Blackwater Connections

You all know how the fine people of Potrero defeated Blackwater in their attempt to establish a mercenary/police training camp in San Diego's back country, right?

Of course that was just another battle, now they have a new one, an indoor shooting gallery in Otay Mesa. This time they don't have an outraged community, environmentalists, and Native Americans to contend with, just the usual suspects of liberals and Democrats like Bob Filner and Raymond Lutz.

Filner: "This is a very sensitive area when it comes to human and civil rights. We don't need people who have no regard for human and civil rights to be part of that enforcement. It's dangerous, literally, to the lives of my constituents."

People who don't think that a corrupt, irresponsible, and unaccountable corporation enriched by the blood money of the Bush Administration and their illegal war in Iraq should be training our military, or using their position in an effort to privitize border security.

But that is their goal, and has been for a while. But what makes this even more interesting, is that in the process of keeping under the radar for this indoor training center, using front companies (that's one heckuva web site there, Shoaib) and the like, some strange and troubling connections are emerging.

It would appear that Blackwater is in bed with some folks from Pakistan, our great ally in the great war on terror, or not. Gopper loving Pakistani's who also operate in Saudi Arabia with our good friends the 16 out of 19 hijackers (maybe) Saudi's. Isn't that a great combination, the terrorist progenitor Saudi's and the Obama sheltering, A-Bomb exporting Pakistani's?

So there will be more to see here as this newest battle unfolds. Blackwater wants a piece of the border action. There's money to be made, oversight is limited, Boeing made $20 million(?) for off the shelf crap that didn't work, and Iraq/Afghanistan will give them plenty of practice and an opportunity to work out any bugs in their operation. Look at the specifics in that Army contract.

Blackwater has airships, Brown Field is an Airfield, and the contract tasks are perfectly suited to Blackwater.

A third "sample" task order requires the contractor to develop a program to train border police in Afghanistan to guard crossings, prevent the flow of contraband, and search people and vehicles...

As the work statement in the request noted: "Due to the rapid adaptability of the counter-narcoterrorist threat, special federal government spending authorities are available

They're going to fight for this one tooth and nail, a lot harder than they did in Potrero because this is too much up their alley, and given their corruption, could be profitable beyond belief. If the CIA could start the crack cocaine epidemic in the US to support Ronald Reagan's precious Contra's, what would Blackwater do just for money?

Border Security

It seems like just yesterday that Bush was telling us how he was going to make us safe and secure like 2 year olds nestled in their mothers busom, by building us a fence to keep all those terrorists that keep snaking over our southern border, you know, those scary folks that wash our dishes and pick our lettuce and clean our motel rooms and all of the other things they do that don't involve unimagined Saudi Arabians flying jetliners into buildings. [My bolds throughout.]

Why, just last week, DHS Chief Brownie, er Michael Chertoff, said "I have personally witnessed the value of this system, refering to Boeings $20 million boondoggle of a virtual fence.

Boondoggle I say?

Boondoggle indeed. Note the dates on these articles. 2/22/08 and 2/28/08. You go from A high-tech "virtual fence" on part of the U.S. border with Mexico is finally ready for service and the technology can fight illegal crossings all along the frontier, the Homeland Security chief said, to The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from linked, tower-mounted sensors and communications and surveillance gear, [DHS] officials said yesterday.

That's got to be some kind of record for incompetence, just in the time frame. But it gets better. The physical part of the 700 mile fence BushCo wants to hack across our southern border is going to cost $4 million a mile, but, "The total cost is not yet known," said Richard M. Stana, the GAO's director of homeland security and justice issues, told members of the subcommittee, because DHS officials "do not yet know the type of terrain where the fencing is to be constructed, the materials to be used, or the cost to acquire the land."

They don't know the type of terrain? Terrain? What they're going to use to build the fence, and how much the land will cost? I'm simply not astonished, I picture one of Rummy's 20 something running this project too, after their successes in Iraq.

This article leaves me with many questions, and amply demonstrates the need to remove the Republicans from control of the government. This was just another politicized operation run by political hacks, cronies, and "operatives" from the cesspool of Karl Roves world, a photo op PR campaign to justify the $7.6 Billion they planned to give to their corporate sponsors, while showering us and the media with their yet another heckuva job handjob.

This pretty well encapsulates what voting for republicans in general, and Bush in particular, has given us.

He added that the system was developed with "minimal input" from Border Patrol agents, resulting in an unworkable "demonstration project" instead of a operating pilot system. He blamed the DHS for acting too hastily in trying to deliver a working pilot by last June.
...

