War Profiteering
By: Andrew DiDomenico
4/13/15
War profiteering, it’s one of those crimes that we don’t know much about, but need to know.
Blackwater is a private company that makes their money taking on contracts for the United States government, and mostly involved with anything ranging from guard duties, to secretive ops. The problem is that these companies often don’t have many rules to follow. They sort of have a get out of jail free card; called money. For most incidents that don’t get national attention like
Compensation pay to family of an Iraqi vice presidential guard killed by a drunken Blackwater operator in the Green Zone on Christmas Eve: $20,000
And after several
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“Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.”
-CNN
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“Payments” ehhhh…not payments so much as bribes. Bribing leaders to forget about their outright anger of a bunch of foreigners killing your people. It’s fucked up.
But there’s one more fact that doesn’t make sense. In 2001 Blackwater was worth about 736,906. In 2006 they are now worth $593 Million.
So if you break it down.
Blackwater+war=profit.
Profit+War=War Profiteering
But the ones incidents that do get national attention, cause a shit storm for Blackwater. Like the 2007 massacre in Iraq which killed 14 civilians. They were actually charged today with about 30 years in prison each. And one with life in prison. Which for killing 14 people, is a tad bit lenient. If 14 people in the United States were killed in a massacre involving 3 men who were caught people would be demanding the death penalty.
You see the military industrial complex (A term coined by Dqight D. Eisenhower). Which is where the legislature has benefits from what is essentially war.
This in turn has almost accidentally reframed the entire idea of war profiteering. Which is kind of funny considering he was warning about the idea of the military Industrial complex. It’s sort of how George Washington warned of a two party system and we in turn ended up, with a two party system.
At the same PMCs in Blackwater are estimated to make at least $180,000 to $200,000
The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the average active duty service member receives an Army benefits and pay compensation package worth $99,000. Noncash compensation represents almost 60 percent of this package. Noncash compensation includes health care, retirement pay, child care and free or subsidized food, housing and education. Coupled with regular cash compensation, this adds up to attractive military compensation for Soldiers.
-(Army.com)
When even after deducting the fact that the government claims to give military members about $99,000. You cannot make that much money in the military unless you are at least an O-4 with at least 12 years of service or the rank of Major.
Most of you probably hate PMCs right about now, but you have to hear the story of “Lloyd”. That’s not his real name of course. Lloyd was a PMC who was actually the one who made those PMC pay estimates. At his worst “Lloyd” had about 45k for retirement and was on constant death missions. Like this
"I had spent five months not eating, not sleeping, because you'd have death missions, seeing people get blown up all around me, going on dangerous missions where I could have died," says Carter. "I had so many close calls when we should have been killed, dozens of times. Small arms fire, some RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), some grenade attacks on the vehicles. It didn't happen daily, but it was dangerous."(CNN)
Although Lloyd could be considered an outlier, its nonetheless thought provoking. This could actually be a worst case scenario if you go ahead and read the CNN article in which he describes his experiences Here:
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/27/confessions-of-a-private-security-contractor/
Well recently Blackwater has been charged with a daunting task:
Beginning a war on Drugs in Afghanistan
Shit, we can’t even successfully win the war on drugs at home. Doing it in Afghanistan must be more difficult than climbing up Mount Everest upside down.
Work with me here, I’m new at this simile thing.
They seem to pay their contractors in a way to help their future, they take lots of money that can clearly be used for vets. And they are clearly ineffective. So the question is, why they are there its simple. Money. And beaurocratic bullshit.
Blackwater I mean, Academi .Have spent over 2.2 million dollars since 2006, which coincidentally is when the house decided 256-153 that they won’t set a deadline into withdrawing troops.
As you can tell the focus of today was Blackwater, although there are plenty of other instances of war profiteering or the Military Industrial Complex benefiting. A major instance would be that Dick Cheney, advocate of war in the Middle East and the invasion of Iraq owns a company known as Halliburton which made about $39.5 Billion. Who also owned the Deepwater horizon rig. They’re an oil company. So have fun digging.
And it all comes down to lobbying, again. And that is where we end this story.
By: Andrew DiDomenico
4/13/15
War profiteering, it’s one of those crimes that we don’t know much about, but need to know.
