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It’s A Bird? It’s A Plane! No, It’s A Private Drone Contractor!

April 10, 2015 By David Isenberg 1 Comment

If there is one constant in the private military and security contracting industry it is that nobody has a good record in predicting what the industry will be doing in the future. And much of the time the public is relatively clueless about what they are currently doing

In the 1980s, when the U.S. Army came up with the U.S. Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) program to help provide logistics support to U.S. forces globally nobody foresaw just how massive that support would become in Iraq or Afghanistan, let alone the major presence of gun-toting private security contractors. Until the revelations of Edward Snowden, most of the public was unaware about just how much the intelligence community depended on private contractors.

The only thing one can say with reasonably certainty is that if there is a way to make money off of it private contractors will be there to make a contract bid. So, now that Iraq is mostly a memory for contractors, although the threat of ISIS is bringing up the numbers a bit, and Afghanistan is trending downwards to the inevitable zero it is a good time to ask what other things private contractors are into these days, aside from logistics and security details.

Filed Under: Foreign Affairs, National News Tagged With: drones, military, military contractors, surveillance, War

Obama’s Reactionary Doctrine For American Exceptionalism

February 20, 2015 By Burkely Hermann 6 Comments

In his recent State of the Union, Obama made many bold statements which people have said were “progressive” and hopeful. These include: his support for paid sick leave for American workers, a pathetic increase of the minimum wage to $10.10, meant to hurt the ‘Fight for $15’ movement; a promise to veto legislation that overturns deficient Wall Street “reform;” support for “affordable” quality childcare; minimal raises in taxes for the wealthy, which isn’t nearly enough; sorta free community college [1]; supposedly protecting “a free and open Internet,” and so on.

Obama also made a number of ‘firsts’ by mentioning transgender and lesbian people in his State of the Union, claiming that the United States government protects them (oh really), which seems great but ignores the fact that not only is Obama “a born again” evangelical Christian, but he has, during his presidency, allowed federal money to fund groups that supported the anti-gay bill in Uganda and “conservative faith-based groups affiliated with the Family Research Council, anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers and an entire network of evangelical abstinence-only educators,” according to an exhaustive investigation in The Nation.

It is important to focus on other parts of the speech, often missed by other analysis, which emphasize American exceptionalism [3], including a section where he hypocritically criticizes Russia for actions that the US has done in the past:

Filed Under: Media & Culture, National News Tagged With: #NoKXL, abortion, Affordable Care Act, Afghanistan, Africa, Alaska, alternative energy, American Conservative, American exceptionalism, American imperialism, Anonymous, anti-war, ANWR, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Asia, Atlantic Ocean, Barack Obama, Black Agenda Report, Brookings Institution, Canada, capitalism, Center for American Progress, childcare, class war, Climate change, Congress, Consortium News, Corporate America, CounterPunch, cybersecurity, Cyberwar, Daniel Larso, David Mizner, Democratic Party, economy, education, endless war, energy, Enrique Peña Nieto, Europe, Family Research Council, Fight For 15, fossil fuel, free trade, Gallup, gas, Glen Ford, hacktivism, Hillary Clinton, imperialism, inequality, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Islamic State, Jacobin, James Carden, James Risen, John F. Kennedy, John Podesta, Keystone XL North, KeystoneXL, Kshama Sawant, labor, LGBTQ, Martin Luther King Jr., MENA, Merryl Wyn Davies, Mexico, Michael Winship, Middle East, military contractors, minimum wage, mining, MLK, Mother Jones, NAFTA, National Petroleum Reserve, National Security Strategy, NATO, neoliberalism, Net Neutrality, nuclear, Obama, oceans, oil, Oliver Stone, Pentagon, poverty, Ralph Nader, Republican Party, Responsibility to Protect Principle, Rob Urie, Robert Perry, Russia, sanctions, Seattle, sick leave, Socialist Alternative, space, State Of The Union, Stephen Harper, Susan Rice, Syria, TAFTA, Taliban, taxes, terrorism, The Nation, The Untold History of the United States, Tim Shorrock, TISA, TPP, trade, trade deals, Trans Pacific Partnership, trans*, transgender, TTIP, Ukraine, unemployment, Vietnam War, Wall Street, War, Washington Post, weapons of mass destruction, Why Do People Hate America, WMDs, Xi Jinping, Ziauddin Sardar, Zoe Carpenter

Erik Prince: What Doesn’t He Know And When Didn’t He Know It?

January 8, 2015 By David Isenberg 2 Comments

Robert Young Pelton was one of the first authors to write about Blackwater, having spent a month running Route Irish with the same Blackwater rapid reaction security detail in Baghdad that would ultimately be involved in the Nisour Square shootout.

That was probably why Erik Prince turned to him when seeking help in editing and marketing his memoir. Pelton claims Prince didn’t pay what he is owed and is suing him. Predictably, Prince, who is no stranger to litigation, is countersuing, alleging that Pelton should not have applied money Prince contractually owed Pelton for a subscription to Somalia Report, a website Pelton created to cover all aspects of the Horn of Africa region.

But while all of this is entertaining it is, at least for those who follow the private military and security sector, not breaking news. The reason I mention it, however, was this bit in the Washington Post article:

Filed Under: Media & Culture, National News Tagged With: Abu Dhabi, Academi, Africa, Baghdad, Blackwater, British Virgin Islands, Colombia, contractors, El Colombiano, Erik Prince, Fallujah, Fortox, Greystone Limited, ID Systems, Iraq, Licensed to Kill, Men’s Journal, mercenaries, military, military contractors, Navy SEALs, New York Times, Nisour Square, Robert Young Pelton, Semana, Somalia, Somalia Report, Thor Global Enterprises, Tortola, United Arab Emirates, United States Navy, Victoria Toensing, War, Washington Post, Xe

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