www.heartcom.org/MILCORGOV.htm
Preface Note:
Most Americans are not aware how many of our core institutions have been increasingly privatized at the expense of the public's interest. Most American's don't even realize that the Federal Reserve Bank is privately owned by super-rich plutocrats, some of them foreigners. Few American realize that the same Rockefellers that created the Big Oil monopoly also created the Big Pharma stranglehold on the Health Care system. The biggest racket of all is the War Racket, and increasingly, the military-industrial complex is being privatized -- outsourced to PMC's -- to protect all the other rackets.
The point is, all these government sanctioned monopolies on profit and power are being challenged by public awareness of their corrupt inadequacies and promising alternatives. The response of Militarized Corporate Government has been to create a huge new industry of PMC's" (Private Military Contractors), ostensibly for the Iraq war, but increasingly for the creation of a police state infrastructure in America.
The slide down the slippery slope that surrenders sovereignty for security... ends up with neither. If you don't believe that "slide to the dark side" has already begun, you haven't been paying attention. This article exposes the protection racket of, by and for corrupt government for what it is -- a plot out of hell that only widespread public conscience can neutralize.
Forewarned is forearmed. Time to lock and load HIGHER CONSCIENCE.
-CR
EXCERPTS:
"It is my core analysis that this entire pattern of using secrecy and immunity to shield Blackwater is part of a concerted plan to protect a secret administration program (still in its incipient phase) to recruit and build a private and unaccountable Gestapo-like force that will someday be used to "deal with" dissident Americans."
"While there is a relatively small group of potential resistors at this time, its numbers will grow to include many others (currently in denial), who will someday be driven to resist as the evil acts of government becomes too brazen to deny."
The wholesale incarceration of "potentially threatening" groups is what finally wakes up a passive nation.
--------- article follows. This excerpt is from:
World Affairs Brief, November 2, 2007. Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted.
Cite source as Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief ( http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com )
SECRECY AND IMMUNITY: KEYS TO BUILDING AND PROTECTING THE DARK SIDE
Tyranny and corruption go hand in hand and have been with us since the beginning of time. Both seek to operate behind the veil of secrecy, and inevitably form conspiracies with other people in order to further ensure protection from discovery. Conspiracies eventually invade and take over governments in order to achieve a full range of immunity from prosecution when secrecy fails to shield completely. In large broad-ranging government conspiracies (which rely on the unwitting participation of many ignorant and less principled people) discovery and exposure of a fair percentage of illegal government acts is bound to happen. That is why conspiracies always seek to control at least the higher levels of police and judicial hierarchies.
However, to avoid the too frequent use of judicial immunity (which often puts higher judges in the position of revealing their illicit collaboration) the use of National Security or "State Secrets" is expanded (informally and illegally) to include the cover-up of wrongful acts of government officials. Then judges merely have to rule in favor of the Executive's prerogative to hide behind state secrets rather than on the issue itself.
This week, we will examine the extensive use of secrecy and immunity being granted to Blackwater mercenaries as a further example of the corrupt motives of its benefactors and protectors within the globalist Bush administration.
In prior weeks, readers will remember that we covered the State Department gag order to Blackwater executives instructing them that all their activities in Iraq were considered "classified" and thus ineligible to be revealed to Congress in any public hearing. Blackwater executives dutifully referenced this gag order in their written refusal to appear before a congressional inquiry.
However, due to the growing public uproar over Blackwater's numerous and indiscriminate killings of Iraqi civilians, the State Department has had to engage in outright grants of immunity for Blackwater guards in order to stymie the current demands for prosecution. The NY Times reported that "State Department investigators offered Blackwater security guards immunity during an inquiry into last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, government officials said today, calling it a potentially serious investigative misstep that could complicate efforts to prosecute the company's employees involved in the episode." --Quite an understatement!
Believe me, this was no misstep. This was a deliberate attempt to outright derail any prosecution. State Department investigators (Bureau of Diplomatic Security) had virtually no authority to offer grants of immunity, not being part of the Justice Department or any other prosecutorial office. They knew they lacked authority, but went forward anyway in a deliberate attempt to create legal havoc amidst any subsequent attempts by the DOJ to prosecute. According to the Times, "Prosecutors at the Justice Department, who do have such authority, [claimed ] no advance knowledge of the arrangement... Most the guards who took part in the episode were offered what officials described as limited-use immunity, which means that they were promised they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in their interviews with the authorities as long as their statements were true.