Blackwater is a private company that makes their money taking on contracts for the United States government, and mostly involved with anything ranging from guard duties, to secretive ops. The problem is that these companies often don’t have many rules to follow. They sort of have a get out of jail free card; called money. For most incidents that don’t get national attention like
Compensation pay to family of an Iraqi vice presidential guard killed by a drunken Blackwater operator in the Green Zone on Christmas Eve: $20,000
And after several
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.”
-CNN
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Payments” ehhhh…not payments so much as bribes. Bribing leaders to forget about their outright anger of a bunch of foreigners killing your people. It’s fucked up.
But there’s one more fact that doesn’t make sense. In 2001 Blackwater was worth about 736,906. In 2006 they are now worth $593 Million.
So if you break it down.
Blackwater+war=profit.
Profit+War=War Profiteering
But the ones incidents that do get national attention, cause a shit storm for Blackwater. Like the 2007 massacre in Iraq which killed 14 civilians. They were actually charged today with about 30 years in prison each. And one with life in prison. Which for killing 14 people, is a tad bit lenient. If 14 people in the United States were killed in a massacre involving 3 men who were caught people would be demanding the death penalty.
You see the military industrial complex (A term coined by Dqight D. Eisenhower). Which is where the legislature has benefits from what is essentially war.
This in turn has almost accidentally reframed the entire idea of war profiteering. Which is kind of funny considering he was warning about the idea of the military Industrial complex. It’s sort of how George Washington warned of a two party system and we in turn ended up, with a two party system.
At the same PMCs in Blackwater are estimated to make at least $180,000 to $200,000
The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the average active duty service member receives an Army benefits and pay compensation package worth $99,000. Noncash compensation represents almost 60 percent of this package. Noncash compensation includes health care, retirement pay, child care and free or subsidized food, housing and education. Coupled with regular cash compensation, this adds up to attractive military compensation for Soldiers.
-(Army.com)
When even after deducting the fact that the government claims to give military members about $99,000. You cannot make that much money in the military unless you are at least an O-4 with at least 12 years of service or the rank of Major.
Most of you probably hate PMCs right about now, but you have to hear the story of “Lloyd”. That’s not his real name of course. Lloyd was a PMC who was actually the one who made those PMC pay estimates. At his worst “Lloyd” had about 45k for retirement and was on constant death missions. Like this
"I had spent five months not eating, not sleeping, because you'd have death missions, seeing people get blown up all around me, going on dangerous missions where I could have died," says Carter. "I had so many close calls when we should have been killed, dozens of times. Small arms fire, some RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), some grenade attacks on the vehicles. It didn't happen daily, but it was dangerous."(CNN)
Although Lloyd could be considered an outlier, its nonetheless thought provoking. This could actually be a worst case scenario if you go ahead and read the CNN article in which he describes his experiences Here:
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/27/confessions-of-a-private-security-contractor/
Well recently Blackwater has been charged with a daunting task:
Beginning a war on Drugs in Afghanistan
Shit, we can’t even successfully win the war on drugs at home. Doing it in Afghanistan must be more difficult than climbing up Mount Everest upside down.
Work with me here, I’m new at this simile thing.
They seem to pay their contractors in a way to help their future, they take lots of money that can clearly be used for vets. And they are clearly ineffective. So the question is, why they are there its simple. Money. And beaurocratic bullshit.
Blackwater I mean, Academi .Have spent over 2.2 million dollars since 2006, which coincidentally is when the house decided 256-153 that they won’t set a deadline into withdrawing troops.
As you can tell the focus of today was Blackwater, although there are plenty of other instances of war profiteering or the Military Industrial Complex benefiting. A major instance would be that Dick Cheney, advocate of war in the Middle East and the invasion of Iraq owns a company known as Halliburton which made about $39.5 Billion. Who also owned the Deepwater horizon rig. They’re an oil company. So have fun digging.
And it all comes down to lobbying, again. And that is where we end this story.
Monday 4/6/15
Over the past few weeks there’s been a bit of controversy that has caused an uproar ranging from normal citizens to entertainers. It’s concerning the most well know gay duo in fashion.
No, not this obviously gay and fashionable couple. Their dopplepeople counterpart Italian fashion designers Dolce and Gabbana have made headlines for stating something that caught most people off guard. When the attacked in-vitro fertilization.