A nongovernment source familiar with the project said that the Bush administration's push to speed the project during last year's immigration debate led Boeing to deploy equipment without enough testing or consultation.
...

Those running the project "basically took equipment, [an erector set], put it on towers and put it out there without any testing as such" because of the tight deadline.

Feel safe yet?

Immigration, Some Deal

Just pretend that you, dear readers, are told that you can keep your job, that doesn't pay all that great and has no real advancement opportunity, but you'll have to pay "the man" 8 grand in fees and fines, and you have to leave the job after 2 years and sit out for a year before you can go back to work.

But the incentive is that you'll get to vote against the GOP 5, 10, or more, years down the line, get to pay income tax, and so on.

Never mind any of the other provisions in the bill, tell me how that part of it is going to work?

Because immigrants and illegals aren't here to get citizenship, they're here to work, because their own countries are so fucked up they can't get decent jobs there.

Whatever your feelings about illegal immigration, and the Democrats misread the anger a lot of people have towards illegal immigrants, its real and very palpable, I know, I'm living and working in the middle of it, until the problems that drive these people to look for work here are addressed, no ridiculously convoluted immigration bill is going to work. Enforcing laws on the employers isn't going to fix it, building bigger fences isn't going to fix it. Getting Mexico to get their shit together and create decent jobs and opportunities there, will fix it to a large part.

Until then, I expect to see Democrats get beat up over championing decency and fair treatment for illegal workers in this country ad nauseum.

Bush Shows Ethics Allegiances

As per this San Diego UT article it would appear that US DA Carol Lam, no friend of mine thanks to her pointless and heartless prosecutions of Medical Marijauna growers and distributors, is getting shown the door, a somewhat unusual move given there are no suggestions or charges of corruption or incompetence involved.

Two reasons come to mind, she isn't sufficiently anti-immigrant for the likes of Darrell Issa, and she prosecuted Randy Cunningham, and has shown a tendency to prosecute white collar criminals over low level smugglers.

The Bush administration has quietly asked San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, best known for her high-profile prosecutions of politicians and corporate executives, to resign her post, a law enforcement official said....

When she took over, Lam made it clear that she planned to focus less on low-level smuggling cases in favor of public corruption and white collar crime, which would mean fewer but more significant prosecutions.

There may be valid reasons, but given that it's the Bush White House making this move, what are the chances? It's always, and I mean always, politics with that crew, and this smells no differently.

I suspect that Bush and Co is working beneath the radar, across the country, to shore up another line of defense to protect their criminal conspiracy, because why else would they fire somebody who scored such a major victory against public corruption in the Cunningham case, a case that continues on, and don't be surprised if the case against Mitchell Wade and Brent Wilkes, and the related corruption cases pending against Virgil Goode and Katie Harris end with a whimper, not a bang.

But that's just me, the nasty suspicious sort that I am.

Reality Intrusion on Immigration Debate

I haven't been following the Swift packing plant raids, too busy working 2 jobs this holiday season, but we have our own immigration follies here in San Diego. Recall that the Escondido City Council passed an ordinance banning housing rentals to illegal imigrants, and making the landlords responsible for, essentially, the enforcement.

Well, the City Council has reversed itself because they couldn't, and in a bit of civic reasonableness, realized (I hope) that they shouldn't be carrying the burden for the Federal Government. So it's back to the drawing boards for Marie Waldron and the anti-immigrant groups to ban illegal immigration.

(Note this bit from the article, and a reader comment. See any similarities to anyone we know?)

The two don't always agree, [Gallo] said. But Waldron has earned his respect, in part, because she never wavers from her stance."She's not going to do things just because people want to hear it," Gallo said. "And in her mind, she's going to do what she thinks is right."

That's a Problem wrote on Oct 17, 2006 7:06 AM:"Gallo hit the nail on the head. Marie Waldron is "going to do what she what she thinks is right". That's a Problem. Council Members are here to do what the citizens of Escondido want. Council Members are here to represent the people and listen to the voices of the people. Noone was screaming about illegal immigration until she opened up the conversation because what she believes. ... . And now, we have a huge mess! Personally, I think she is full of herself."

Illegal immigration is a problem, but you can't fix it by locking up or deporting the illegals, that's just a bandaid, as is building a stupid Halliboondoggle fence for the benefit of KBR and Co (only bigger). We need something that addresses the fact that there's some 10 million people living and working illegally in this country, and no amount of prohibition is going to stop them from coming here and working here.

Digby has the straight dope on the Swift Raids here, as usual, I agree, it's not anything but fear mongering and lies and the usual cowardice by frightened elitists and wannabe's abusing other people for their own gain. Values party indeed.