To compound the lie, one State Department official asserted that "If there's any truth to this story, then the decision was made without consultation with senior officials in Washington." I don't believe that for a moment. Any administration that really wanted to prosecute Blackwater's egregious acts of killing Iraqi civilians would have shut down and reversed this entire protection racket as soon as State issued its gag order. In contrast, the nation watches helplessly as the administration sits back and pretends to wring its hands over the "missteps" of the State Dept., but never seems to muster the will to reverse it. That's telling.
It is my core analysis that this entire pattern of using secrecy and immunity to shield Blackwater is part of a concerted plan to protect a secret administration program (still in its incipient phase) to recruit and build a private and unaccountable Gestapo-like force that will someday be used to "deal with" dissident Americans.
There is a reason why immunity for criminal acts while doing contract work for government is so important in keeping the recruitment pipeline full. Those mercenaries with aggressive tendencies emerge most easily when not constrained by the threat of discovery or prosecution-which is ever present within strict military circles. In contrast, a Private Military Contractor (PMC) with a security contract in Iraq has lots of opportunities to allow guards to use aggressive firepower, torture and interrogation in real live situations. This cannot be simulated completely by training.
That is why it was so essential for the government to implant upon the transitional Iraq government this blanket and absolute immunity for PMCs. That gave PMCs a huge jumpstart in being able to grow a culture of aggressiveness in tactics and conduct among guards. Abu Graib and other torture prisons also served as wide-open testing grounds, checking to see who could be talked into torturing prisoners without objection. Now that there is a wide public backlash against CIA secret prisons, Abu Graib type torture and Blackwater's aggressive killing of civilians, PMCs will have to develop ever more sophisticated regimes to test for and find the unprincipled mercenaries necessary to build a core of enforcers that will take orders blindly and without conscience.
By the way, it is probable that certain PMC executives are not aware of the future purposes of their own companies. They become totally dependent upon government contracts, and are slowly led down the path of doing more and more evil acts as they are led from one task to another.
Continued training and building of mercenaries will depend on a steady stream of future wars and conflicts. The hard core people get hired into the dark side of the CIA where the craft of torture and rendition still continues in secret military and CIA prisons. That is precisely why our own government, despite the anti-torture rhetoric, still refuses to stop torture or shut down its secret prisons. The system has simply gone deeper underground.
The BBC reported this week that CIA chief Michael Hayden is still verbally backing secret prisons and rendition flights. "The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, General Michael Hayden, has defended the methods it uses to interrogate terror suspects. Gen Hayden said programs such as extraordinary rendition produced what he said was irreplaceable intelligence. Under the program, terror suspects are transported to secret prisons in countries with less stringent interrogation rules [actually, NO restraints]. Mr Hayden, speaking in Chicago, said the leads gained justified rendition." The Bush administration obviously believes the ends fully justify the means!
Even the administration's nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasy, continues to play word games in his refusal to label waterboarding and other forms of "enhanced interrogation" as torture. The Boston Herald says "Democrat Chris Dodd stepped out today as the first of the presidential hopefuls also serving in the US Senate to say he will vote against Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey [due to Mukasey's] refusal to clarify whether he considers an interrogation technique known as waterboarding to be torture. [Ed. note: Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning, and involves constraining a person on his back, restricting breathing with a porous bag over the head and pouring water on the face].
Scott Horton cogently explained the folly of trying to use National Security to hide America's use of torture: "There's no justification for keeping secret such memos about what techniques are legal and which are not... After all, we 'reveal' the secrets to the enemy when we subject them to the 'lawful' techniques." Exactly! So, the only reason for keeping it secret is to hide the truth from the public.
"Dodd said while he is troubled by that [Mukasey's evasion on waterboarding], he is more concerned about Mukasey's suggestion during hearings last month that the president could disregard a constitutional federal law on national security grounds. 'I'm more distressed and concerned about that statement,' Dodd told reporters in a conference call. That upsets the separation of powers and would continue a troubling expansion of executive power, he said. 'I just find it as fundamental as it gets.'The Connecticut senator said he is stunned that a retired federal judge is making such statements that Dodd said a first-year law student should know is wrong."
The immunity offer for blackwater killers is creating a huge backlash in Iraq and is adding to the growing world perception that this administration is thumbing its nose at the rule of law. Earlier this week, Iraq's cabinet approved the repeal of the agreement granting contractors immunity (forced upon them by the Coalition Authority in 2004 as a condition of regaining limited sovereignty), and sent it on to Parliament which is sure to approve. However, it is a pyrrhic victory since all the Blackwater guards involved in the recent killings have been flown out of the country and will never be extradited by the US back to Iraq for trial. In the future, security guards who perpetrate crimes will immediately be removed from Iraqi jurisdiction. This is easy to accomplish since the US maintains its own conduits of safe passage (Green Zone, military air bases, and US-only controlled roads connecting the Green Zone to US air bases).
