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April 01, 2004

The Four "Civilian Contractors" Appear to Have Been Mercenaries

In yesterday's post, Iraq: The Secret Policeman's Other Ball, I added a bit at the end about the story that was just breaking, the death and mutilation of four "civilian contractors." In it, I insinuated that these civilians were in fact mercenaries. I felt I was being a bit mean-spirited making that speculation and hoped that I was wrong; but from the way the US military brass talked about them, it seemed the obvious conclusion.

In the comments, points me toward the emerging details that these "civilians" were employees of Blackwater USA. Recall from yesterday that Blackwater was the outfit that recruited Pinochet-era Chilean commandos for their contract work in Iraq. Knight Ridder also reports:

Blackwater Security was formed last year and is part of an 8-year-old security training company. Last August, the Army awarded Blackwater a $21.3 million no-bid contract for security guards and two helicopters for U.S. Iraq civilian administrator L. Paul Bremer, according to the inspector general's report. The company also provides security for food shipments in the Fallujah area.

Here is the primary image from the Blackwater web site.

First of all, L. Paul Bremer should resign; not because these guys got killed, but rather because he's filling Iraq with mercenaries. The fact that he needs to do that indicates that his is an extremely weak government on the brink of chaos. This growth industry cannot continue to grow without armed struggle and this course will never lead to a stable political situation in Iraq. And our mercenaries are not the only ones there. As the administration argued last August, Iraq is a magnet for "bad boys." Our mercenaries can shoot it out with their mercenaries until no one is left standing or until the owners of the private military companies feel they have enough yachts.

Secondly, the US media is being willfully obtuse about what those who dragged the charred bodies behind their cars wish to communicate. Very simply, they're saying Get your hired guns out of here! and Mercenaries: Keep Out.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 06:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 31, 2004

Food on the Go at Westorchard Elementary School

My next-door neighbor, Tracy Powell-Rudy, asks that I pass on the following announcement for those in the Chappaqua area:

As many of you know I have been involved with the Nutrition Committee in an effort to increase the healthy food choices available to our children at lunch. On THURSDAY, APRIL 15TH AT 7:30PM, our Middle School Nutrition Committee is hosting its' first parent nutrition event, "FOOD ON THE GO" at WESTORCHARD elementary school. Local restaurants and food stores have provided us with healthy samples for tasting as well!

THE ENTIRE PARENT POPULATION OF CHAPPAQUA IS INVITED TO ATTEND.

A large turnout at this event would show the administration that there is a wellspring of interest in healthy eating in the community and enable us to see permanent healthy changes made to our school cafeteria and vending fare.

If at all possible please attend this event and bring a friend. Please forward this to any Chappaqua parents you know and ask them to do the same!

And further to the subject of food, here is a salad dressing recipe I've been meaning to pass along. I've just begun to explore the nutitive possibilities of sweeteners, and thus have been exploring raw honey (full of trace nutrients and good enzymes), dark honey (rich in anti-oxidants), maple suger (also with good minerals), and blackstrap molasses.

I find it much easier to integrate honey into my day-to-day eating than molasses. And I found fewer recipes out there than I would have liked. Here's something I came up with that works really well:

MOLASSES LEMON SALAD DRESSING

1 part lemon juice
1 part black strap molasses
1 part almond or avocado oil

Mix with a fork until blended and pour over the salad.

Also, I enjoy a drink of good mineral water in a tall glass, mixed with a tablespoon of blackstrap molasses mixed in. Blackstrap molasses has a reputation for being bitter. But the brand I bought, Plantation, is not bitter.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 06:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Iraq: The Secret Policeman's Other Ball

In principle, the use of mercenaries has been banned since 1989 by the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, 4 December 1989, an additional protocol to the Geneva Convention. Nineteen countries have ratified the Convention: Azerbaijan, Barbados, Belarus, Cameroon, Cyprus, Georgia, Italy, Maldives, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Suriname, Togo, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan. An additional nine have signed but have yet to ratify the Convention: Angola, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Germany, Morocco, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. The US and UK, each with a huge private military industry, are notable for their absence as signatories.

We should ask John Kerry to commit in favor of the US signing this convention.


I started this post -- concerning the role of private military companies and mercenaries in Iraq yesterday. But I was so shocked at what I was finding that I had to sleep on it before I could continue.

The Economist calls the phenomenon The Baghdad Boom:

British companies have been grousing about losing out to the Americans in Iraq. But in one area, British companies excel: security

The sight of a mob of Iraqi stone-throwers attacking the gates to the Basra palace where the coalition has its southern headquarters is no surprise. What's odd is the identity of the uniformed men holding them off. The single Briton prodding his six Fijians to stand their ground are not British army soldiers but employees of Global Risk Strategies, a London-based security company.

Private military companies ( PMC s)—mercenaries, in oldspeak—manning the occupation administration's front lines are now the third-largest contributor to the war effort after the United States and Britain. British ones are popular, largely because of the reputation of the Special Air Service (SAS) regiment whose ex-employees run and man many of the companies. They maintain they have twice as many men on the ground as their American counterparts. According to David Claridge, managing director of Janusian, a London-based security firm, Iraq has boosted British military companies' revenues from £200m ($320m) before the war to over £1 billion, making security by far Britain's most lucrative post-war export to Iraq.

The best pieces I found were a must-read story from The Independent, By Robert Fisk in Baghdad and Severin Carrell in London: Occupiers spend millions on private army of security men ( which also appeared from The Star in South Africa as Security firms and mercenaries coining it in Iraq) and Britain's secret army in Iraq: thousands of armed security men who answer to nobody

An army of thousands of mercenaries has appeared in Iraq's major cities, many of them former British and American soldiers hired by the occupying Anglo-American authorities and by dozens of companies who fear for the lives of their employees.

Many of the armed Britons are former SAS soldiers and heavily armed South Africans are also working for the occupation. "My people know how to use weapons and they're all SAS," said the British leader of one security team in southern Baghdad. "But there are people running around with guns now who are just cowboys. We always conceal our weapons, but these guys think they're in a Hollywood film."

There are serious doubts even within the occupying power about America's choice to send Chilean mercenaries, many trained during General Pinochet's vicious dictatorship, to guard Baghdad airport. Many South Africans are in Iraq illegally - they are breaking new laws, passed by the government in Pretoria, to control South Africa's booming export of mercenaries. Many have been arrested on their return home because they are do not have the licence now required by private soldiers.

Casualties among the mercenaries are not included in the regular body count put out by the occupation authorities, which may account for the persistent suspicion among Iraqis that the US is underestimating its figures of military dead and wounded. Some British experts claim that private policing is now the UK's biggest export to Iraq - a growth fueled by the surge in bomb attacks on coalition forces, aid agencies and UN buildings since the official end of the war in May last year.

Many companies operate from villas in middle-class areas of Baghdad with no name on the door. Some security men claim they can earn more than £80,000 a year; but short-term, high-risk mercenary work can bring much higher rewards. Security personnel working a seven-day contract in cities like Fallujah, can make $1,000 a day.

They also mention ArmorGroup:

Another British-owned company, ArmorGroup has an £876,000 contract to supply 20 security guards for the Foreign Office. That figure will rise by 50 per cent in July. The firm also employs about 500 Gurkhas to guard executives with the US firms Bechtel and Kellogg Brown & Root.

