Day: September 5, 2009

Why Is Blackwater Still Employed?

With all the crap that Blackwater has pulled in the last decade, why are they still employed by the State Dept.?

From an article by Jeremy Scahill:

As a candidate for president, Hillary Clinton pledged to ban Blackwater. In February 2008, she announced that she would sign on as the co-sponsor of a little-known bill put forward in the House by Representative Jan Schakowsky and in the Senate by Bernie Sanders. The Stop Outsourcing Security, or SOS Act, sought to end the use of armed mercenaries in US war zones. Clinton became the only other senator to sign on to the bill and the most important political figure in the US to call for such a ban on “Blackwater and other private mercenary firms in Iraq.”

As Secretary of State, Clinton now presides over a diplomatic security force in Iraq that for the “indefinite” future will include Blackwater. ABC News’s “The Blotter” is reporting that Blackwater (which now does business as Xe Services and US Training Center) will continue to be the State Department’s aviation contractor in Iraq, despite a supposed Iraqi ban on the company. “We unilaterally extended the current task order … to ensure the continued security and safety of U.S. personnel in Iraq,” a State Department official said. As I reported in The Nation weeks ago, Blackwater operatives, according to the State Department, “are permitted to continue carrying weapons” in Iraq for the foreseeable future on that contract. On July 31, the Obama administration extended Blackwater’s Iraq contract, increasing Blackwater’s payment by $20 million and bringing the total paid by the State Department to Blackwater for its “aviation services” in Iraq to $187 million.

Meanwhile, according to federal contract data, on August 13, Blackwater was paid another $23 million on a $156 million “security” contract in Afghanistan with the US State Department. That is in addition to Blackwater’s contracts with the Department of Defense and its ongoing work for the CIA as part of its drone bombing raids in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But here are some questions for Secretary Clinton about Blackwater: Why do you continue to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to a company whose operatives have been indicted for manslaughter of Iraqi civilians; that is under investigation for arms smuggling and other possible crimes; that has been implicated in the CIA assassination program allegedly withheld from Congress; that is owned by a man, Erik Prince, whom a former employee says “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe?” Moreover, why are you using a company you pledged to ban now that you actually have the power to ban them? If you thought in February of 2008 that the “time to show these contractors the door is long past due,” what time is it now?

I have been pretty tough on Blackwater in the past and Mr. Scahill in his new book, Blackwater, has proven all of us Blackwater critics to be right and it is time for the government to do something about this loose canon in their employ.

Your move madame Secretary…….

That First Date Really Sucked

I have been on blind dates that would scare a priest and first dates that were more out of the Exorcist than reality, but this woman had a first date that sucked and sucked bad…..

Police in Michigan say a first date went from bad to worse when a Detroit man skipped out on the restaurant bill, then stole his date’s car.Police say 23-year-old Terrance Dejuan McCoy had dinner with a woman April 24 at Buffalo Wild Wings in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale. The woman says the two met a week earlier at a Detroit casino and she knew McCoy only as “Chris.”

The woman told police that McCoy said he left his wallet in her car and asked for keys. He then sped away in the 2000 Chevrolet Impala.

The dick head has been captured by the PD…it seems that he sent a cel photo of himself and his number…..not only did this guy have a huge set of cajones but he was stupid at the same time……..As Ron White would say, “you cannot fix stupid”.

She Is A Doll….(wink wink)

Now I know all about Nikki the cheerleader that one can buy for $69.95….but these guys are truly nuts!

Japanese men battle epic loneliness by fostering intense relationships, and romance, with stuffed pillows representing teenage girls. Lonely Japanese men (and a few women) with rich imaginations have created a thriving subculture (“otaku”) in which they have all-consuming relationships with figurines that are based on popular anime characters. “The less extreme,” reported a New York Times writer in July, obsessively collect the dolls. The hardcore otaku “actually believes that a lumpy pillow with a drawing of a (teenage character) is his girlfriend,” and takes her out in public on romantic dates. “She has really changed my life,” said “Nisan,” 37, referring to his gal, Nemutan. (The otaku dolls are not to be confused with the life-size, anatomically-correct dolls that other lonely men use for sex.) One forlorn “2-D” (so named for preferring relationships with two-dimensionals) said he would like to marry a real, 3-D woman, “(b)ut look at me. How can someone who carries this (doll) around get married?”

Did I miss something?