In vitro fertilization for those who don’t know there are three variations of in-vitro fertilization; gay, lesbian and straight. Now that sounds like I’m not very intelligent but I’m just condensing the facts. When a man and a woman go through in vitro, they take the sperm and the egg into a test tube and combine the two. With two males they sort of combine their sperm and an anonymous egg and place them into a surrogate’s womb. With two women one carries and one donates an egg with a donor sperm. Sounds simple and not very controversial at the moment, but these statements of course; changed that.
“The argument stems from comments about in-vitro fertilization in Panorama magazine, in which Gabbana and longtime collaborator Domenico Dolce spoke about "synthetic" children born from "rented" wombs”
-CNN
They go on further to explain how traditional families are the only families that should exist; now if this makes sense to you, you should probably know that Dolce and Gabbana have their heads on straight; these people have released baby perfume. It’s said to be a “true family commitment”. I don’t know if you have but living in a family with Italian roots, nobody in that family is spending $45 on some fucking perfume, let alone a fucking baby.
Calling anything living with a conscious synthetic is appropriate, these are living people who have grown up. Elton John, who has in-vitro children immediately fired back with a call to protest and to boycott Dolce and Gabbana products. To which Dolce and Gabbana asked their supporters to boycott Elton John. To which I say what the fuck.
Since the 60’s high-fashions has had people boycott it, not people boycotting with them
When most people think of high fashion isn’t Dolce and Gabbana; it’s Cruella de Vil. The woman who wanted to slaughter, and skin 101 puppies. And whose name is a playoff of Cruel Devil.
That is like Chuck-E-Cheese trying to shake off the fact that they are now known for being the inspiration for Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.
What really gets through the heart of this stories is this statement from an NPR host
“My wife and I have four kids, three of them are in-vitro and the other is from a natural birth […] my kids came up to me and asked if they’re synthetic and asked why the other is the love child”
That is a hard thing to do, to try explain to your child that they are not synthetic, and that they are loved. The fact is if you oppose doing something, than don’t do it. But to try and tell people not to be happy is something horribly wrong.
~Andrew
Over the past few weeks there’s been a bit of controversy that has caused an uproar ranging from normal citizens to entertainers. It’s concerning the most well know gay duo in fashion.
No, not this obviously gay and fashionable couple. Their dopplepeople counterpart Italian fashion designers Dolce and Gabbana have made headlines for stating something that caught most people off guard. When the attacked in-vitro fertilization.
In vitro fertilization for those who don’t know there are three variations of in-vitro fertilization; gay, lesbian and straight. Now that sounds like I’m not very intelligent but I’m just condensing the facts. When a man and a woman go through in vitro, they take the sperm and the egg into a test tube and combine the two. With two males they sort of combine their sperm and an anonymous egg and place them into a surrogate’s womb. With two women one carries and one donates an egg with a donor sperm. Sounds simple and not very controversial at the moment, but these statements of course; changed that.
“The argument stems from comments about in-vitro fertilization in Panorama magazine, in which Gabbana and longtime collaborator Domenico Dolce spoke about "synthetic" children born from "rented" wombs”
-CNN
They go on further to explain how traditional families are the only families that should exist; now if this makes sense to you, you should probably know that Dolce and Gabbana have their heads on straight; these people have released baby perfume. It’s said to be a “true family commitment”. I don’t know if you have but living in a family with Italian roots, nobody in that family is spending $45 on some fucking perfume, let alone a fucking baby.
Calling anything living with a conscious synthetic is appropriate, these are living people who have grown up. Elton John, who has in-vitro children immediately fired back with a call to protest and to boycott Dolce and Gabbana products. To which Dolce and Gabbana asked their supporters to boycott Elton John. To which I say what the fuck.
Since the 60’s high-fashions has had people boycott it, not people boycotting with them
When most people think of high fashion isn’t Dolce and Gabbana; it’s Cruella de Vil. The woman who wanted to slaughter, and skin 101 puppies. And whose name is a playoff of Cruel Devil.
That is like Chuck-E-Cheese trying to shake off the fact that they are now known for being the inspiration for Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.
What really gets through the heart of this stories is this statement from an NPR host
“My wife and I have four kids, three of them are in-vitro and the other is from a natural birth […] my kids came up to me and asked if they’re synthetic and asked why the other is the love child”
That is a hard thing to do, to try explain to your child that they are not synthetic, and that they are loved. The fact is if you oppose doing something, than don’t do it. But to try and tell people not to be happy is something horribly wrong.
~Andrew