REPUBLICAN WAR PROFITEERS

Blackwater is a mercenary organization with close ties to Republican politicians. They are one of the many incompetent war profiteers that the Bush/McCain Republicans love so much. Right now they are best known for a scandal where their poorly disciplined and improperly led mercenaries opened fire on Iraqi civilians. Blackwater's slaughter of these civilians has been declared unjustified and has led to an FBI investigation. This scandal led to resignation of US state department official Richard Griffin and a call for more oversight of these "private contractors" (a code word for Republican war profiteers).

So, when a company performs this badly, what does the Bush Administration do?
Renew their contract, of course! Despite being involved in a scandal that led to the downfall of a State Department official and a considerable blow to our attempts to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis, Blackwater is rewarded with a renewal to the contract. This is the very definition of mismanagement and it has become the signiture of Republican policy: reward the incompetent.

Of course we already knew that incompetence is rewarded by the Republicans. Halliburton is another one of these Republican war profiteer organizations that consistently disply amazing incompentence. Yet Halliburton still gets any contract they want from the Republicans, despite frequently overcharging for their services, being blatantly corrupt, and being incompetent in the delivery of services to the point of actually regularly letting our soldiers get electrocuted rather than actually fulfill their contract.

The Republicans reward corruption and incompetence even if it leads to unnecessary deaths of our soldiers or civilians. America has to stop this. We have to stop Republican mismanagement.

On a related note I want to mention someone who has been very strong in standing up to Blackwater. In North Carolina, one Democratic candidate, Marshall Adame, a retired US Marine Vietnam veteran, has been particularly active in criticizing Blackwater. To quote Marshall:

I have interacted with many mercenary groups, including Blackwater. There is no place in the American force structure, or in American culture for mercenaries. They are guns for hire; No more, no less. The primary motivation is money. In most cases it does not matter who's money. Private Security Organizations as extensive as Blackwater, for example, should not be allowed to operate in war zones as augments of the United States of America. Private Armies represent the very things we depise as a people. Servants to the highest bidder with true allegiance to no-one.

Marshall, who originally supported the Iraq war, has also written an excellent criticism of the Republican mismanagement of the war. I urge support for Marshall Adame to help bring the Republican war profiteers to justice.