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| Deformed Fallujah child from US chemical weapon use. |
by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired.
After serving 12 years, the US government just released three Chinese Muslims, the final batch of more than two-dozen that were held at Guantanamo Bay, the US concentration camp in occupied Cuba. The Muslims, ethnic Uighurs were never charged with anything and cleared for release by a judge in 2008.*
We don’t have to dig too deeply to get a sense of why young
Muslims Arabs or other victims of US government aggression are drawn to “terrorist” groups or are engaged in
attacks on US personnel or property in one form or another. Resistance to
foreign domination takes many forms.
We could start with one of the world’s most renowned
terrorists and mass murderers, Erik Prince. Prince is the founder and CEO of
the mercenary outfit we once knew as Blackwater USA.
Like Osama bin Laden, Erik Prince is a religious man, a good
Catholic (might excommunication be in order Francis?). He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth
wanting for nothing as his father made billions in the auto parts business, a
lucrative venture in Michigan. But such mundane manufacture was not for Erik;
he needed action. At college he was a volunteer
fireman and a rescue diver, he could have taken another direction and put his
skills to work in some form of social service, but sons of billionaires don’t
do that.
After his parents died, Erik left the service, sold the
family business, and ventured out on his own, with a nice gift of cash he never
earned of course. He started with a
private military training center in rural North Carolina that was to become
Blackwater USA which was incorporated in 2002.
Business
Week points out that Blackwater went from training soldiers (and law
enforcement) to finding them work. War
is good for the mercenary business and Prince prospered, providing security for
US convoys, personnel and politicians and doing covert work for the CIA,
perhaps the world’s most efficient terrorist organization. It was the events of
911 that really helped as the CIA approached Prince about supplying mercenaries
for the Afghanistan war.
This led to more contracts and Blackwater became the main
supplier of security to many government departments and agencies as well as
individuals. Two of Blackwater’s
contractors were assigned to Paul
Bremer the Cromwell of Iraq who ran the country from May 2004 through June
2005. Business Week points out that one
of these mercenaries was a guy named Frank Gallagher who was a former security
head for another notorious mass murderer, Henry Kissinger. Things got even better for Blackwater: “When
the Pentagon decided to contract out the whole detail in August 2003, he became
its leader. Seven days later, Blackwater had found 34 more guys—former Army
Rangers and special forces, Force Recon marines, SEALs, and SWAT team
officers—promised them $600 a day, and flown them into Baghdad.”
(BusinessWeek)
Blackwater eventually won the contract to provide security
for all US government’s personnel in Iraq.
In all Prince and Blackwater received close to $1 billion in government or more accurately, US taxpayer money. The reader should
think about this for a minute. Prince is
not only a conservative Catholic, he was an passionate believer “…in the dynamism of the private sector.”
Says BW, and that, “…some of the world’s
most frustrating problems—piracy, warlords, genocide—could be solved by small
groups of highly trained men with guns.”
Funny how Libertarians (right wing Republicans in reality) have no
problem getting rich off taxpayer subsidies as they champion the private sector
over the public. Ross Perot made his money the same way through government
(Medicare) contracts. Yet they all want
to eliminate social services, public sector jobs and our pensions.
Blackwater we know got in to some serious trouble in
Iraq. There was the whole Fallujah
affair. Four mercenaries were killed by Iraqi’s and their bodies mutilated. For this, the US taxpayer came to the rescue
again in the form of the imbecile George W Bush who sent in the Marines, twice.
The destruction and chemical warfare the US government inflicted on the people
of Fallujah will never be forgotten.
This city will forever remain a heroic shrine to the resistance of the
Iraqi people to an invasion by the most powerful military ever constructed. A
Google search will give the reader a glimpse in to the horrific results of the
US war on this city, retaliation for resistance (see links at the end of this
commentary). The children are still
being born deformed as are the children of Vietnam from previous US chemical warfare. Most Americans put these issues out of our minds, but the
Iraqi, Arab and Muslim people cannot. I recall here my mother telling me that
with the bombings in London in WW2 if an ejected German pilot were to have
landed in her neighborhood he would have been torn to pieces. That’s what the Iraqi’s did to the Blackwater
mercenaries; a rare chance at payback but they suffered for it thanks to Bush
and co. War is not nice
Blackwater we know has changed its name but the guilty still
walk free. The families of the slain mercenaries of Fallujah sued the company
and won some settlement. The murder of
innocent Iraqi’s in Nisour Square in 2007 and the killing of a bodyguard for
the Iraqi president in 2006 by a drunken Blackwater mercenary, led to more
problems although he was never charged with any crime. I wonder if that angers
Iraqi’s to the point that they might harm innocent Americans. Perhaps it does.
As BusinessWeek points out, Blackwater has faced numerous
lawsuits from many US government departments and groups as well as the
relatives of victims murdered in Nisour Square. There are misplaced weapons and
missing funds although a jury cleared executives of any wrongdoings this year.
Prince is still free and involved in other ventures and
linked to the “Puntland Maritime Police Force, a paramilitary force trained
by South African advisers to fight piracy.” Says BW. He lives
in Abu Dhabi, a slave state in the Middle East that imports all its labor from
poor countries. Prince has been involved in security operations to
protect the thugs that rule these countries but according to reports is backed
by the US government in that venture. The maintenance of strong dictators
that support US foreign policy is crucial. He can also earn some extra
cash from his ownership of the name “Blackwater” through the sale of
Blackwater knives, pellet guns and even a “first-person shooter video game”.
He is a man of conscience though, the game is rigged so the shooter, that
nice young 12 year old next door, can’t shoot civilians. Unfortunately,
in many of the regions where the US government treads, there is no state
militia or military, all the freedom fighters and those that resist occupation
are civilians. Tanks, planes, boats and uniforms are expensive. He also
has an estate in Virginia.
As Business Week puts it, “These days, Prince’s day job
is running the Frontier Resource Group, a fund that invests in natural
resources in Africa.”
Heaven help them.
For more on how innocents were rounded up by US backed
warlords in Afghanistan see:
More on Bush’s horror inflicted on the people of Fallujah:
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