The UK guardian was frank in saying that "the Bush administration faced intense criticism yesterday after it emerged that The State Department had offered immunity to Blackwater security guards allegedly involved in a shooting spree in Baghdad that left 17 dead... The offer does not mean a trial cannot be mounted but it would compromise any prosecution case and practically ensure there would be no convictions." Precisely. Due to the contradictory grants of immunity without authority, it would be easy for any controlled judge to declare a mistrial.
The Times continued quoting State Department spokesman Sean McCormack who insisted that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice still believed anyone responsible should be prosecuted. That's easy to say, and provides good cover but, as ABC reports, "Even as she accepted the resignation of State's security chief Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice quietly promoted two senior staffers who directly oversaw controversial Blackwater security operations." Rice has promised more accountability for PMCs in Iraq, but her new regulations are more smoke and mirrors. Blogger Noah Shachtman reveals that State has outsourced this new oversight of convoy security to the coalition Reconstruction Operations Centers, who "are themselves outsourced, through a recently renewed $475 million contract to the British firm Aegis. And Aegis is run by the infamous old-school gun-for-hire, Tim Spicer. He's the guy, you may recall, who tried to use his mercenary army to launch a counter-coup for the government of Sierra Leone." So, once again, we have black ops. people overseeing other black ops. companies. It's "all in the family."
What is most disturbing is that the Justice Department is acting as if the immunity grants can and will invalidate their efforts to prosecute even though they do not. The FBI has now taken over the investigation from State but Blackwater guards have refused to talk to the FBI, citing the promises of immunity. Want more evidence of Blackwater working on the dark side? According to NBC, one of the things the FBI has discovered is that Blackwater was illegally importing silencers for weapons into Iraq. These are only used for covert operations and assassinations.
Democratic Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House oversight committee, called this immunity stunt an "egregious misjudgment," and demanded from the State Department to know who gave the illegal grant of immunity and whether Sec. Rice was involved. No answer was forthcoming though the chief of the Security Bureau abruptly resigned without admitting any wrongdoing. I think he was pushed out by Rice in the hopes of pacifying the outrage against the Department.
Let's analyze a little further my theory that there exists a concerted plan by the dark side of government to create a private army of secret police or shock troops that can be relied upon to eliminate or imprison American dissidents to globalist control. While there is a relatively small group of potential resistors at this time, its numbers will grow to include many others (currently in denial), who will someday be driven to resist as the evil acts of government becomes too brazen to deny. This happened in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and Castro's Cuba, though the rise in numbers of dissidents was never sufficient to stop the killing, having no personal arms.
America's private citizens are not yet disarmed, but the Powers that Be (PTB) certainly intend to do so in the future. All tyrannies disarm their citizens, and build death camps, "re-education" camps and prison camps to harbor or dispose of the large minority of people who resist or who are of a class of people that tend to produce resistors. The wholesale incarceration of "potentially threatening" groups is what finally wakes up a passive nation. I don't predict that will ever occur until war comes and the populous is disarmed as a "precaution" against "insurrection from traitors within." The US government is no exception to other tyrannies and is neither conservative nor Christian. "Excess prison capacity" is being built, some in secret and others in the open.
As I have asserted strongly in the past, it is my analysis that a concerted plan is in place to:
1) create a shortage of military personnel (relative to the burgeoning number of created conflicts) and to
2) fill that void by instituting a draft in combination with national uniform military services for all youth.
3) As in Iraq, certain tasks in the future within America will be "outsourced" to these mercenary groups since our troops will be engaged overseas in constant warfare. Even during Katrina, the Bush administration paid huge sums to Blackwater to provide security in New Orleans, paving the way for this kind of "private" enforcement in future crises. New plans are being laid for Blackwater and other PMCs to serve as "peacekeepers" in Africa. The administration will continue to drum up excuses to keep these private mercenaries occupied so they can continue their selection process to see which of the thousands of former Special Forces people they hire prove to be sufficiently without principles or morals to serve on the dark side.
Certainly, the administration isn't paying these outrageous contract prices to these PMCs because it is cheaper or more efficient to outsource these tasks. If they gave even half this money to the military it could attract more than enough to fill its ranks to do these jobs. But saving money isn't what the government is up to. They are trying to avoid using normal military men for dark side operations. Honest military types are unsuitable for the dark side activities because they tend to blow the whistle when they discover illegal activities.
