Blackwater Goes Free, Mexican Madonna Ploy

Ruth Marcus
Jacob Bernstein
Johann Hari

"The Obama administration had quite a day today annihilating the people who might vote for them. They appealed the ruling striking down Don't Ask, Don't Tell, even though they are supposed to be for striking it down. And then they said even if California legalized pot, the feds would still come in and bust people. But in fairness to Obama, it is an election year and Democrats can't afford to be seen being for freedom or equality." – Bill Maher

"There is a big difference between a disappointing friend and a deadly enemy. Of course the Democrats are disappointing. That's what makes them Democrats. If they were any more frustrating they'd be your relatives. But in this country they are all that stands between you and darkest night. You know why their symbol is the letter 'D'? Because it's a grade that means good enough, but just barely. You know why the Republican symbol is 'R'? Because it's the noise a pirate makes when he robs you and feeds you to a shark." – Bill Maher

The first two pundits linked above write about the strange phone call from Virginia Thomas to Anita Hill, giving some interesting background. I still think I was right on the reason why she made the call, and why she will keep on making those phone calls in the future, because deep down in her subconscious she knows that her husband was guilty, and it's her way of working things to the surface. It actually would be a good idea for her to meet with Anita Hill; it would legitimize her having doubts and who better to talk around them than the person who originally accused her husband? Whether she will ever admit to the truth is a question only her psychologist or pastor may ever know the answer...

Johann Hari writes about what I wanted to post about today, so I got nothin... If, after the elections, the administration followed England and France's lead and drastically cut back on spending, would our angry tea partyers then get even more angry once they get laid off and people like Sharron Angle's husband's pension shrinks? Will we see riots on the level what is happening in Europe, or will we have a bunch of smug, self-satisfied people sipping tea?

Groups like spies and cops take care of their own, even if you are a mercenary accused of murdering innocent civilians in Iraq. So, the government's legal cases against former Blackwater employees are slowly falling apart and being filed away under no longer prosecutable. Collect two hundred dollars, get out of jail free, and roll the dice again... For example: "In the most recent and closely watched case, the Justice Department on Monday said that it would not seek murder charges against Andrew J. Moonen, a Blackwater armorer accused of killing a guard assigned to an Iraqi vice president on Dec. 24, 2006. Justice officials said that they were abandoning the case after an investigation that began in early 2007, and included trips to Baghdad by federal prosecutors and F.B.I. agents to interview Iraqi witnesses.

In September, a Virginia jury was unable to reach a verdict in the murder trial of two former Blackwater guards accused of killing two Afghan civilians. Late last year, charges were dismissed against five former Blackwater guards who had been indicted on manslaughter and related weapons charges in a September 2007 shooting incident in Nisour Square in Baghdad, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed.

Interviews with lawyers involved in the cases, outside legal experts and a review of some records show that federal prosecutors have failed to overcome a series of legal hurdles, including the difficulties of obtaining evidence in war zones, of gaining proper jurisdiction for prosecutions in American civilian courts, and of overcoming immunity deals given to defendants by American officials on the scene."

“The battlefield is not a place that lends itself to the preservation of evidence.” - Prof Charles Rose

What little information that was obtained in Iraq was done in such a way that it is inadmissable in a US court of law: "In the immediate aftermath of the Christmas Eve shooting, Mr. Moonen was interviewed, not by the F.B.I., but by an official with the Regional Security Office of the United States Embassy in Baghdad, the State Department unit that supervised Blackwater security guards in Iraq.


Mr. Moonen’s lawyer, Stewart Riley, said that his client gave the embassy officials a statement only after he was issued a so-called Garrity warning — a threat that he might lose his job if he did not talk, but that he would be granted immunity from prosecution for anything he said.


The legal warning and protection given to Mr. Moonen were similar to warnings that embassy officials later gave to Blackwater guards involved in the Nisour Square case. In each case, the agreements presented an obstacle to prosecution in the United States. In effect, the Blackwater personnel were given a form of immunity from prosecution by the people they were working for and helping to protect."

Now, government officials claim that they all aren't idiots who can't collect evidence under difficult situations, they just chose to be ineffective in the cases that involve good Christian warriors. They claim that they successfully have prosecuted over 120 cases of fraud and similar charges against companies owned by Iraqis and Afghans. It looks like the head of Blackwater can move back to the US, and bring his family back from Dubai, which pretty much shows that he values making money over living his good Christian values. In Mr Moonen's case, none of the victim's family agreed to testify in US court because they were happy with the financial pay-off that Blackwater gave them, proving that money talks no matter what language you speak... So, we will only see prosecutions in our country where a foreign Muslim tries to kill our soldiers or citizens, but let the brutality that war unleashes in our own hearts go free...

I don't know if you would consider this sexist or highly manipulative, but it certainly is creepy and totally wrong. The Mexican town of Praxeids G Guerrero, one of the most dangerous towns close to the US border, near El Paso in Texas. has appointed a 20 year old woman and mother of an infant son, as the new police chief. More than 7000 people have died in this area since 2008 because there are: "Two rival gangs - the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels - fighting for control of Praxeids, whose single highway is on a drugs smuggling route into Texas." Either the Mexican government has given up the fight and is offering her up as fodder, or maybe the drug cartels won't kill a young mother with infant - the Madonna ploy - or else this woman is the genius that the mayor says she is and has ideas that might work. God knows the drug wars have been such a fiasco. I wonder if they would be just as vicious if the US actually tried to eradicate the drug cartels in the US. We would have national bank failures because the large banks and investment companies would no longer have drug money to launder, estimated to be 1/3 of our economy...