Tomgram: Scahill, A Democratic Sell-out on Bush’s Mercenaries

Let’s be clear about what it is — when it comes to “withdrawal” from Iraq — that the President will veto this Wednesday. Section 1904(b) of the supplemental appropriations bill for the Pentagon, H.R. 1591, passed by the House and Senate, mandates that the Secretary of Defense “commence the redeployment of the Armed Forces from Iraq not later than October 1, 2007, with a goal of completing such redeployment within 180 days.” If you’ve been listening to network TV news shows or reading your local newspaper with less than an eagle eye, you might well be under the impression that — just as the phrasing above seems to indicate — a Democratic-controlled Congress has just passed a bill that mandates a full-scale American withdrawal from Iraq. (Reporters and commentators regularly speak of the Democrats’ insistence that “American troops be withdrawn from Iraq.”) But that’s only until you start reading the exceptions embedded in the bill.

Here are the main ones. According to H.R. 1591, the Secretary of Defense is allowed to keep U.S. forces in Iraq for the following purposes:

1. “Protecting American diplomatic facilities and American citizens, including members of the United States Armed Forces”: This doesn’t sound like much, but don’t be fooled. As a start, of course, there would have to be forces guarding the new American embassy in Baghdad (known to Iraqis as “George W’s Palace”). When completed, it will be the largest embassy in the known universe with untold thousands of employees; then there would need to be forces to protect the heavily fortified citadel of the Green Zone (aka “the International Zone”) which protects the embassy and other key U.S. facilities. Add to these troops to guard the network of gigantic, multibillion dollar U.S. bases in Iraq like Balad Air Base (with air traffic volume that rivals Chicago’s O’Hare) and whatever smaller outposts might be maintained. We’re talking about a sizable force here.

2. “Training and equipping members of the Iraqi Security Forces”: By later this year, U.S. advisors and trainers for the Iraqi military, part of a program the Pentagon is now ramping up, should reach the 10,000-20,000 range (many of whom — see above — would undoubtedly need “guarding”).

3. “Engaging in targeted special actions limited in duration and scope to killing or capturing members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations with global reach”: This is a loophole of loopholes that could add up to almost anything as, in a pinch, all sorts of Sunni oppositional forces could be labeled “al-Qaeda.”

An Institute for Policy Studies analysis suggests that the “protection forces” and advisors alone could add up to 40,000-60,000 troops. None of this, of course, includes U.S. Navy or Air Force units stationed outside Iraq but engaged in actions in, or support for actions in, that country.

Another way of thinking about the Democratic withdrawal proposals (to be vetoed this week by the President) is that they represent a program to remove only U.S. “combat brigades,” adding up to perhaps half of all U.S. forces, with a giant al-Qaeda loophole for their return. None of this would deal with the heavily armed and fortified U.S. permanent bases in Iraq or the air war that would almost certainly escalate if only part of the American expeditionary forces were withdrawn (and the rest potentially left more vulnerable).

No less strikingly, in an era in which the “privatizing” of state functions is the rage, the enormous mercenary forces of private “security” companies like Blackwater USA, now fighting a shadow war alongside U.S. troops in Iraq, would be untouched. On this striking point Jeremy Scahill has much to say — and he should know. He’s the author of the surprise national bestseller, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, which will shake you to your combat boots when it comes to the nature of the mercenary age — sorry, the age of “private security contractors” — that we’ve now entered. No personal library that claims to make sense of our messy, bloody planet should be without his book. Tom

I detest the hypocrisy of the Democrats and their attempting to pass themselves off as the righteous ones. Who knew that their
bills would include such heinous exceptions and loopholes.

At one point I read/heard???? something to the effect that a lot of the proposed allocation has nothing to do with Iraq coverage but actually fund forward development costs for new systems, etc. passed off as essential costs for “protecting the troops”. Haven’t found a cite for that alleged reality, but I suspect it to be very true. Certainly consistent with Bush’s lies about everything he does, but certainly so about his war.

Peace, let there be peace and honesty and integrity on earth and let it remain with us and begin with the BushCo insane asylum, but I won’t hold my breath for that dream.

Please be kind to our mods and limit your links within a single comment.

Thanks.

Condi has time to plug her book on ABC (and write it!) but not time to answer a subpoena.

I think the denial of Katrina help is part incompetence and part, terror security/Bush xenophobia gone mad, which I guess is incompetence too.

The Administration is imploding. It would be cause to celibrate, but it’s our country!

If she can write about it in a book, she can testify about it before Congress! She sort of stripped away any claims that this syuffed is protected by Executive Privelege in that one statement.

Even more interesting. If she DOES write about it, and it is material that she denied Congress she could be cited for contempt of Congress.

