TOKYO MASTER BANNER

MINISTRY OF TOKYO
US-ANGLO CAPITALISMEU-NATO IMPERIALISM
Illegitimate Transfer of Inalienable European Rights via Convention(s) & Supranational Bodies
Establishment of Sovereignty-Usurping Supranational Body Dictatorships
Enduring Program of DEMOGRAPHICS WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of European Displacement, Dismemberment, Dispossession, & Dissolution
No wars or conditions abroad (& no domestic or global economic pretexts) justify government policy facilitating the invasion of ancestral European homelands, the rape of European women, the destruction of European societies, & the genocide of Europeans.
U.S. RULING OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR TO SALVAGE HEGEMONY
[LINK | Article]

*U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR*

Who's preaching world democracy, democracy, democracy? —Who wants to make free people free?
[info from Craig Murray video appearance, follows]  US-Anglo Alliance DELIBERATELY STOKING ANTI-RUSSIAN FEELING & RAMPING UP TENSION BETWEEN EASTERN EUROPE & RUSSIA.  British military/government feeding media PROPAGANDA.  Media choosing to PUBLISH government PROPAGANDA.  US naval aggression against Russia:  Baltic Sea — US naval aggression against China:  South China Sea.  Continued NATO pressure on Russia:  US missile systems moving into Eastern Europe.     [info from John Pilger interview follows]  War Hawk:  Hillary Clinton — embodiment of seamless aggressive American imperialist post-WWII system.  USA in frenzy of preparation for a conflict.  Greatest US-led build-up of forces since WWII gathered in Eastern Europe and in Baltic states.  US expansion & military preparation HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED IN THE WEST.  Since US paid for & controlled US coup, UKRAINE has become an American preserve and CIA Theme Park, on Russia's borderland, through which Germans invaded in the 1940s, costing 27 million Russian lives.  Imagine equivalent occurring on US borders in Canada or Mexico.  US military preparations against RUSSIA and against CHINA have NOT been reported by MEDIA.  US has sent guided missile ships to diputed zone in South China Sea.  DANGER OF US PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKES.  China is on HIGH NUCLEAR ALERT.  US spy plane intercepted by Chinese fighter jets.  Public is primed to accept so-called 'aggressive' moves by China, when these are in fact defensive moves:  US 400 major bases encircling China; Okinawa has 32 American military installations; Japan has 130 American military bases in all.  WARNING PENTAGON MILITARY THINKING DOMINATES WASHINGTON. ⟴  
Showing posts with label Project on Government Oversight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Project on Government Oversight. Show all posts

July 12, 2014

US PAYS MERCENARY ARMIES DEPLOYED ON FOREIGN SOIL

Blackwater awarded over $1bn from State Dept. since threat on investigator's life
 RT News
Published time: July 11, 2014 17:28
The US State Department has allocated more than a billion dollars in contracts to the security firm Blackwater and its later manifestations since a top official for the company threatened a government investigator’s life in 2007.

The Huffington Post reported that the notorious security contractor Blackwater, its subsequent incarnations, and its subsidiaries have received more than $1.3 billion since the fall of 2007 for training and operations the world over.

In August 2007, State Department investigator Jean C. Richter said a Blackwater project manager, Daniel Carroll, told Richter “that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” where the investigator was observing - and criticizing - the company’s operations. The New York Times reported the details of the threat last month.

Richter and his partner in the probe were later asked by officials at the American embassy in Baghdad to leave. The next month, Blackwater guards infamously shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians at Nisour Square. The incident sparked outrage with American presence in Iraq among the local population. The US is currently trying to prosecute four of the five guards involved in the incident after a first failed attempt to do it in 2009.

Despite the threat to a government investigator and the Nisour Square killings, the security firm continued to receive crucial, lucrative government contracts. Since the date of the threat - August 21, 2007 - and the end of the next month, the State Department awarded Blackwater over $269 million, according to government spending records analyzed by the Huffington Post, for department services in Iraq, Afghanistan, China, and the US. Some of the more major of those awards were approved after the Nisour Square shooting, though they were associated with agreements signed prior to the incident.