Check out this nice bit from an Armor press release:

While Armor's products division is tied to law enforcement, its security division -- ArmorGroup Services -- is more closely allied with the world of espionage.

That's why it is useful to have former KGB members such as Mikhail Golovatov, former head of the Alpha Group -- the KGB's counter-mafia and counter-terrorism unit -- on the Armor payroll in Russia.
also
"I'm very happy with the progress Armor is making and what the company is doing with its business mix. That should show up in its numbers in the next nine months to a year," he said.

Armor executives, meanwhile, say recession or an economic downturn shouldn't hold the company back. In fact, Latin America's economic doldrums are carving out new business possibilities for Armor, and in the near future it plans to open a Miami office to run its Latin American operations.

"Multinational companies always tend to have money to spend to protect their physical and personal assets," Spiller said. "Our business can only get better as people become more aware of the risks."

(Robert Fisk also did a brilliant write-up of the one-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war; not to be missed!)

In The Herald in Scotland, Ian Bruce, Defence Correspondent reports that security/mercenary services are now the UK's most profitable export: SAS veterans among the bulldogs of war cashing in on boom

British mercenary firms have made an estimated £800m from providing private armies for security duties in post-Saddam Iraq, and now qualify as the UK's most lucrative export earner from the country in the past year. Armed mercenaries being paid out of government or corporate funds outnumber the Army's 8800-strong garrison in the country by "at least a factor of two", according to concerned military sources. Senior sources also say there are more ex-SAS soldiers acting as advisers for "private military companies" than currently serving in the elite, 300-man regiment based near Hereford.

SFGate.com: Global security firms fill in as private armies
15,000 agents patrol violent streets of Iraq

Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, March 28, 2004

A group of American construction executives was traveling in a convoy down a palm-lined highway 30 miles north of Baghdad one January day when gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades suddenly exploded everywhere.

Private security agents riding with the convoy fought off the attackers in a hail of gunfire. Two of the agents died, as did an unknown number of guerrillas.

The bloodshed was not publicly reported at the time, and the agents' employer, the Steele Foundation of San Francisco, drew a cloak of discreet silence over the incident to protect its clients' identity.

The shootout was just one more example of the behind-the-scenes role played in Iraq by an estimated 15,000 private security agents from the United States, Britain and countries as varied as Nepal, Chile, Ukraine, Israel, South Africa and Fiji. They are employed by about 25 different firms that are playing their part in Iraq's highly dangerous postwar environment by performing tasks ranging from training the country's new police and army to protecting government leaders to providing logistics for the U.S. military.

"The rate of growth in the security industry is phenomenal," said Deborah Avant, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "If you had asked a year ago whether there would be 15,000 private security in Iraq, everyone would have said you're nuts. It has moved very quickly over the past decade, but Iraq has escalated it dramatically."

The boom in Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg for the $100 billion-a- year industry, which experts say has been the fastest-growing sector of the global economy during the past decade. From oil companies in the African hinterland to heads of state in Haiti and Afghanistan to international aid agencies in hotspots around the world, the difference between life and death is decided by private guns for hire.

Meanwhile, Blackwater USA is hiring Chilean guys who trained under Pinochet to help us out in Iraq: US contractor recruits guards for Iraq in Chile

"We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals - the Chilean commandos are very, very professional and they fit within the Blackwater system," he said.

Chile was the only Latin American country where his firm had hired commandos for Iraq. He estimated that "about 95%" of his work came from government contracts and said his business was booming.

"We have grown 300% over each of the past three years and we are small compared to the big ones.

"We have a very small niche market, we work towards putting out the cream of the crop, the best."

The privatisation of security in Iraq is growing as the US seeks to reduce its commitment of troops.

Lisa Ashkenaz Croke wrting for the Yellowtimes.com elaborates: Mercenaries Hired to Keep Order in Iraq

USA Blackwater isn't the only security firm hiring ex-military of disturbing origin. Last month, The Forward's Marc Perelman reported that contractor Erinys International utilized "former henchman of South Africa's apartheid regime" to guard oil facilities and train new Iraqi police.

"François Strydom, who was killed in the January 28 bombing of a hotel in Baghdad, was a former member of the Koevoet, a notoriously brutal counterinsurgency arm of the South African military that operated in Namibia during the neighboring state’s fight for independence in the 1980s. His colleague Deon Gouws, who was injured in the attack, is a former officer of the Vlakplaas, a secret police unit in South Africa," wrote Perelman.

Who would have thought that Iraq needed to import torturers!

From IRINNews.com, (the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) SOUTH AFRICA: Authorities target alleged mercenaries

Military analyst Henri Boshoff, of the Institute for Security Studies, told IRIN reports that up to 1,500 South Africans could be operating in Iraq were "speculation - 1,500 is a lot of people and I'm sure [South African] customs would have picked it up".

A discussion of the reaction of some governments is provided by Bill Berkowitz, writing for Alternet: Mercenaries 'R' Us

The recruitment of its citizens, however, isn't making either the Chilean or the South African governments happy. The Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act prohibits South African citizens from direct participation as a combatant in armed conflict for private gain. Michelle Bachelet, Chile's defense minister, has ordered an investigation into whether such recruitment is legal under Chilean laws. Bachelet also was troubled by stories that soldiers on active duty are leaving the company to sign up as mercenaries.

It is also only a matter of time before U.S. soldiers grow unhappy with the presence of mercenaries in their midst. The high salaries and shorter terms of employment offered to mercenaries will inevitably make a serious dent on the military's budget. As Blackwater's Jackson acknowledged in the Guardian, "If they are going to outsource tasks that were once held by active-duty military and are now using private contractors, those guys [on active duty] are looking and asking, 'Where is the money?'"

This last question seems to be very much in the minds of the new Iraqi security forces the U. S. trains, half of whom leave over issues of pay.

... and from the Washington Times: Use of private security firms in Iraq draws concerns

"This is a very touchy issue," said a high-level coalition military official who opposes expanded use of private soldiers in Iraq. "There's a lot of pressure to use these contractors. Some oppose it. Some support it."

Some soldiers said privately that the soldiers-for-hire walk around with their weapons in full view as if they belong to a coalition army. They worry that the private-sector soldiers might not be constrained by the same rules of engagement and that any rogues among them who kill or hurt Iraqis could bring reprisals on all foreign forces.

"What are the rules of engagement [for the PMCs]?" asked one coalition military official in Baghdad. "Are they civilians or are they military? I don't know who they are, and I don't want to go anywhere near them."

The Coalition Provisional Authority did not respond to several formal requests for information about private military activities in Iraq. The coalition military commander in Iraq, U.S. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, responding to a question at a press conference several weeks ago, said he did not know of any plans to use contractors to perform security functions for the military.

On the ground, however, the private soldiers are occasionally finding themselves in firefights with Iraqis.

Richard Galustian of Pilgrims, a contractor that provides security for many Western media outlets, described one incident in which his firm's security officials opened fire on a group of suspected bandits along the road from Baghdad to the Jordanian border. "Certainly at least one or two people were hit," he said.

A former Special Forces member now in Baghdad said military contractors guarding ministries on behalf of coalition authorities have killed Iraqis who were trying to loot or attack the buildings.

"It's Iraq," he said. "You're accountable to nobody. But I guess ultimately you're accountable to the U.S. military for what happens."

