Blackwater

Investigative journalist and correspondent for The Nation and Democracy Now! Jeremy Scahill is the author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.”

This is a massive collection of Blackwater related articles:

http://www.democracynow.org/features/blackwater_usa

Here's a few examples of the headlines:

June 02, 2008: Blackwater: From the Nisour Square Massacre to the Future of the Mercenary Industry

May 23, 2008: ‘War, Inc.’: John Cusack’s New Film Satirizes the Corruption, Profiteering and Hubris Behind the Iraq War

May 02, 2008: Southern California Residents Gear Up for New Fight to Stop Secretive Expansion by Military Firm Blackwater

April 07, 2008: State Dept. Renews Blackwater Contract in Iraq Despite Pentagon Labeling Sept. Baghdad Killing of 17 Civilians ‘A Criminal Event’

December 19, 2007: EXCLUSIVE…Blackwater Sued Again For Sept. 9th Attack, Five Iraqis Dead, Ten Wounded

December 19, 2007: TV BROADCAST EXCLUSIVE: Iraqi Witnesses, Victims Describe Blackwater Shooting in Harrowing Detail

December 10, 2007: What is Blackwater’s Role in the 2008 Presidential Race?

November 09, 2007 An Act of Terrorism? Blackwater Sniper Shot Dead Three Iraqi Guards At Iraqi Media Center in February

A Closer Look at FARC & The Columbian Military's Rescue Operation From Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/8/as_freed_us_contractors_speak_out

The end of water privatization?

The city of Paris, France has ended a hundred years of private water, putting the essential resource back in the public trust.

" "That France, once known as the heartland of water privatisation, is embracing a return to public management of water services, is a strong signal in this new pattern," Olivier Hoedeman of the Water Remunicipalisation Tracker told IPS. The group, a sub-division of the Amsterdam-based Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and the Transnational Institute, documents the decline of water privatisation."

http://www.alternet.org/water/89982/

" In the 1990s many countries privatised their water and sanitation services, particularly in Africa, Asia and Latin America, under strong pressure from neo-liberal governments, particularly in the European Union (EU), and from international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to 'open up' national services. "

A memorable segment from a documentary called The Corporation, chronicling the first days of the global struggle for water. The Bechtel corporation and an army of police v.s. the people of Cochabamba. Hundreds of young people were maimed and injured by the police serving and protecting the state allocated contract to annex and sell back the citizens their water.


"Bechtel, Bolivia resolve dispute

San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp. has dropped a $25 million dispute against the Bolivian government for canceling a water contract, after major street demonstrations forced a Bechtel-owned subsidiary to withdraw from Bolivia’s third-largest city."

http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=3612

Nelson Mandela to be removed from " Terror Watch List "

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/01/mandela.watch/index.html
( Nelson Mandela displays his Nobel Peace Prize. )
( Nelson Mandela looking out a barred window in the Prison on Robin Island where he spent most of his 27 year sentence. )

The Elephant in the Meteorology Room

(Cedar Rapids, Iowa {the downtown area is still off limits})

As a hundred year flood wreaks havoc in the mid-west, a new report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (comprised of thirteen federal agencies and overseen by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Council on Environmental Quality, the National Economic Council and the Office of Management and Budget) asserts what any idiot could have inferred by now: Global Warming is making extreme weather increasingly commonplace in America.

http://www.wnbc.com/weather/16659215/detail.html

Boston.com has a few arresting pics of the flood, one of which I included at the top of the post.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/06/mississippi_floodwaters_in_iow.html

Iowa faced with a potential crop loss of $3,000,000,000.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/21/iowa.flood/index.html

Hectic Iraq/US Security Agreement as UN Mandate Expires Before Next American President Takes Office

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/12/iraq_correspondent_patrick_cockburn_on_the

I hope you elect to read the whole article at the above link, but here's an excerpt of Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez's interview with Patrick Cockburn, Mid-East Correspondant for The London Indenpendant. They discuss the extortive efforts of the Bush Administration to force an Iraqi security agreement on their terms in exchange for 50 billion in Iraqi national funds being held in the federal reserve.

"AMY GOODMAN: Patrick Cockburn, if this is pushed through before this president leaves office, how does it bind a future president? And what is your assessment of what these presidential candidates in the United States are suggesting for the end of war in Iraq?

PATRICK COCKBURN: Well, you know, they’re describing it as a security agreement and saying, well, we have such agreements with eighty countries. But, I mean, this is frankly baloney. I mean, the other countries do not have an American army present which is under continual armed attack. It’s a very different type of agreement. And of course the reason they’re saying this is that they don’t want to submit it to Congress, and they also don’t want to submit it to a referendum in Iraq. In both cases, it might go down.

I think that the candidates—I mean, what strikes me, being in Washington, is the degree to which America is absorbed in the presidential election, and Iraq has been far too much on the margins of the news, as if nothing new was developing there or the situation might be bad but it’s not getting much worse, while these enormously important developments are taking place, which are laying the basis for future violence, for future wars, not exactly going through on the nod, but they’re being smuggled through. Their significance is being downplayed by the US ambassador in Baghdad, by the administration here in Washington. And this is taking place while the whole focus is on the presidential election here."

Also, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki has been quoted saying in regards to the negotiations, “We have reached an impasse, because when we opened these negotiations we did not realize that the US demands would so deeply affect Iraqi sovereignty, and this is something we can never accept.”
another Democracy Now! article here: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/13/headlines#7

Footnotes on Some Shiite

Obama's Iraq team appeared to be in a bit of disarray yesterday as they publicly differed on potential strategies while appearing at the second annual meeting of the Center for a New American Security. Here's an article from The Nation on this slightly disconcerting development:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/328987

As the U.S. and Iraq attempt to reach a bilateral agreement on the duration and capacity of the U.S. military's continued occupation, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki assured Iranians that his country will not serve as a proxy for a U.S. invasion into their country.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/08/iraq.iran/index.html

Oh yeah! Maliki and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad totally made out too! Wolf Blitzer spins it as more awkward for John McCain than those two.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/11/blitzer-awkward-iraq-news-for-mccain-campaign/