretty mama

Gonna make everything all right

And I aint got no worries

cause I aint in no hurry at all

 

Well, if it rains, I dont care

Dont make no difference to me

Just take that street car thats goin up town

Yeah, Id like to hear some funky dixieland

And dance a honky tonk

And Ill be buyin evrybody drinks all roun

 

 

Id like to hear some funky dixieland

Pretty mama come and take me by the hand

By the hand, take me by the hand pretty mama

Come and dance with your daddy all night long

I want to honky tonk, honky tonk, honky tonk

[Jim]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/02/blackwater.witness/index.html

 

The police officer, whom CNN is identifying only as Sarhan, said the Blackwater guards "seemed nervous" as they entered the square, throwing water bottles at the Iraqi police posted there and driving in the wrong direction. He said traffic police halted civilian traffic to clear the way for the Blackwater team.

 

Then, he said, the guards fired five or six shots in an apparent attempt to scare people away, but one of the rounds struck a car and killed a young man who was sitting next to his mother, a doctor.

 

Sarhan said he and an undercover Iraqi police officer ran to the car but they were unable to stop it from rolling forward toward the Blackwater convoy.

 

"I wanted to get his mother out, but could not because she was holding her son tight and did not want to let him go," Sarhan said. "They immediately opened heavy fire at us."

 

"Each of their four vehicles opened heavy fire in all directions, they shot and killed everyone in cars facing them and people standing on the street," Sarhan said.

 

The shooting lasted about 20 minutes, he said.

 

"When it was over we were looking around and about 15 cars had been destroyed, the bodies of the killed were strewn on the pavements and road."

 

Sarhan said no one ever fired at the Blackwater team.

 

"They became the terrorists, not attacked by the terrorists," he said.

 

"I saw parts of the woman's head flying in front of me, blow up and then her entire body was charred," he said. "What do you expect my reaction to be? Are they protecting the country? No. If I had a weapon I would have shot at them."

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Size large for me, please.

 

And the ribbon color? Why, green of course.

[No. 13 Baby]

Pretty damn funny watching the CEO of Blackwater (C-SPAN3) not only flat-out refuse to give an approximation of their recent annual profit, he claims he doesn't even know "that sort of information."

 

I guess when the government is writing checks for no-bid contracts, the concept of "profit" becomes an inside joke.

[pdawg]

Anybody posted this link yet?

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001352.html

 

"According to data provided to the House panel, the average per-day pay to personnel Blackwater hired was $600. According to the schedule of rates, supplies and services attached to the contract, Blackwater charged Regency $1,075 a day for senior managers, $945 a day for middle managers and $815 a day for operators.

 

According to data provided to the House panel, Regency charged ESS an average of $1,100 a day for the same people. How the Blackwater and Regency security charges were passed on by ESS to Halliburton's KBR cannot easily be determined since the catering company was paid on a per-meal basis, with security being a percentage of that charge.

 

Halliburton's KBR blended its security costs into the blanket costs passed on to the Defense Department.

 

How much more these costs are compared with the pay of U.S. troops is easier to determine.

 

An unmarried sergeant given Iraq pay and relief from U.S. taxes makes about $83 to $85 a day, given time in service. A married sergeant with children makes about double that, $170 a day.

 

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad overseeing more than 160,000 U.S. troops, makes roughly $180,000 a year, or about $493 a day. That comes out to less than half the fee charged by Blackwater for its senior manager of a 34-man security team."

 

Putting aside the ethical shadiness of taxpayer funded mercenaries (however well-trained and patriotic these mercenaries might be), how is this situation not a horrible affront to the regular troops? They're having trouble getting basic equipment, yet the government is throwing money in the air for the guys across the street? And is Blackwater only a Praetorian Guard for diplomats or are they also running security for reconstruction projects? How is the relationship between Blackwater and the regular Army? Warm and chummy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jim]

It's called a windfall for the "private" sector don't ya know. It is also the price of not having to institute a draft. KBR provides all the logistics support, food service, etc, and Blackwater the security, at 8 times the cost the military could do it. But we've stretched the armed forces as much as possible, have the backdoor draft with the reserve and stop orders, and that keeps the public happy because they don't have to cough up their sons.

[pdawg]

If we can argue that torture is a necessary tool for national security, I don't see why we can't make war profiteering a hanging offense.