During the Vietnam War and into the 1980s the CIA used a lot of military pilots to haul drugs in military aircraft. Even though sworn to secrecy some turned whistleblowers and had to be silenced. [Note: For the last 50 years, the $trillion (+) per year global drug trade has been secretly "privatized" by the CIA -- see "Drug Black Ops" This has provided huge secret budgets with no congressional oversight to PMC's of a "dark-sinister" nature that -- for lack of morality -- could not survive public awareness.]
Now the use of regular military personnel to do the government's illicit work is rare. They prefer to hire private mercenaries who will do anything if the price is high enough. Billions provided for Iraqi reconstruction are diverted to PMCs. This money funds salary rates 2 to 10 times what ordinary soldiers make and creates a huge magnet for ex-military types who are willing to sacrifice families and regular civilian jobs for the lucre of professional combat--a first step in the selection process towards building a mercenary base of low-character individuals. That isn't to say that only bad types get hired by PMCs. It's always a mix of people initially, and so further sifting is necessary to build of core of individuals willing to take orders without question.
Inevitably, even bad-boy mercenary companies like Dyncorp, MPRI or Blackwater have had whistleblowers emerge who witnessed illegal acts, including corruption, sex slaves and wanton killings, who tried to alert superiors and/or the public. None of these dissidents were supported by their superiors. Instead they were harassed, fired or forced to resign. This harsh treatment serves to telegraph a message to others in the organization, thus discouraging further dissidents. The few principled employees see the handwriting on the wall and eventually get out. Those wanting to go along rather than risk their high pay bury their conscience and say nothing. By default that leaves the criminally-minded to lead, direct and cover-up when necessary.
While Blackwater and other PMCs are forced, for appearance sake, to fire those accused of the worst crimes, they often help them find interim employment with other "connected" companies until they can be rehired. This is typical of dark side operations within the CIA or FBI. When dark side agents get caught doing something illegal, and sufficient public exposure makes a cover-up difficult, they are farmed out to other government front companies (which can include connected insurance companies, public relations firms, shipping companies, airlines, or other PMC competitors).
In short, by laundering problem employees through other companies (just like money laundering), dark side agencies within government get to claim a resolution of its embarrassing employee problem-always billed as a "rogue agent" or an anomaly-and yet still retain use of their services. Rarely are problem people hired back into the same department of government. More likely they continue to serve their same masters secretly while still under their new private cover. In the dark side trade this process is called "sheep dipping."
The network of front companies or "allied enterprises" runs the entire gamut of business endeavors including selected casinos companies where the dark side government links up with Mafia resources. The network of connected companies is so varied and numerous that it reaches every part of the globe.
Those that are not actual front companies (companies started with CIA seed money and closely controlled) are often lured into the government network with the promise of certain lucrative contracts and benefits with government. Others are attracted by the promise of immunity from government oversight (IRS, SEC) as in a shakedown racket ("you play along with us and the SEC or IRS will never bother you....if you don't, you can expect an audit every year"). Enron benefitted from this kind of initial immunity from IRS and SEC audits. Microsoft also went through what I believe was a "shakedown" period when the government threaten them with multiple federal lawsuits. Finally Microsoft agreed to "work with" government surveillance goals (embedded in Microsoft software) and the federal "dogs" were called off and "out of court" settlements were reached.
This same thing happened years ago with Ma Bell and the Baby Bells. In recent decades it had to be done all over again after numerous cell telephone and internet service provider companies were formed. Secrecy and immunity all played a role in corrupting these new companies too. Each company was asked by the government to allow eavesdropping equipment to be permanently installed at their switching facilities. Each was told by government officials that the kind of wiretapping the NSA was going to install in their buildings was totally legal. Company lawyers were not fooled, but all of the top company executives bought into the lie except one (CEO Joseph Nacchio of Qwest) who was later prosecuted on trumped up stock manipulation charges. Again a message was telegraphed to the others.
As you can see, there are many ways to control a company without bringing it knowingly into a conspiracy. Less direct controls help safeguard the core conspiracy against discovery. Only fools claim that large conspiracies can't exist because of fear of discovery. They do exist because of the myriad of sophisticated ways they have of gaining the cooperation of others, who never know the full purposes of what they are engaged in.
In my opinion, it's going to take at least a decade for these new black organizations to mature into the hardened corps of thugs necessary to become an American Gestapo. Rumors continue to circulate on the internet about Bush administration plans to invoke martial law in a new crisis that is supposedly imminent. I don't believe these rumors. The PTB aren't ready for that yet. If they tried to lock down the US, it would backfire on them, and convince millions that a conspiracy really exists. They will be patient and wait for the next big war. It also took time in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia to develop these "security organs". Recruitment, culling and selection is a constant process that never ends, even once well established.
Whenever wars come along, this process of training and expansion of totalitarian forces is accelerated dramatically.
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