Overall, the State Department has given the firm and its associated entities more than $1.3 billion since the fall of 2007. Blackwater and its subsidiaries have changed official names and management several times since 2007, partly based on efforts to distance the firm from the negative attention it received since the company’s notorious conduct in Iraq.

"In the years following the events of 2007, we reviewed our practices of managing contractors and made improvements to increase oversight and ensure that operational control remains with direct-hire State Department employees," a State Department spokesman said about Blackwater’s continued good graces with department.

"Though we must always ensure that competitive contracts remain fair and open, the safety of our personnel is the highest priority, and we always take into account the past performance and abilities of each contractor."
 
How much the company actually received and what the money was spent on is unknown, as federal government records only indicate what funds an agency like the State Department set aside for the firm.

Additionally, the State Department has revoked nearly $55 million allocated to the firm since August 2007.

More than half a billion dollars has been set aside for the firm and its associated entities since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, despite past criticism of the company from Obama’s first secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. During the 2008 presidential primary campaign against Obama, then-Senator Clinton co-sponsored a bill to ban Blackwater from Iraq.

More than $300 million of that total half billion-plus was awarded before Blackwater was sold by founder Erik Prince in 2010.

During Clinton’s time at State, the firm was tapped to train police officers across Africa, including Nigeria, Djibouti, Kenya, Senegal, and Tunisia. The company has also continued to receive contracts from the Defense Department and US intelligence agencies, according to ThinkProgress.

Since Prince sold the company, the State Department has awarded Blackwater’s current incarnation, Academi, just over $500 million, as opposed to $784 million in the three years prior to his sale of the company.

Academi spokeswoman Callie Wang declined to comment on the company’s current contracts. Since 2010, the firm has merged with security contracting rival Triple Canopy.

Experts told the Huffington Post that major firms continue to win contracts based on capability, reliability, and institutional privilege.

"Blackwater likes to point to their supposedly perfect track record in terms of guarding personnel," said Neil Gordon, of the Project on Government Oversight. "But of course there are much larger issues that have to be taken into account -- their effect on the mission and on international reputation."
 
Blackwater’s continued relationship with the US government is also based on “bureaucratic inertia,” Gordon said, to changing contractors in the midst of crucial operations.

The firm was long in an “umbrella contract” with Triple Canopy and DynCorp to protect State Department diplomats. This kind of contract helped ensure that the companies would earn continued government awards. The State Department said the company’s “qualifications” are consistently monitored as part of the contracting bid process.

"When dealing with an umbrella contract like a World Wide Protective Services (WPPS) task order that had several contractors, federal law requires that all such contractors be given a fair opportunity to compete for task orders issued under that contract," a State Department spokesman said. "The qualifications and ability of any contractor to perform on that task order will, of course, be assessed as part of the bidding process."

Source - RT News - here.
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 COMMENT

What I got out of that is that the US is paying mercenary armies to do their deeds on foreign soil & there's seriously big bucks to be made by guns for hire.

One would gather that by outsourcing, the US government is dodging due:  responsibility, accountability and transparency.

The US and its mercenary forces have fingers in a lot of the African pie (no doubt commercially strategic, but research on resources in regions not done by poster).

In my opinion, the mercenary groups are a lot like the NGO groups, in that they are funded for purpose and, in this case, carrying out US government ends -- at arm's length -- while maintaining the impression of independence from the government.

Blackwater (now known as Academi ... but prior to that "Xe Services") is a division of:

Constellis Holdings along with Triple Canopy 

is owned by by a group of private investors.

Founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, retains rights to 'Blackwater' name is said to have no affiliation with Academi.

The original aim of Blackwater, according to Prince:
Prince stated: "We are trying to do for the national security apparatus what FedEx did for the Postal Service".
What, they're in import/export & trying to break the postal union?  LOL


So what did FedEx do for the postal service, I'm wondering.

As at 2012:

... FedEx earned $1.495 billion from the Postal Service last year as the agency's number one supplier. UPS, the Postal Service's 11th largest supplier, earned $102 million from the Postal Service, a $7 million increase from the year before.

Source:  minyanville - here.

Sounds like FedEx muscled in on the postal service along with some other pesky 'suppliers', but FedEx got the lion's share of the $$$.  LOL.

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[source:  wikipedia, where otherwise not stated]