The Whole Delivery

Our government continues to love murderous mercenaries who caused serious harm to our nations troops because of their pestilent actions. From Mr. Ackerman : Never mind the dead civilians. Never mind the stolen guns. Never mind the murder arrests, the fraud allegations, and the accusations of guards pumping themselves up with steroids and cocaine. Through a “joint venture,” the notorious private security firm Blackwater has won a piece of a five-year State Department contract worth up to $10 billion, Danger Room has learned. Apparently, there is no misdeed so big that it can keep guns-for-hire from working for the government. And this is despite a campaign pledge from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ban the company from federal contracts. The State Department is so silent about this so far, that they have yet to indicate this news on their website as of this post. And no one in the State Department's Press Briefing today asked about this to Assistant Secretary Philip J. ...

It was the typical down the middle stuff from President Obama in his Presidential address tonight, where despite an obvious recognition of the history of events as always, the 44th executive chief continued to protect the previous Administration's screw ups and not tell the full narrative to the America public about our dumb wars. Maybe the most salient moment of the address did not stem from talk about Iraq or relating its cost to how it has contributed greatly to our current pathetic economical situation. Rather, the comments he made on Afghanistan in regards to "conditions on the ground" being the bases on how fast the troop withdrawal will be is the one that should raise the most eyebrows in my mind. It is the typical safe centrist crap answer, where we are beholden to the military complex no matter what. "Conditions on the ground" for withdrawal in Afghanistan could easily mean just a few troops leaving at a very slow pace. This will certainly give a s...

AP's Andres Leighton US troops are leaving Haiti it appears. There are some Haiti citizens here who aren't looking forward to this , seeing the troops as invaluable in their arrival towards the pain they have encountered in Haiti: "I would like for them to stay in Haiti until they rebuild the country and everybody can go back to their house," said Marjorie Louis, a 27-year-old mother of two, as she warmed a bowl of beans for her family over a charcoal fire on the fake grass of the national stadium. More praise for the troops from the locals, an end result a lot of people from different backgrounds didn't predict would happen with the troops. "They should stay because they have been doing a good job," 35-year-old Lesly Pierre said as his family prepared dinner under a tarp at an encampment in Petionville. "If it was up to our government, we wouldn't have gotten any help at all." U.S. soldiers said they had nothing but warm encount...

Oh, and about that war in Afghanistan Private Defense Department contractors outnumber the ranks of uniformed U.S. military in Afghanistan, according to a Congressional Research Service study obtained by the invaluable Secrecy News. As of March, there were over 68,000 contractors in Afghanistan and over 52,000 military personnel (Read the report in .pdf format here. ) At 57% of total Defense Department workforce, the number of contractors represents "the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by DOD in any conflict in the history of the United States," the study concludes. And this interesting tidbit The contractors in Afghanistan perform many duties that would have once been done by the military: "logistics, construction, linguist services, and transportation," the study reports. In the second quarter of FY'09, 16% of contractors in Afghanistan provide security, versus 10% in Iraq. And 76% of the contractors in Afghanistan are "local nationals,...