MEANWHILE, Forbes, "The Capitalist Tool," in an article on the upcoming Baghdad Trade Fair, reports tepid interest in investing in Baghdad:

Although subcontracts are on offer in Iraq, few foreign companies have chosen to set up in the country as instability continues and facilities such as hotels come under attack.

A U.S. engineering executive doing business in the Gulf said his company has been offered subcontracts in Iraq but turned them down.

"Nobody is exactly rushing to go into Iraq," the executive said.

Who needs trade anyway when war for war's sake is making such a profit?

And what will we do for Bad Guys when they've all gotten jobs in Iraq? Will a Bad Guy just be a thug with out a job?

Seriously, the US and the UK are squandering two hundred years of emergent citizenship, patriotism, and respect for the nation-state for political expediency and the financial gain of their mercenary and oil industries. The mercenary situation is way out of control.

All this reminds me of the rhetoric last summer about how Iraq would be a "magnet" for terrorists. Here's Peter Bergen, CNN's analyst, towing the party line:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Iraq is becoming a major "magnet" for al Qaeda terrorists, who now pose more of a threat than remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, two analysts said Tuesday after a truck bomb killed 17 at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

"A half-dozen U.S. officials who investigate or analyze al Qaeda ... say that Iraq has become an important battleground for al Qaeda in the past several months," CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen said.

"The officials use words such as 'magnet' and 'super magnet' to describe the attraction that Iraq has for al Qaeda and other 'jihadists,' " said Bergen, author of "Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden."

James Rubin, a former U.S. deputy secretary of state, agreed that the terrorism milieu in Iraq has changed, pointing to increased attacks against civilian targets and fewer large-scale attacks against U.S. soldiers.

"It is my suspicion that the types of attacks in Iraq are either backed or funded by Islamic extremists."

They are coming from other countries and "see it as a rich place to conduct their bloody business," he said.


I'm having one of those experiences when I discover that the world as it actually is is very different from my conception of it. I want my worldview back.

And just in case military contractors feel they need another house or plane, the GOP is surveying its members about where we go from here (AP):

A voter survey tied to a Republican effort to raise money for House candidates mislabels Thailand and the Philippines as countries that "harbor and aid terrorists," say officials from both governments.

A question on the National Republican Congressional Committee's "Ask America 2004 Nationwide Policy Survey" asks: "Should America broaden the war on terrorism into other countries that harbor and aid terrorists such as Thailand, Syria, Somalia, the Philippines, etc.?"

Accompanying the NRCC survey, which also poses questions about health care, the economy and other issues, was a four-page letter signed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., that seeks money to help "keep the Republican Party in control of the U.S. House."

Finally, I'm shaking my head over the story of the "4 American civilian contractors" killed today in Iraq. Here's the best paragraph from the Washington Post version:

[Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military's deputy director of operations] added that "the contractors stand side by side with the Iraqi security forces, side by side with the coalition forces. Every time they go out, they know they're taking risk; and they're willing to take that risk for many, many reasons, one of which, they understand that they're part of this process of bringing this country a future that they have not had for 35 years."

I don't dare hope that any reporter will be astute enough to ask directly if they worked for any of the myrid PMCs.

RIDDLE: When is a civilian contractor not a civilian? And when is a dead civilian contractor not a civilian casualty?

AND MEANWHILE: There ahve been coup attempts in Congo (link via African Oil Politics) and Sudan (both links by subscription).

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 01:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 27, 2004

Those in power are rarely accused of paranoia

Gary Farber, an old friend, has been all over me in the last day or so with accusations of paranoia. If he weren't a friend, I would probably just ignore him. But since he is, my goat has been gotten.

So I've decided to address the issue directly: Are my perceptions skewed by an underlying paranoia?

I don't use car alarms, burglar alarms, hotel safes, chains on doors, window bars (except child safety bars on higher floors) or extra lock on windows and doors. I regard police officers I encounter in my daily life as friendly, helpful members of the community. I have never had the sensation that I was being followed or suspected that my phone was being tapped. I am not concerned that I will get the hot disease of the month (a good grasp of statistics is useful in this regard). I rarely consider the possibility that someone might break into my house when I'm out of town. I don't use peepholes to peek out before opening doors. I lock my car doors only when necessary. I don't encrypt my email. I don't buy precious metals as a hedge against a coming currency collapse.

I do use a wide variety of child safety equipment. There is a certain amount of paranoia expected of mothers in currently accepted parenting practice. My attitudes and behaviors are within current practice and are not extreme. (In the childcare discussions a while back, some accused me in the comments of not being concerned enough about one thing or another.)

In general, I trust people unless I have some reason not to.

I find it particularly puzzling that in a post about the evident connection between the defunct South African mercenary firm Executive Outcomes (whose former activities are now banned by South African law) and Northbridge Services should draw accusations of paranoia when I remarked that I found it creepy that Northbridge, a mercenary company, would also offer "humanitarian services." I was somehow interpreted to mean that I thought those offering humanitarian services needed no protection, which is not what I said. Rather, I cannot believe that anyone would in good faith hire Northbridge for that purpose with the pure intention of protecting humanitarian service workers and their aid supplies. And it is my general feeling that privatizing police and military power is deeply suspect and is prone to abuse with serious consequences to human rights and our democratic institutions. This is not paranoia; it's common sense.

I would also point out that my post preceded press speculations that Northbridge is behind the N4610 Rent-a-Coup.

There is a broader issue involving accusations of paranoia. Those in power are rarely accused of paranoia even if they see weapons of mass destruction where there are none or feel the need to hire paramilitaries to provide campaign security.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 09:51 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

March 26, 2004

More on ICFA

The weather here at the ICFA yesterday was not great: a high wind advisory followed by rain. (It was nicer in the evening.) I'm sure that this lead to better attendance at the paper sessions.

One might expect that since I'm one of the editors of the New York Review of Science Fiction, I might be attending papers. But no. Since I have no childcare to speak of and David is tremendously busy, I hang out by te pool with the kids, take them places (Monkey Jungle, Butterfly World, the beach, etc.). After six years of this, I'm used to it. Also, it's not as if I'm starved for academic papers about sf, fantasy , & the fantastic in my daily life.

Other bloggers sighted yesterday: Cheryl Morgan, Kevin Maroney, and Arthur Hlavaty (and Graham Sleight, mentioned yesterday).

I think I know who Cheryl was talking to after I went to bed. This sounds like David.

(I noticed a few minutes after finishing this post that I had posted while a panel entitled "The Year in Speculative Fiction" was beginning. Needless to say, I didn't go.)

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 10:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tayloring the Plot

I’ve been watching the stories of alternate explanations of what the N4610 mercenaries were up to. The most prominent of them suggests that the mercenaries were just out to bring Charles Taylor to justice. Apparently, the families are the source of the story that the men weren’t trying to stage a coup in Equatorial Guinea but only trying to capture fugitive Charles Taylor:

Charles Taylor may have been 'mercenaries' target

A saga of claim and counterclaim surrounding suspected African mercenaries continued today when the men’s families disclosed that they had been on a mission to abduct Charles Taylor, Liberia’s former warlord-turned-president.

