I feel so much better now – I’ve just read on the wires that "Under continued pressure to exercise greater control over private security contractors in Iraq, Bush administration officials will outline stricter rules for these armed guards during a three-hour meeting Wednesday afternoon at the Pentagon."

"Senior representatives from Blackwater, DynCorp, Triple Canopy and Aegis Defence are scheduled to attend the meeting." but no one seems to know what the new "stricter rules" will entail nor how they will be enforced.

But we can rest assured – leading the meeting will be none other than Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

While Blackwater mercenaries continue to operate free from oversight and legal limitations, seven demonstrators staged the first ever protest at the gates of the company’s compound in North Carolina – and were sent to jail for five days after a secret trial. As Blackwater author Jeremy Scahill reports:

The arrest of the activists and the subsequent five days they spent locked up in jail is more punishment than any Blackwater mercenaries have received for their deadly actions against Iraqi civilians. "The courts pretend that adherence to the law is what makes for an orderly and peaceable world," said Steve Baggarly, one of the protest organizers. "In fact, U.S. law and courts stand idly by while the U.S. military and private armies like Blackwater have killed, maimed, brutalized and destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis."

The NC courts may silence protest against Blackwater, but one local Democrat refuses to be silenced. Bruce Falconer, who’s been doing great coverage of Blackwater, tells the story in Mother Jones. It seems Marshall Adame, a Democrat, is running for Congress in the 3rd CD which includes Blackwater’s HQ – and he’s had the gumption to call them out. Not only that, he’s a guy who knows what he’s talking about:

Despite running as a Democrat in a strongly Republican district, Adame has the sort of military past that is appreciated in these parts. "I am a retired United States Marine," he tells me. "I’m a Vietnam veteran. I spent nine months in Kuwait right after we kicked Saddam out, helping to rebuild the Kuwaiti air force. I spent four years in Egypt with Kaman Aerospace"—a military contractor—"as their logistics leader in that country." More recently, he spent three years in Iraq working on reconstruction projects, ultimately rising to a senior position with the State Department’s National Coordination Team in Baghdad, where he oversaw the work of roughly ten Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Two of his sons have served in the U.S. Army in Iraq—one was seriously wounded in an IED attack and is still undergoing reconstructive surgeries; the other is currently on his second 15-month tour, stationed in Tikrit. Now back in North Carolina, Adame has even opened his home to a family of Iraqi refugees.

So why is Blackwater out to get him? Because Adame answered a question during a liveblog at  BlueNC on Blackwater with the following:

"There is no place in the American force structure, or in American culture for mercenaries," he wrote on the blog. "They are guns for hire; No more, no less… Private Armies represent the very things we despise as a people. Servants to the highest bidder with true allegiance to no-one."

And he’s discussed his own experience being guarded by Blackwater:

As a State Department official in Iraq, he was protected by Blackwater, which, he says, used excessive force on at least two occasions while he was in their care. "I saw them shoot people," he says. "I saw them crash into cars while I was their passenger…. There was absolutely no reason, no provocation whatsoever." Once, while en route to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, Adame says he heard gunfire coming from the turret gunner in his own vehicle. He looked out the window of the humvee and "saw people ducking and falling…. The vehicle in front of us rammed into a car that was trying to get out of the way, and they just spun that guy around. He was out cold in that car, maybe even dead. I don’t know, but we just kept on going."

Blackwater’s response is in keeping with their usual thuggishness:

In an internal corporate email, Mathews encouraged his colleagues to barrage Adame with mail ("he was too cowardly to put a phone number on the web," Mathews noted in the message). "[H]e wants this company and all of us to cease to exist," Mathews wrote in the email, which was obtained by the Raleigh News & Observer and posted to the newspaper’s web site. "Do you like your jobs? Are you sick and tired of the slanderous bullshit going on in DC? If so, would you all mind joining me in reminding Mr. Adame that he is running for office in our backyard…. Let’s run this goof out of Dodge…!"

While Adame reports that he hasn’t faced any danger as he continues to speak up, the Blackwater campaign against him continues. You can thank him at his campaign website here and follow his campaign at BlueNC.

Update on Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh:

Reporters Without Borders reports that 200 people demonstrated in Kabul in support of the 23 year old journalist who has been sentenced to death. Positions within the Afghan Senate seem confused but the reporter is left with two appeals – one to the supreme court and one to Karzai. You can sign RWB’s petition on his behalf here.

h/t Eureka Springs for the Scahill tip!

Related posts:

  1. Blackwater Bribed Iraqi Officials After Nissour Square Massacre
  2. Scahill: Blackwater Rent-an-Assassin Service Integral to Bush Counterterrorism Plan
  3. GRITtv Live: Will Blackwater Founder Face Charges?
  4. Taking Out the Intelligence Laundry: McClatchy Avoids Policy Debate in Pro-Escalation Afghanistan Report
  5. Crazy Pete Hoekstra (R-Blackwater)