As many of you know (and some of you may not know) I am a HUGE math buff. I offer to do math homework for my coworkers when they have assignments from school because it's "fun" for me. One of my great dreams was coming up with some unifying theory, pi integer placement prediction, or some other great math solution... unfortunately my limited intellect (as smart as I may want to think I am I have nothing on those true math geniuses) has yet to come up with anything...
So in that light, I present to you a new theory:
Bah, I am getting more and more frustrated. Here are some facts for you:
- Blackwater charges the government $1,222 per day per guard, "equivalent to $445,000 per year, or six times more than the cost of an equivalent U.S. soldier,"
- At least 90% of its revenue comes from government contracts, two-thirds of which are no-bid contracts.
- Blackwater had a "visible, and financially lucrative, presence in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as the use of the company contractors cost U.S. taxpayers $240,000 a day."
- On September 22, 2007, U.S. federal prosecutors announced an investigation into allegations of Blackwater employees who may have smuggled weapons into Iraq, and that these weapons may have been later transferred to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Kurdish nationalist group designated a terrorist organization by the US, NATO and the EU.
- A Committee on Oversight and Government Reform staff report, based largely on internal Blackwater e-mail messages and State Department documents, describes Blackwater as "being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets."
Your government tax dollars hard at work... the more I read the more convinced I am that the last 8 years our government has been headed by an inept individual (GW Bush) who was compromised to do the bidding of one of the most corrupt men in US political history (Dick Cheney).
And the GOP wonders why people are considering Hilrod and Obama as serious contenders for the next presidential race. Unless the GOP gets their head out of their butts (read: nix Guiliani, Thompson, and Romney) we are going to have a Dem in the white house and a Dem controlled house and senate... and I have a hard time believing they will do any WORSE of a job than the GOP has done...
4 comments:
Ryan, that is priceless, hilarious, and scary. Scary, because it's so accurate! Amazing. Good job, buddy.
AWESOME! (yes that dates me but i'm old enough i dont care :p)
Yeah, I know that stuff (referring to your update). Did you know that Blackwater uses employees from ALL other countries too. For example, even though Chile was totally opposed to our presence in Iraq and absolutely refused to be parth of the "coalition of the willing," Blackwater still hired a TON of Chilean troops. Why should you join any army if you can get paid so much more by being a soldier for hire...AKA MERCENARY.
Also, you should check out Blackwater CEO. His name is Eric Prince and he is a staunch contributor the Republican party (and only the Republican party). He is also a right wing fundamentalist (the crazy kind) that has given tons of money to Dr. James Dobson and the Christian coalition.
Other countries use mercenary firms, but those firms tend to donate to all the political parties of a particular country. You can see why Blackwater has a vested interest in keeping a republican in the white house. Democrats are not likely to support its existence since they're not getting paid off in the same way the republicans are.
You should really read the book "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" by Jeremy Scahill. He's been talking about this for a couple of years. He was on John Stewart about a year ago promoting his book, and that's when I first started researching this company. I haven't read the whole thing, but it's a fascinating story.
This adminstration won't be happy until it privatizes everything...even the armed forces.
Somehow I don't see Ron Paul, while he is a Republican, heavily favoring Blackwater :p
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