The men, detained in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea, face possible death penalties, having been charged with planning to overthrow the president of the tiny West African

Seventy suspects have been remanded in custody at Zimbabwe’s top security prison. Fifteen others are incarcerated in Equatorial Guinea, accused of accepting an offer from exiled opposition leaders of $1.8 million (£1m) and oil rights to overthrow the Government.

However, family and friends told South African newspapers today that the men were simply planning to use Guinea as a staging post on a mission to capture Mr. Taylor.

He carries a $2 million (£1.1m) bounty to be paid by America on delivery to the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.

So, let me get this straight: The families admit that those arrested in connection with N4610 in Zimbabwe and those arrested in Equatorial Guinea were working together and that N4610 was headed for Equatorial Guinea? Yes?

(I haven’t yet been able to determine whether the families also claim that the mission was associated with the mercenary firm Northbridge Services Group -- this seems to be fairly logical speculation on the part of a reporter.)

I don’t know why this story is getting such uncritical media coverage: It is obvious to me that this is a maneuver aimed toward getting the mercenaries off on the charges most likely to involve the death penalty.

UPDATE: The Australian has a good write-up on the mercenaries, Dogs of war walk into carefully set trap, with the general thesis that the South African government, aware of the plot, gave the mercenaries the proverbial sufficiency of rope, setting them up to be arrested and jailed. Along the way, the piece places the Charles Taylor bounty-hunting as the secondary mission of the group, to be undertaken after the EQ coup. This makes a lot of sense to me.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 08:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 25, 2004

ICFA So Far

I had a nice, quiet dinner with Graham Sleight and Patrick O'Leary at an Indian resaurant last night.

It's cloudy and windy here in Ft. Lauderdale this morning. I'm hoping the weather improves. David's off getting his picture taken by Beth Gwinn for LOCUS.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 10:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 24, 2004

Vance Security Deployed by Bush-Cheney 04

Given my recent contemplation of mercenaries, a link in Patrick Nielsen Hayden's sidebar caught my eye: The G.O.P.: Now with added paramilitary wing! which takes us to a post by DHinMI on dailyKos. It concerns a Bush-Cheney campaign expenditure for "PERSONNEL SERVICES / EQUIPMENT" in the amount of $185,337.33 from "VANCE INTERNATIONAL, SUITE 210 10467 WHITE GRANITE DR, ROANOKE, Virginia 22124." The firm is best known for its strikebreaking services.

DHinMI wonders what legitimate use the Bush campaign might have "for a firm that specializes in high-tech surveillance, personal investigations, and paramilitary protection?"

Looking over the Vance web site, I was looking hard to try to determine whether they are strictly into security, or whether they offer mercenary services, too. Covert Action Quarterly answers my question: it has a write-up on Vance as part of an article by Mike Zielinski, Private Police: Armed and Dangerous:

One of the most active strike-breaking firms is Vance Security, founded by Charles Vance, ex-son-in-law of ex-President Gerald Ford. Vance's agents were deployed against striking Greyhound drivers in the late 1980s and served as shock troops for the Pittston Coal Group, Inc. in its protracted and bitter battle with the United Mine Workers.

Vance runs a rent-a-mercenary operation which recruits through ads in Soldier of Fortune and offers its agents training in the use of firearms, Mace, and riot batons. An ad in the 1986 Gung-Ho Yearbook, a paramilitary magazine, was aimed at those of you who have military backgrounds who are interested in $100-a-day, all-expenses-paid work. The company offered a refresher course in the use of firearms should things get completely out of hand.

The Asset Protection Team, a Vance subsidiary, runs an ad which features a jack-booted security agent equipped with a riot shield, club and helmet. A brochure guarantees guards will arrive with all the personal equipment necessary to handle all levels of violence.

These firms' stock in trade is the creation of a threatening atmosphere for union supporters. During a dispute between Caterpillar, Inc. and the United Auto Workers in 1992, Vance Security transformed the company's plant into a war zone, placing barbed wire around the grounds. Striking steel workers at an Alcoa plant in Tennessee were subjected to constant surveillance with video cameras, while gun-toting agents were stationed on the tops of buildings and ground-level security brandished riot shields and tear gas canisters. Vance guards followed union members after they left picket lines.

Union organizers view these tactics as a form of psychological warfare. According to John Duray of the United Mine Workers, private guards act as provocateurs, attempting to incite a violent response from strikers. Duray says that security firms create a violent situation, then record it, and take the film to court. Employers then seek a legal injunction against the union.

The most current case of union-busting security guards is unfolding in Detroit this summer. Members of the Newspaper Guild and the Teamsters are on strike at the city's two daily newspapers, the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, owned by Knight-Ridder and media giant Gannett, respectively. In mid-July, agents from Vance Security attacked four strikers, sending three of them to a hospital emergency room. Local police confiscated four armloads of wooden clubs from security guards employed by the newspapers.

So, um, yes, Vance is partly a mercenary operation. Also, Vance has offices in many parts of the world so, for example, it could be retained to assist the campaign by undermining unsympathetic foreign heads of state.

The most likely reason Vance has been retained is to provide security for the self-important and paranoid among those in the campaign not entitled to Secret Service protection, but indeed, as DHinMI points out, this expenditure is something Bush-Cheney in 04 really needs be asked to explain.

UPDATE: I've looked into the FEC filings further and found more payments to Vance. They bring the total paid to Vance to above the half-million mark. My preliminary thought is that Vance seems to submit monthly bills. If that is so, judging by what I've come up with, Bush-Cheney is not paying Vance mere hundreds of thousands of dollars, but rather millions, which would afford Bush-Cheney considerably more in the way of services. From Bush-Cheney's SCHEDULE B, ITEMIZED DISBURSEMENTS, All Listed Line Numbers 2003 year end filing, p. 4 of 9:

VANCE INTERNATIONAL SUITE 210 10467 WHITE GRANITE DR
ROANOKE, Virginia 22124
11/25/2003
PERSONNEL / EQUIPMENT 124262.60

VANCE INTERNATIONAL
SUITE 210 10467 WHITE GRANITE DR
ROANOKE, Virginia 22124
12/16/2003
PERSONNEL / EQUIPMENT 63928.33

VANCE INTERNATIONAL
SUITE 210 10467 WHITE GRANITE DR
ROANOKE, Virginia 22124
10/20/2003
PERSONNEL / EQUIPMENT 150553.31

I doubt that they need $500,000 plus security for people not eligible for Secret Service protection. This is really interesting!

FURTHER UPDATE: DHinMI is on the case: More Money To Vance

Yesterday I posted that Vance International, a firm that specializes in, among other things, Secret Service-like personal protection, surveillance, and corporate security during labor disputes, had received almost $200,000 from the Bush-Cheney campaign committee.  I was wrong.  Since July, Bush-Cheney Inc. has paid Vance International and one of its subsidiaries approximately $750,000.  Should they continue at their current rate, by election day the Bush campaign will have paid over $1.5 million to a firm known for high-tech security and surveillance and low-tech picket line thuggery.