Joe Klein’s conscience @ 189

HotFlash @ 175

Here in Canada the neocon movement seeks to privatize in areas which we have, with great effort, properly made social concerns. They want the control and they want the bucks. I speak of public education, socialized medicine, also our cultural institutions from arts councils to museums. A favourite way to accomplish this is to break it — cutting off funding to subsistence levels is a good method, but putting in catastrophic reporting requirements or unworkable administrative systems work well, too. We are pretty civilized here in Canada (ie, large proportion of our population lives in cities) so they are an obvious target. Rich in opportunities, too — they can tax.

Then they can say, look, it doesn’t work, we’ll have to let the private sector do it. Yeah, cities, they want to break the cities.

How successful has Harper been? Have you guys been able to beat it back so far?

I have to say that on the whole it’s working out very well for them. We’ve not been able to beat much back. Sometimes it looks like progress but they just fall back and change fronts. They are persistent and mobile. As my mom used to say, it’s like the fat lady and the girdle — you push it in one place and it pops out in another.

First, you should understand that this has been going on here for a long time. Canada has danced to America’s tune for decades — you may or may not know about Deifenbacher and the Avro Arrow, but the current Assault by Global Neocons goes back to Mulroney days on the national front. Here in Ontario we count from Mike Harris. A lot of the damage is being done by what I call time-bombs, policies and procedures which were set in place years ago that will bring down an institution over time. Our Ontario hospitals have been infected this way, ditto arts funding and our museums have been turned into peep-shows, most of the collections mothballed and the gallery space switched to revenue production — read fast-food franchises.

Our toughest fighter is Maude Barlow and her Council of Canadians.

Let’s see, past couple a weeks: ‘Canada to buy tanks‘ — why do we need tanks? Our water is pretty close to being privatized, and that is *HUGE*, bigger than oil. City of Toronto going broke, or not, depending on who you listen to. Me, I see a lot of businesses closing because of ppty tax hikes. Too many vacant stores in my ‘hood.

Much of this happened under Conservative govts, but the Liberals campaign on fixing/repealing but somehow when they get in nothing changes. This is why I get so mad when Howard Dean cozies up to the Liberals here — they are *not* progressive in any way, they are same as the DLC is except maybe more corrupt. If that is possible.

A huge problem in Canada is that although we are generally a ‘kinder, gentler place’ we are by the same token used to trusting our government. For instance, nearly all of my friends and acquaintances here still think that Cdn Forces are peacekeepers, and the media obliges with pics of our troops handing out candy and schoolbooks. Only in the ads are we getting the truth: “Fight with the Canadian Forces”. Click on the video and look at all those *guns*. They are actively recruiting folks who want to shoot some butt.

We have no infrastructure here for reporting on or fighting our government. There is no equiv to FDL here, and wiki articles are few and primitive. We do rate branch offices of AEI, though, our very own Fraser Institute, and an LGF surrogate called Small Dead Animals (no link to them!).

WaPo has a profile on the DC Madam. Interesting biofact, she was a law student at one time, did not matriculate, but completed a course in paralegal. I guess we can assume she did not study law at Regent U.

The article claims she only earned about $160,000 a year running a high-end escort service (at least that is what she reports to the IRS), and that is not too far off from what Monica Goodling made, though I am not suggesting any kind of parallel, mind you.

RE: The DC Madam

I’m a bit doubtful about what she’s reported. She asserts that in eleven years her “firm” only had about $2 million in revenues, that her escorts charged between $200-$300/evening, and that she had thousands of clients and hundreds of escorts. Something doesn’t add up here. Do the numbers.

Let’s say that she has 2000 clients who only had ONE “referral”. 2000 X $200 = $4 million. And that’s assuming that the clients never were repeat customers at her lowest pay rate. So she’s eithere exagerrating the size of her business or lied to the IRS.

Maybe her statements to the IRS were that SHE made $2 million over 11 years. Not the total revenues. I wonder what her “commission %” was off those $200-$300 fees…and whether that included “extras” (tips/roses).

So who paid the bills? Lobbyists?

‘Like ordering pizza’ indeed.

New thread upstairs, so I guess it is ok to chat. I can see you have a lot of nostalgia for the Islands, despite some experience of intolerance. Had you stayed you would be almost a kama’aina by now, and you would be feeling very much at home. I think ha’oles who treat the locals with respect can expect to receive it in kind. Not all do, though, and too many still flaunt their relative prosperity, esp. newcomers from Canada and Europe, arriving in hordes and buying up premium property while locals struggle (with 2 or more jobs) to make ends meet.

It’s tough living in Paradise!