Sen. Mike Gravel Supports Call to Ban Blackwater

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The United States use of private security firms to protect it's diplomats is a clear sign that Iraq is not secure and that the conflict is being lost.  It is time for Congress to invoke the War Powers Resolution and establish limits. 

No private security firm should be above the law. 

 www.pafundi.com

Number of Operations Iraq Freedom and Enduring Freedom casualties
as confirmed by U.S. Central Command: 4213

Folks, let's remember the warning that General Washington issued to our new nation rings as true today as it did 225 years ago. 'Avoid and stay out of foreign entanglements!' Though he was referring to European power stuggles, the lesson is equally valuable today in regard to American Imperialism in the Middle East.

The United States has no Right, Duty, Obligation or Responsiblity to interfere in the Sovereign affairs of foreign nations who have neither declared hostility on us nor implore us to give aid and support.

This policy statement is an adaptation of The Treaty of Westphalia which formed the basis for modern nations to be governed by their own self determined interests. We would be wise to heed it and learn from the blunders of history. From the Roman Empire to the Spanish and British Empires the Ottoman Empire, Napolean, The Third Reich, and the Soviet Union.

 The best way to learn is from others mistakes. We need to look at the great lessons of world military history and empire building to avoid following the same sorry route of greed, overextention and destruction.

All these empires could not resist overreaching and extended their boundries to absorb and encompass foreign lands and people fundamentally hostile to their values and interests. These new acqusisions proved to be undigestable problems that undermined their national strength and brought their eventual downfall.

  The United States has no need or interest in military adventures and should immediately refrain from empire building beyond its geographic boundries. 

Instead, a policy of Fair and limited trade with friendly nations will be a better route to world peace and prosperity.  

The eruption of gunfire was sudden and ferocious, round after round mowing down terrified men women and children, slamming into cars as they collided and overturned with drivers frantically trying to escape. Some vehicles were set alight by exploding petrol tanks. A mother and her infant child died in one of them, trapped in the flames.

The shooting on Sunday, by the guards of the American private security company Blackwater, has sparked one of the most bitter and public disputes between the Iraqi government and its American patrons, and brings into sharp focus the often violent conduct of the Western private armies operating in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, immune from scrutiny or prosecution.

Blackwater’s security men are accused of going on an unprovoked killing spree. Hassan Jabar Salman, a lawyer, was shot four times in the back, his car riddled with eight more bullets, as he attempted to get away from their convoy. Yesterday, sitting swathed in bandages at Baghdad’s Yarmukh Hospital, he recalled scenes of horror. “I saw women and children jump out of their cars and start to crawl on the road to escape being shot,” said Mr Salman. “But still the firing kept coming and many of them were killed. I saw a boy of about 10 leaping in fear from a minibus, he was shot in the head. His mother was crying out for him, she jumped out after him, and she was killed. People were afraid.”

At the end of the prolonged hail of bullets Nisoor Square was a scene of carnage with bodies strewn around smouldering wreckage. Ambulances trying to pick up the wounded found their path blocked by crowds fleeing the gunfire.

Yesterday, the death toll from the incident, according to Iraqi authorities, stood at 28. And it could rise higher, say doctors, as some of the injured, hit by high-velocity bullets at close quarter, are unlikely to survive.

The US security firm Blackwater has resumed limited operations in the Iraqi capital Baghdad four days after a deadly shootout involving the company.

The company provides security to all US state department employees in Iraq.

It had been ordered by the Iraqi government to halt operations while a joint US-Iraqi inquiry was held.

A US embassy spokeswoman said the decision to allow Blackwater to resume work had been taken in consultation with the Iraqi government.

The spokeswoman, Mirembe Nantongo, said Blackwater operations would be limited to essential missions only outside Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone.

Imagine a universe where a man can gun down women and children anytime he pleases, knowing he will never be brought to justice. A place where morality is null and void, and arbitrary killing is the rule. A place that has been imagined hitherto only in nightmarish dystopian fiction, like “1984,” or in fevered passages from Dostoevsky-or which existed during the Holocaust and Stalinist purges and the Dark Ages. Well, that universe exists today. It is called Iraq. And the man who made it possible is George W. Bush.

US prosecutors are investigating whether Blackwater USA, a private security firm operating in Iraq, illegally smuggled weapons into the country.

The alleged weapons may have reached the black market and ended up in the hands of groups fighting against US forces, according to officials.

The War Profiteers in Washington DC and their cronies in North Carolina and New York have no compunction about murdering Americans for dollars.

When your cash flow depends on perpetual warfare, as does Blackwater's and the blackhearts' at the AIPAC for instance, anyone and everyone, eventually, must die to keep the river of blood and profits flowing.

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Sharon

I thought you all might find this interesting!

Opinion

Too Bad Mike Gravel's Not in the Senate

Fri Sep 21, 12:34 AM ET

The Nation -- The Senate wasted plenty of time avoiding meaningful debates about Iraq this week.

There was, to be sure, plenty of time for partisan bickering about whether troops should get a decent break between deployments to the quagmire, as if scheduling of soldier transportation is the real problem with this war. Time was found, as well, to condemn MoveOn.org for rhyming "Petraeus" with "Betray Us," as if the general is incapable of defending himself against the charge that he put aside the best interest of the troops he commands in Iraq, and of the nation he is sworn to serve, in order to mouth White House talking points.

Unfortunately, because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, never misses a chance to miss a chance, there was no real debate about the burning issue of Blackwater.

The private mercenaries of Blackwater USA went on a killing spree in Baghdad the other day, leaving 20 people dead and 35 wounded. The Iraqi government has responded appropriately by moving to revoke Blackwater's license to operate in the country.

Let's stipulate that soldiers serving in Iraq deserve a break from the hostilities in order to spend time with their families, and that Virginia Senator Jim Webb was right to raise the issue. Let's stipulate, as well, that the MoveOn ad really ticked off some Republicans -- and, apparently, some Democrats -- and that this is a worthy, if now dramatically over-extended, subject of debate.

But can we also stipulate that there may be weightier matters afoot, and that the Blackwater imbroglio heads the list of currently consequential developments?

With this in mind: Wouldn't this week have been better spent if, instead of trying to manage deployment timetables or New York Times advertising buys, the Senate had engaged in a serious debate about whether the United States respects the right of the supposedly sovereign nation of Iraq to prevent reckless mercenaries from wrecking havoc within its borders?

And wouldn't it have been refreshing if sitting senators had declared, as former Alaska Senator and current contender for the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday: "If the United States is truly interested in a sovereign Iraqi government, then recognizing Iraq's right to evict Blackwater would be a step in the right direction"?

When he served on Capitol Hill from 1969 to 1981, Gravel was an insurgent senator who read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record, fought to defund the war in Vietnam and championed the impeachment of Richard Nixon.

It is good that Gravel is running for the presidency, if only because he has stirred up a couple of otherwise deadly-dull Democratic debates. But, right now, we could really use his blunt, no-punches-pulled approach in a Senate that rarely seems to get to the point.

"We're the United States Government and we're here to help" (blow everyone away)

No...let me rephrase that...

"We're from the U.S. Corporate Government and we're here to help"

Blackwater Ordered to Suspend Operations

The Iraqis are now saying Blackwater won't be kicked out of the country, but that the guards involved in the incident must be held accountable.

The poor Iraqis. Their government in the hands of these compradors, these Neocon stooges.

I think the whole idea of privatizing the armed forces stinks to high heaven. I hope and imagine that you will end the practice outright during your administration Mike?

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