Since September 15th, Bush-Cheney Inc. has made 15 payments totaling $626,727.90 to Vance International for "equipment/personnel services."  (Citations can be found below.)  Prior to that, between July 11th, 2003 and August 26th, 2003, the campaign made 7 payments totaling $122,421.78 to Vance Uniformed Protection, a subsidiary of Vance International.  The Bush HQ in Arlington VA occupies several floors of an office building, and upscale office buildings such as this one typically provide security for their tenants.  It's not unreasonable to accept that the Bush campaign would want to have additional security of its own on the floors it occupies, but that requires a far smaller presence than securing an entire building, parking lots, and the surrounding area.  So again, it's hard to imagine that the campaign has standard office security needs that cost $1,500,000.00 per year.

MEANWHILE, Amnesty International expresses concern for the Rent-a-Coup mercenaries hend in Equatorial Guinea, one of whom, a German citizen, Gerhard Eugen Nershz, has died in custody, allegedly from complications of malaria.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 07:56 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

March 23, 2004

Dodson: a Clearer Picture

I'm beginning to get a clearer picture of Dodson, the company that sold the plane N4610 to the mercenary firm Logo Logistics. Here's a bit on them from a trip report by a fellow who toured their factory:

As promised Chase and Bruce returned at 7.30am and immediately contacted Wendell Barker who turned out to be a true gent. He opened up the Dakotas for a tour and photos. These aircraft are a legend and these particular two were newly purchased as a part lot of 19 by Wendell's employers Dodson International, the one I examined and pretended to fly was used to fly the South Africa President Mandela around.

. . . Back at the airfield Chase handed me over to Wendell who had invited me to look over Dodson's huge facility a few miles away. Dodson's are an unusual company, they are aircraft breakers and buy old and wrecked airplanes of any type from all over the world. The ones that cannot be repaired and sold on are pulled apart and the parts refurbished and sold as secondhand. At the plant Wendell handed me over to Russ who gave me the grand tour, it was very impressive, acres of parts from instruments to wheel axles of every type of aircraft imaginable [except mine] he took me to the "Bone Yard" outside, row after row of aircraft shells including John Wayne's and John Travolta's old personal jets. Some were whole, minus the engines some were stripped down and some had been crashed beyond recognition . On one wrecked jet I noticed splashes of dried blood in the destroyed cockpit and said nothing, I learned later that the two pilots had survived but were badly injured.

On arriving back at Wendell's office he made the tea and it turned out he was the company lawyer apparently there is a lot of red tape involved in buying and selling scrap aircraft across international boundaries.

Dodson seems to get sued a lot. Here's another lawsuit Dodson lost: Ameristar Jet Charter, Inc. v. Dodson International Parts, Inc. This one makes Dodson sound like a combination used car dealer and bad body shop. This ruling involved a $1.4 million judgement against Dodson.

And here's another one: Aerotech v. Dodson, in which it sounds like they didn't have the right to sell the plane they were offering, or something like that. This judgement against them was only a couple of hundred thousand.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 10:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Sandline Says They're Not Defunct

Here is a fun write-up of the whole N4610 situation from ZWNews.com plus some great corrections at the bottom:

From ZWNEWS:

Correction

Sandline International have objected to the text of a the above article. Mr Michael Grunberg, speaking for the company, says:

1. "Sandline is not a "defunct" company. It is very much in operation."

2. "The company is not “tied to” Mr Mann. Mr Mann has had no involvement with Sandline since its inception in 1997."

The New York Times have published the following correction:

"An article yesterday about a foiled coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea misstated the status of a company tied to one of the mercenaries accused in the plot. Sandline International, a private military contractor cited for its activity in Africa in the 1990’s, is still functioning; it is not defunct".

One wonders what business the non-defunct company is doing. Michael Grunberg is the Sandline accountant who helped the company scam the government of Papua New Guinea out of tens of millions of dollars following his successful attempts to sell PNG unneccessay mercenary service that if carried out would have resulted in a slaughter of the native people.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 09:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Spanish SF Editor Nearly Sent Home by the INS

Spanish science fiction editor Marcial Souto was nearly turned away by US Immigration in Ft. Lauderdale night before last. He was flying in to appear as Guest Scholar at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts when he was detained by US Immigration and Naturalization Service for 2 1/2 hours. The INS database incorrectly lists his departure date for a business trip in 1997, triggering his detention. After several hours, Souto realized he had with him an anthology containing one of his stories. In the headnote to the story, it mentions that Souto lives in Barcelona. He presented this to the immigration official who said, "I guess you really do live in Barcelona," and released him.

I had heard stories of legitimate German and French travelers being turned back by the INS, seemingly in retaliation for their countries lack of support for the Iraq war. I wonder if Spain is being punished for its recent election results and the proposed withdrawal of Spanish troops.

Luckily, Souto did ultimately make it through, so we will be able to enjoy his company at the conference.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 09:28 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

March 21, 2004

Dodson in Financial Difficulties

Dodson Aviation, former owner of N4610 the rent-a-coup plane, was apparently having financial difficulties, according to Lender Liability News:

"2 Million Cap Doesn't Apply"
Lender Liability News (10/31/03) Vol. 16, No. 12,
U.S. District Judge Kathryn H. Vratil has ruled that Dodson Aviation is liable for the full amount of its loan from GE Capital. GE Capital sued Dodson Aviation and its owners for breach of contract after Dodson failed to make three consecutive monthly payments on its loan for a $2 million Hawker aircraft. The lender asked to recover $2.75 million from the owners of Dodson Aviation, which filed for bankruptcy shortly after the suit was filed, and argued that the owners of the company were personally liable for the amount of the loan's outstanding balance. Dodson Aviation's owners argued that they were liable for only $2 million, or the credit cap in the initial loan agreement. The judge ruled against Dodson Aviation's owners, saying they must pay the full $2.75 million owed to GE Capital as laid out in the guaranty and security agreement the company had with the lender.

(Via reconpresseusa.)

MEANWHILE, Shameless Agitator has named me the week's Shameless Agitator fo my coverage of N4610.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 07:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 17, 2004

Executive Outcomes => Northbridge Services Group?

The weblog 911 Skeptics Unite points out that www.executiveoutcomes.com, the domain of Executive Outcomes, is still registered and forwards into www.northbridgeservices.com, the website of Northbridge Services Group, Ltd:

Northbridge Services Group founders have identified through their cumulative experiences in various first world armed forces, government agencies, and the private sector, a growing demand for a highly discrete, totally reliable yet cost effective service provider.

The Company's personnel consist of highly decorated individuals who have, in aggregate, more than 200 years of operational service predominantly in Special Forces therefore can guarantee a truly international blend of experience, pedigree and speciality.  

The creepiest bit of their website is Our Services: Humanitarian Operations

One of Northbridge Services Group's most important roles is participating alongside Governments and Aid Organisations in Humanitarian Support Operations.  Depending on the situation Northbridge Services Group has the expertise to assist in: • Securing strategic assets - water, food, electricity, key installations • Convoy escorts • Humanitarian and disaster relief command and co-ordination • Mine clearance • Protection of Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) personnel • Medical support at all levels • Air support • Peacekeeping

Translation: They can infest humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts with trained mercenaries. Yuk.

Could Northbridge have some connection to N4610, the mystery plane?

(See also: Liberia: Northbridge Services Group Under Investigation, October 1, 2003, and Parapundit last July.)

