Justice Dept.: Blackwater Contractor Saw Killing Iraqis as 9/11 Payback

By GottaLaff

Here's a little refresher course I call Blackwater for Dummeez. Check it out (it also includes Jeremy Scahill's excellent reporting), and then you'll have some context for this:

These allegations are contained in court records [PDF] filed on Monday by Justice Department lawyers prosecuting five Blackwater contractors for the September 2007 shooting frenzy in Baghdad's Nisour Square that killed 14 Iraqis and wounded 20 others. [...]

According to the court filing:

In addition to verbal expressions of hatred towards Iraqi civilians, the defendants engaged in unprovoked and aggressive behavior toward unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. In so doing, the defendants routinely acted in disregard of the use of force policies that they were required to follow as a condition of their employment as Blackwater guards.

...

This evidence tends to establish that the defendants fired at innocent Iraqis not because they actually believed that they were in imminent danger of serious bodily injury and actually believed that they had no alternative to the use of deadly force, but rather that they fired at innocent Iraqi civilians because of their hostility toward Iraqis and their grave indifference to the harm that their actions would cause.

The prosectors maintain that one of the defendants, Nicholas Slatten, believed that by killing Iraqis he was avenging the 9/11 attacks:

During the twelve months proceeding the events charged in the indictment, while assigned to the Raven 23 convoy operating at various locations in the Red Zone in Baghdad, Iraq, defendant Nicholas Slatten made statements that he wanted to kill as many Iraqis as he could as “payback for 9/11,” and he repeatedly boasted about the number of Iraqis he had shot.

Prosecutors also say that in the year leading up to Nisour Square, Slatten "deliberately fired his weapon to draw out return fire and instigate gun battles." [...]

This anonmyous ex-employee also alleges:

Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince's executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to "lay Hajiis out on cardboard." Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince's employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as "ragheads" or "hajiis."

There now, aren't these the kind of stellar warriors you'd want guarding your family members and representing your country?

Blackwater, as well as these animals, are who the BushCo and the ObamAdministration have chosen to do business with, and with whom our State Department has recently renewed contracts.

One word: Unacceptable.

Bill O’Reilly To Address Critics Tonight Over Murder Of Doctor

There will be much building of strawmen and subsequent destruction of same... There's an awful lot of "facts" for him to ignore though. Via Greg-

Bill O’Reilly — who’s taking a beating for the jihad he’s waged against George Tiller, the doctor who performed late-term abortions and was gunned down yesterday — will address the killing and the criticism directed at him on his show tonight, a Fox spokesperson confirms to me.

O’Reilly has attacked Tiller in dozens of episodes, frequently referring to him as “Tiller the Baby Killer,” Salon reports. After the news spread of Tiller’s murder yesterday, multiple critics fingered O’Reilly for fomenting a hate campaign against him.

I asked Fox spokesperson Richard White if O’Reilly had a response to the criticism. “Mr. O’Reilly will be addressing the issue/topic on tonight’s show,” White answered.

Internal FDA Doc Reveals Agency Stopped Enforcing Safety Standards

By GottaLaff

Fraudulent wars in other countries aren't the only things that kill people. Under Bush, American lives were also put at risk due to irresponsible lack of oversight right here at home:

Since 2006, the Food and Drug Administration has ignored its own internal regulation and stopped requiring manufacturers of medical devices – such as pacemakers, heart valves and other life-sustaining inventions – to meet specific safety requirements before they are deemed safe enough to be implanted in humans.

As the Project on Government Oversight reveals in a special report today based on internal FDA document obtained by POGO, senior officials within the FDA made this decision without public notice. Manufacturers have been trusted to monitor themselves ever since.

The problem is particularly alarming because last year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that patients harmed by these devices have no right to sue the manufacturers, if the device was approved by the FDA.

Talk about having our hands tied... Is there a remedy? I mean other than wishing BushCo into the corn field.

Congress could [...] boost funding for the FDA and require it to enforce those laboratory safety standards the agency effectively discarded. Second, it could pass the Medical Device Safety Act of 2008, which would nullify the Supreme Court’s decision in Riegel v. Medtronic last year and restore the rights of patients injured by medical devices to sue the companies that made them — restoring a critical incentive for manufacturers to ensure the safey of their own products.

But all of that will take time. And many, many people don't have that luxury.

Peanut Company CEO Refuses to Eat His Own Product

I would have paid good money to see someone shove one of those down his throat. I can't comment anymore because there are too many cuss words.