[JayB]

It's called a windfall for the "private" sector don't ya know. It is also the price of not having to institute a draft. KBR provides all the logistics support, food service, etc, and Blackwater the security, at 8 times the cost the military could do it. But we've stretched the armed forces as much as possible, have the backdoor draft with the reserve and stop orders, and that keeps the public happy because they don't have to cough up their sons.

 

If you want to compare costs honestly, you have to factor in all of the costs associated with the recruitment, training, equipment, benefits, etc associated with developing equivalent capacities in the millitary.

 

In the case of the guys that work at Blackwater, these dollar amounts are likely quite substantial. Say what you will about the ethical or strategic wisdom of this move, but it's not clear that paying these guys an hourly rate thats 6-8X what a soldier with an equivalent skill set would make, for a few months at a time, is necessarily more expensive than increasing the size of the millitary by the amount necessary to get an equal number of equally skilled personnel on the ground.

 

In the case of the Seals, SF, etc - I am not sure what the figures actually are, but of the subset of all personnel that are even selected for the training, I imagine well below half actually make it through to the end, and this has to be factored in as well.

 

[Jim]

yea - the training is expensive, and the US taxpayer has paid it! BW are all ex-military, all trained at US expense, but BW reaps the profit. Another excellent example of the efficiency of the marketplace. 8D

[Off_White]

It's a misnomer to describe Blackwater employees as "mercenaries." By most definitions, mercenaries are employed by governments other than their own, and are solely motivated by money. Blackwater's contracts are mostly with various branches of the US Govt, and I believe their employees are all US Citizens. While I'm sure the high pay is greatly appreciated, I don't think it's the only motivation for those folks, a lot of them believe they're doing the right thing. It's inaccurate dramatic hyperbole to declare them mercenaries.

 

 

[JayB]

"yea - the training is expensive, and the US taxpayer has paid it! BW are all ex-military, all trained at US expense, but BW reaps the profit. Another excellent example of the efficiency of the marketplace."

 

As others have pointed out, this is hardly confined to the likes of Seals, SF, etc - or the millitary for that matter. Doctors, nurses, any graduate of a state college, anyone who has attended a public school, and so on.

 

 

[Fairweather]

Jim. You don't seem to care when jihadis kill American soldiers - at least not enough to post your sorrow here. Why all the fuss about Americans zealously defending themselves? Why do you always seem to take the "other" side - and remain silent when our boys are targeted? Why don't you just come out and say it, Jim? We all know who you are. Doesn't matter where you stand on the war or the politics, but you seem to be consistently - I'll go ahead and say it - anti American. Could have something to do with your "affiliations"?

[lI1|1!]

yea - the training is expensive, and the US taxpayer has paid it! BW are all ex-military, all trained at US expense, but BW reaps the profit.

 

i think the ex-military dudes reap some profit, which i don't see a problem with. why shouldn't they be paid what they're worth? i might have stayed in the army if the pay hadn't been such crap. of course i'm glad i'm not over there killing unarmed civilians which doesn't sound very appealing.

[JosephH]

It's a misnomer to describe Blackwater employees as "mercenaries." By most definitions, mercenaries are employed by governments other than their own, and are solely motivated by money. Blackwater's contracts are mostly with various branches of the US Govt, and I believe their employees are all US Citizens. While I'm sure the high pay is greatly appreciated, I don't think it's the only motivation for those folks, a lot of them believe they're doing the right thing. It's inaccurate dramatic hyperbole to declare them mercenaries.

 

 

You and Serenity can go round and round with the semantics of employement and citizenship. But when you are talking about private, non-military armed forces you are speaking of mercenaries - our mercenaries, but mercenaries just the same. The extensive use of PMGs in a military conflict is a patently bad idea for, both for the corrosive influence on our servicemen and women, and for the lack of political and military control and accountibility they represent. Ditto for private intelligence resources being provided by the same groups.

 

Nothing they are doing couldn't be done by government and military personnel, period - assertions to the contrary are bullshit and are based solely on a lack of will on the part of our government to maintain adequate and appropriately trained protective, intelligence, and military resources. That, and a strong desire to avoid accountability and skirt the Constitution. The recent rise of PMGs is strictly due to Republican/defense contractor corruption and a completely misguided conservative and neocon agendas.