I think I now understand more about these huge bounties offered for various terrorists. They are not set that high so that your average person who just happens to know the fugitive is can collect. We do not see coverage of an Ed McMahon-like character out there handing out big checks to lucky Iraqis. Rather, those bounties are an announced market price for the fugitive, set to engage the attentions of private military companies. To me, this gives more creedence to the idea that Saddam was precaptured (Gary Farber thinks I'm paranoid for entertaining that idea in the first place), and that a shrink-wrapped bin Laden may be in storage elsewhere. (Northbridge publically acknowledges that snatching fugitive leaders is one of the services it would like to provide.)

Continue reading "Executive Outcomes => Northbridge Services Group?"
Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 03:56 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)

March 16, 2004

N4610 Has a Name: Clipper Pathfinder

It's still snowing and the kids are asleep. Poking around, I found a charming bit on N4610, the Rent-a-Coup plane, that I had previously missed. In its first incarnation as a commercial aircraft, the plane had a name: Clipper Pathfinder:

83-4610 . . . Ex-commercial 727-100 operated by ANG 4610 (c/n 18811) was formerly B-727-035 N4610 of National Airlines. National merged with Pan American and aircraft named 'Clipper Pathfinder'. Purchased by USAF Aug 21, 1984. Sold Jan 11, 2002 to Dodson International Parts, inc and then to Dodson Aviation Jan 14, 2002. Registered to Dodson Aviation as N4610. Seized by Zimbawean authorities for carrying suspected mercenaries and military equipment. Dodson supposedly had sold the plane to a South African company, Logo Ltd.

Those of us who work primarily in fiction care about such things.

THAT HAVING BEEN SAID, I wanted to return for a moment to the subject of that awful Lucasarts game, Mercenaries, I blogged this morning: Mercenaries will give gamers the opportunity to live out their action movie fantasies with its explosive combat and non-linear gameplay set in massive interactive environments. If you can see it -- you can steal it, use it or blow it up. says the press release. Calixte, on African Oil Politics has noted the misplaced sympathy the Western media are giving the captive mercenaries. And I, meanwhile, have been patiently waiting for some competent coverage of the whole mess from the US media.

I'm beginning to worry that they're too caught up in whether Spain is giving in to terrorism (oh, please!), or whether the misquoted John Kerry can be badgered into claiming foreign governments among his supporters. But I worry, on further meditation, that the problem is not these distractions at all, but rather that Americans assume that oil politics take place only in the Middle East and that, worse still, Americans as a group really do think the way the Lucasarts copy suggests; that the very idea of mercenaries poses us serious point-of-view problems, that in our hearts we believe that the world needs mercenaries so we can have the opportunity to vicariously live out our action movie fantasies.

I have been thinking about this point-of-view problem -- that the Western public is more prone to identify with the mercenaries than those they are hired to shoot at -- and it seems to me that we need to understand that in many ways, mercenaries are not that different from al-Qaida's terrorists except that they lack a strong religious and moral framework. (We may disagree vehemently with the nature of that framework, but it undeniably is present in those choosing to die for their cause.)

I have seen it argued in a variety of places, from al-Jazeera to conservative think-tank documents, that al-Quaida tends to concentrate in places where there is oil. Could it be that they are the mirror-image of these mercenaries, funded and deployed by the Saudi faction that would prefer to see the world's oil supply under the control of Islam (as opposed to under the control of Texans)?

This failed coup is a scandal, a big scandal with a broad reach. The press needs to stop romanticizing (when not ignoring) the captive mercenaries, and get on with the business of actually covering the story.

Trackback: The Gutless Pacifist.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 11:20 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

Some Belated Trackbacks

As the storm moves in, we are preparing to be snowed in. I went out for more firewood and some last-minute groceries this morning. Now we're all home. Two inches of snow have fallen, and it's supposed to snow for another six hours. We have a very satsifying fire going in the woodstore, a strawberry and rhubarb pie, and a pot of Earl Grey tea. Elizabeth is watching The Wiggles; Peter is playing in his room and listening to a tape of a Bruce Coville book, David is answering his email, and here I am.

I've been getting some nice trackbacks on my recent pieces involving N4610 and Africa. For some reason, my trackback thing never works. (Perhaps it will start working the next time I upgrade Movable Type.) Some come from my usual intelligent readers, but several come from terrific blogs I've never seen before. Here they are:


also thanks to THE MUMPSIMUS for the trackback on our Year's Best tables of contents.

(One day this will all happen automaticly here too!)

I had more to say, but david has been loitering in the background with urgent tasks for me, so I'll stop for now.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 05:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

The Political Unconscious

MEANWHILE, Lucasearts to Deploy Mercenaries: Third-person action game for the PS2 and Xbox.

March 15, 2004 - LucasArts officially announced today that it will deploy Mercenaries, an open-ended third person combat-action game this fall for the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system and the Xbox video game system from Microsoft. Set in North Korea where a coup has plunged the troubled nation into chaos, an elite private military company has dispatched a lone mercenary to track down 52 fugitive members of the old hardliner regime --- before they can launch a nuclear attack.

Mercenaries will give gamers the opportunity to live out their action movie fantasies with its explosive combat and non-linear gameplay set in massive interactive environments. If you can see it -- you can steal it, use it or blow it up. Players can demonstrate their creativity in the hunt for enemy combatants using more than 30 real-world military weapons. Gamers will be able to assume the role of one of three different mercenaries and will have the opportunity to call in air strikes and pilot more than 20 authentic ground and air vehicles including helicopters, trucks and tanks. Players can attract attention from embedded journalists in the game as they work with (and against) sparring international factions to secure all 52 targets, represented by a deck of playing cards. Mercenaries will be able to purchase additional weapons and vehicles with the money earned from each capture.

Did they get Simon Mann to model for it?

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 07:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 15, 2004

My New Business Card

Jason Van Hollander has just designed business cards for David and I. They're really cool. I've just approved the design for mine.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 04:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Report in Barbados: N4610 Departed U.S. from Air Force Base in North Carolina

This just in from the Daily Nation in Barbados [Extremely slow server. Give the link time]:

A UNITED STATES registered plane at the centre of controversy after being detained on Monday with 64 suspected mercenaries aboard by the Zimbabwean government did stop at Grantley Adams International Airport last Saturday morning.

Informed sources told the DAILY NATION yesterday that the aircraft, a Boeing 727 (100 series), with registration number N4610, landed in Barbados shortly after midnight for refuelling before leaving around 6:30 a.m.

Sources also indicated that the aircraft, which Zimbabwean officials alleged also carried military equipment, had arrived from the Hope Air Force Base in North Carolina, United States, before its stop-over in Barbados.

Further reports stated that the plane, originally a commercial PanAm Airways aircraft up until a week ago, was being operated by the American Air Force, but international Press reports stated it had been sold to a South African company.

The plane was detained by Zimbabwean security officials after its owners made a false declaration of its cargo and crew at Harare’s main airport.

I think they probably mean Pope Air Force Base.

We'll discount their discussion of the plane's provenance, which is a bit garbled, and presume their information about its itinerary comes from local records.

Another question for the next White House Press conference: Did flight N4610 depart the U.S. from Hope Air Force Base in North Carolina?

ONE MINOR FUSSY POINT: If you've been following my attempts to track down all the Boeing C-22Bs, you know that I have had a little bit of a hard time tracking down exactly how many there were. I thought I'd cut it down to four, but this photo of a C-22B, on the web site of the U. S. Air Force, clearly shows a plane with a number just beyond the sequence I was researching: the 34618 indicates a serial number 83-4618 associated with an original tail number N4618. Interesting.

