How much did they pay their title guy, like $10 dollars?

My sister happens to have worked for Blackwater, along with her now, husband.

These are men and women who were former marines, navy seals, green barrets, etc. They are as honorable, as are our military men and women. Not to mention that they are continually in harms way.

This is my first time to blog on this site, but I am ready and willing to take on any wacked case liberal on any issue, so bring it on! That is of course, unless Jane Hamsher is an advocate of censorship.

Well, first off: You aren’t “blogging” on this site. You’re posting a comment.

Next question.

My sister happens to have worked for Blackwater, along with her now, husband.

These are men and women who were former marines, navy seals, green barrets, etc. They are as honorable, as are our military men and women. Not to mention that they are continually in harms way.

This is my first time to blog on this site, but I am ready and willing to take on any wacked case liberal on any issue, so bring it on! That is of course, unless Jane Hamsher is an advocate of censorship.

Wacked case liberal. Good start. Are you familiar with the phrase “power corrupts — absolute power corrupts absolutely”?

I thank your sister and her husband for their prior service to our country, if they were indeed in the military.

And all the Blackwater employees who’ve served in the military — I thank them for their service to our country.

However, I think history has shown that when a large para-military organization is in an environment where they can murder without being held accountable, the leaders of this organization will add gun and drug smuggling operations to their business.

Blackwater employees have been reported gunning down civilians in New Orleans.

Why the hell shouldn’t we be opposed to this force — which, by the way, if run by a right wing religious nut.

These are men and women who were former marines, navy seals, green barrets, etc. They are as honorable, as are our military men and women. Not to mention that they are continually in harms way.

This is my first time to blog on this site, but I am ready and willing to take on any wacked case liberal on any issue, so bring it on! That is of course, unless Jane Hamsher is an advocate of censorship.

Why would al-Maliki want to assert sovereignty right now when he’s got Bush by the balls?

From a strategic point of view, why would al-Maliki stem the flow of American blood and treasure?

With each passing day, the US is getting weaker.

You are reading him wrong, as if you are unaware of the nature and history of al-Dawa and the SCIRI.

here’s the first few grafs from the story:

Iraq ordered the cancellation on Monday of the operating licence of US security firm Blackwater after it was involved in a shootout in Baghdad that killed eight people, a senior official told AFP.

Blackwater offers personal security to US civilian officials working in Iraq.

“The interior minister (Jawad al-Bolani) has issued an order to cancel Blackwater’s licence and the company is prohibited from operating anywhere in Iraq,” interior ministry director of operations Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf said.

“We have opened a criminal investigation against the group who committed the crime.”

On Sunday, a US diplomatic convoy was involved in a shootout in Baghdad’s Al-Yarmukh neighbourhood which killed at least eight people and wounded 13.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned what he called the “criminal” response of the contractors guarding the convoy which the US embassy said had come under attack from insurgents.

See, you have the interior minister (whose ministry has been documented in a US report as being so corrupt and infused with militants that their security forces should be dissolved and rebuilt from scratch) and al-Maliki (whose grip on power is dissolving by the day, with the US hinting that he should be replaced) coming out to condemn this incident. This could be a legitimate move, but it could also be meant to squeeze the US to tone down their rhetoric. They know if Blackwater gets thrown out of the country, it’s going to put that much more pressure on US ground forces, which are stretched out as is.

You can bet there’s a fuckton of negotiations going on right now, though.

eta: huh. have to amend my earlier comment; there are supposedly only 1,000 Blackwater security operatives in Iraq. Apparently another issue is that while US military personnel are exempt from prosecution by Iraqi authorities, contractors are not. Woo.

There is an economic purpose that justifies the large expense of creating and maintaining such an organization, it just hasn’t been revealed yet.

It’s formulaic:

When an organization can murder with impunity, their economic purpose may be inferred: the smuggling of drugs and guns.