(On an extremely speculative note, an anonymous commentor apparently on the scene at Wonderboom Airport in South Africa claims that there is a second 727 at Wonderboom. He implies that it is also of U.S. military provenance.)

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 02:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

A Question for Dick Cheney

After thinking overnight about the materials from the conservative think tanks I blogged yesterday concerning African oil, it seems to me that Vice President Cheney needs to be asked directly whether the desirability of a regime change in Equatorial Guinea and the means by which such thing could be accomplished were ever discussed in the closed-door meetings of his National Energy Policy Development Group; if so what means were discussed; and who was party to the discussion.

The White House would, of course, refuse to answer such questions, but the nature of that refusal might be very illuminating. This question should also be asked since the NEPD is the obvious source of the formulation of the American Enterprise Institute's panel topic formulation and also the sentiments coming from the Heritage Foundation.

There's a nice piece in Foreign Policy Focus on the Report of the National Energy Policy Development Group, entitled Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World's Oil by Michael Klare:

The Cheney report is very guarded about the amount of foreign oil that will be required. The only clue provided by the report is a chart of net U.S. oil consumption and production over time. According to this illustration, domestic oil field production will decline from about 8.5 million barrels per day (mbd) in 2002 to 7.0 mbd in 2020, while consumption will jump from 19.5 mbd to 25.5 mbd (2). That suggests imports or other sources of petroleum, such as natural gas liquids, will have to rise from 11 mbd to 18.5 mbd. Most of the recommendations in Chapter 8 of the NEP are aimed at procuring this 7.5 mbd increment, equivalent to the total oil consumed by China and India.

One-third of all the recommendations in the report are for ways to obtain access to petroleum sources abroad. Many of the 35 proposals are region- or country-specific, with emphasis on removing political, economic, legal, and logistical obstacles.

For example, the NEP calls on the secretaries of Energy, Commerce, and State "to deepen their commercial dialogue with Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and other Caspian states to provide a strong, transparent, and stable business climate for energy and related infrastructure projects."

The Cheney report will have a profound impact on future U.S. foreign and military policy. Officials will have to negotiate for these overseas supplies and arrange for investments that will increase production and exports. They must also take steps to ensure that wars, revolutions or civil disorder do not impede foreign deliveries to the United States. These imperatives will be especially significant for policy toward the Persian Gulf area, the Caspian Sea basin, Africa, and Latin America.

Applying the Cheney energy plan will have major implications for U.S. security and military policy. Countries expected to supply petroleum in the years ahead are torn by internal conflicts, harbor strong anti-American sentiments, or both. Efforts to procure additional oil from foreign sources are almost certain to lead to violent disorder and resistance in many key producing areas. While U.S. officials might prefer to avoid the use of force in such situations, they may conclude that the only way to guarantee the continued flow of energy is to guard the oil fields and pipelines with soldiers.

To add to Washington's dilemma, troop deployments in the oil-producing areas are likely to cause resentment from inhabitants who fear the revival of colonialism or who object to particular U.S. political positions, such as U.S. support for Israel. Efforts to safeguard the flow of oil could be counter-productive, intensifying rather than diminishing local disorder and violence.
. . .
Another area the Bush administration views as a promising source of oil is West Africa. Although African states accounted for only about 10% of global oil production in 2000, the Department of Energy predicts that their share will rise to 25% by 2020. That will add 8.3 mbd to global supplies, welcome news in Washington. "West Africa is expected to be one of the fastest-growing sources of oil and gas for the American market," the Cheney report observes.

The administration expects to concentrate its efforts in Nigeria, its neighboring states in the Gulf of Guinea, and Angola. As in the Caspian region, however, U.S. hopes to obtain additional oil from Africa could be frustrated by political unrest and ethnic warfare. Indeed, much of Nigeria's production was shut down during the spring of 2003 because of ethnic violence in the Delta region, the site of much of Nigeria's onshore oil. Local activists have occupied offshore oil facilities to bargain for community project funding. Crime and vandalism have also hampered Nigeria's efforts to increase oil production.

The United States is not likely to respond to these challenges by deploying troops. That undoubtedly would conjure up images of colonialism, provoking strong opposition at home and abroad. But Washington is willing to step up military aid to friendly regimes in the region. Total U.S. assistance to Angola and Nigeria amounted to some $300 million in fiscal years 2002 through 2004, a significant increase over the previous three-year period. In fiscal 2004, Angola and Nigeria also became eligible to receive surplus arms under the Pentagon's Excess Defense Articles program. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense has begun to secure rights for the establishment of naval bases in the region, most notably in Nigeria and the islands of Sao Tomé e Principe.

And The Progressive ran a piece on Cheney by Wayne Madsen in 2000, Cheney at the Helm with some newly relevant discussion of Cheney's involvement in Africa:

Cheney's links to defense contractors and the intelligence community have made him suspect among human rights activists. Halliburton and Brown & Root have played a role in some of the world's most volatile trouble spots. These include Algeria, Angola, Bosnia, Burma, Croatia, Haiti, Kuwait, Nigeria, Russia, Rwanda, and Somalia.

In 1998, while I was in Rwanda conducting research for my book, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999 (Edwin Mellen, 1999), a number of U.S. military personnel assigned to that country raised questions about Brown & Root's activities. "Brown & Root is into some real bad shit," one told me. The U.S. Army Materiel Command has confirmed that Brown & Root was in Rwanda under contract with the Pentagon. One U.S. Navy de-mining expert told me that Brown & Root helped Rwanda's U.S.-backed government fight a guerrilla war. Brown & Root's official task was to help clear mines. However, my research showed it was more involved in providing covert military support to the Tutsi-led Rwanda Patriotic Army in putting down a Hutu insurgency and assisting its invasion of the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (Cheney and Halliburton declined numerous opportunities to comment on this story.)

Cheney was no stranger to covert activities in Rwanda. In 1990, during his tenure as Secretary of Defense, Rwandan strongman Major General Paul Kagame, then a colonel in the Ugandan People's Democratic Force, attended the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Kagame, with the likely knowledge of the U.S. Army and Cheney, suddenly dropped out of the school to assume command of the nascent Rwanda Patriotic Army, which later that year launched a full-scale invasion of Rwanda from rear bases inside Uganda. U.S. military advisers were present in Uganda at the time of the invasion, another fact that would have been known to Cheney and his Pentagon advisers.

While three separate commissions appointed by Belgium, France, and the Organization of African Unity have charged their own officials with complicity in central Africa's turmoil, no American panel has ever probed the involvement of the U.S. government, military, and defense contractors in central Africa's woes. If there were such a panel, Dick Cheney, the man in charge of both the Pentagon and Halliburton during various invasions of Rwanda and the Congo, would certainly have to be called and asked, "What did you know about covert U.S. military operations in central Africa and when did you know about them?"

But that's not all of Halliburton's questionable involvements. The other most serious charge against Halliburton comes from a group called Environmental Rights Action based in Harcourt, Nigeria. "In September of 1997, eighteen Mobile Police officers . . . shot and killed one Gidikumo Sule at the Opuama flow station at Egbema in Warri. . . . [elipses in original] Several other youths were injured during a protest," said the group in a report dated October 16, 1998. It implicated Halliburton in this repression, saying that the company was in collaboration with the police. Cheney was at the helm of Halliburton at the time.

Halliburton has worked with Chevron and Shell in Nigeria, which have been implicated in gross human rights violations and environmental devastation there.

Leaders like Equatorial Guinea's Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and Congo (Brazzaville) President Denis Sassou-Nguesso also use the revenues generated from Halliburton-built offshore oil platforms to enrich themselves and their families while ruthlessly suppressing ethnic and political opposition.

All this is, of course, old news, but it is old news with a new relevance. We have already been told by the Bush administration that sanctions and other peaceful means do not work to force out undesirable heads of state who rule countries that swim on a sea of oil. Yet there is this persistent magical thinking in conservative discussions of how Africa will help meet our rising energy needs. What options were discussed in meetings of the National Energy Policy Development Group? I think we're owed an answer.

UPDATE: New Zealand's Sunday Independent reports that Eli Cahlil [also spelled Ely Calil elsewhere], the London-based Lebanese businessman accused of helping to organize and finance the coup attempt, is "close to " Halliburton:

Sources think the money for the coup attempt came from rival members of the ruling family, money that is stashed in the Canary Islands. Logo Logistics, the company that owns the aircraft on which Mann and his associates were arrested, has been linked by Africa Confidential to a Lebanese businessman, Eli Cahlil, who is also close to the United States oil company, Halliburton. Halliburton has an oil concession in Equatorial Guinea.

How close is he? What is meant by "close"?

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting it , too, though a bit more tactfully.

And there is some other interesting material in the CSM article on the situation of mercenaries in Africa:

Equatorial Guinea, nestled in the crook of Africa's west coast, is the region's third-biggest oil producer. In 1995, the year a big oil field was discovered, the country's per capita annual income was $370. By 2002, it had jumped to $5,000. But as in most of West Africa, much of the wealth is held by the ruling elite. This can spark envy - and coup attempts, thus boosting a government's desire to protect itself by hiring military muscle.

But oil is just one reason for West Africa's growing demand for guns for hire. The US, for instance, is now more engaged in West Africa. But with troops tied down in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, it's increasingly hiring private security firms to represent it.

In a recent speech, Theresa Whelan, a top official for Africa at the US Department of Defense, put it this way: "The use of contractors in Africa ... means that the US can be supportive in trying to ameliorate regional crises without necessarily having to put US troops on the ground, which is often times a very difficult political decision."

So, in Ghana, Ivory Coast, and elsewhere, private firms are training militaries to become more professional, courtesy of the US government.

These firms are also key to supporting peacekeeping efforts. The US has paid them to provide logistics support - transportation, fuel, and other supplies - to African-led peacekeeping units in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast.

"If you didn't have private companies doing what they're doing in West Africa, things would fall apart," says Doug Brooks, head of the International Peace Operations Association, an industry trade group based near Washington. He argues that private firms should be allowed to run full-blown peacekeeping operations, saying they could do it better and cheaper than the United Nations and regional peacekeepers. He once calculated that private firms could stop all Africa's wars for just $1.1 billion.

But many people worry private firms can be roguish and unaccountable.

Jan Breytenbach, founder of South Africa's infamous apartheid-era Battalion 32, a mercenary group, warns that today's seemingly upstanding private-security firms will employ ex-soldiers "under false pretenses" in order to get them involved in clandestine operations. "You can think you're being hired to protect a diamond mine," he says, "but then you end up fighting other people" - or participating in a coup. He cautions ex-military men: "It's better to stay out of this stuff all together; otherwise you'll get caught with your pants down."

(And for desert, read Theresa Whelan's speech at the International Peace Operations Association dinner (pdf), speaking as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs, November 19th 2003, Washington, DC.)

Trackback: Chrononautic Log

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 10:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 14, 2004

Year's Best Tables of Contents

Here are the tables of contents for both our Year's Best volumes.
Year's Best SF 9, ed. David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer

Octavia Butler "Amnesty" (Sci Fiction 1/22/03; novelette)
Geoff Ryman "Birth Days" (Interzone 4/03; short story)
Tony Ballantyne "The Waters of Meribah" (Interzone, May-June 03; 9 pp.)
Nancy Kress "EJ-ES" (Stars; short story)
Joe Haldeman "Four Short Novels" (F&SF; 10-11/03); short story)
Charles Stross "Rogue Farm" (Live Without a Net; short story)
Angélica Gorodischer "The Violet's Embryos" (Cosmos Latinos; not eligible for the Hugo; originally published in Spanish in 1973)
Michael Swanwick "Coyote at the End of History" (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 03)
John Varley "In Fading Suns and Dying Moons" (Stars; short story)
Gene Wolfe "Castaway" (Sci Fiction 2/5/03; short story)
Gregory Benford "The Hydrogen Wall" (Asimov’s 10-11/03; novelette)
Ricard de la Casa & Pedro Jorge Romero "The Day We Went Through the Transition" (Cosmos Latinos; not eligible for the Hugo; originally published in Spanish in 1998)
Cory Doctorow "Nimby and the Dimension Hoppers" (Asimov’s 6/03; short story)
Robert Reed "Night of Time" (The Silver Gryphon; short story)
Kage Baker "A Night on the Barbary Coast" (The Silver Gryphon; short story)
Nigel Brown "Annuity Clinic" (Interzone April 03; 6 pp.)
Allen M. Steele "The Madwoman of Shuttlefield" (Asimov’s May 03; 22 pp.)
M. Rickert "Bread and Bombs " (F&SF; 4/03; short story)
Stephen Baxter "The Great Game" (Asimov’s March 03; 14 pp.)
Rick Moody "The Albertine Notes" (McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, novella)

Years Best Fantasy 4, ed. David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer

Michael Swanwick "King Dragon" (The Dragon Quintet, novelette)
Gahan Wilson "The Big Green Grin" (Gathering the Bones, short story)
Octavia Butler "The Book of Martha" (SCIFI.com)
Charles Coleman Finley "Wild Thing" (F&SF; 7/03; short story)
Neil Gaiman "Closing Time" (McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales; short story)
Kelly Link "Catskin" (McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, novelette)
Pat Murphy "Dragon's Gate" (F&SF; 8/03; novelette)
Terry Dowling "One Thing About the Night" (The Dark; short story)
M. Rickert "Peace on Suburbia" (F&SF;, Dec 03)
Tanith Lee "Moonblind" (Realms of Fantasy April 03)
Theodora Goss "Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold" (Polyphony 2, short story )
Brendan Duffy "Louder Echo" (Agog! Terrific Tales)
Rosaleen Love "Raptures of the Deep" (Gathering the Bones; short story)
Tim Pratt "A Fable from a Cage" (Realms of Fantasy 2/03, novelette)
Arthur Porges "Four" (F&SF; Feb 03; short story)
Lucius Shepard "Senor Volto" (SCIFI.com, 2/03; novelette?)
Mary Soon Lee "Shen's Daughter" (Sword & Sorceress XX)
Ellen Klages "Basement Magic" (F&SF; 5/03, novelette)
Robert Sheckley "The Tales of Zanthias" (Weird Tales July-August 03)
Gene Wolfe "Of Soil & Climate" (Realms of Fantasy, Dec 03)
Terry Bisson "Almost Home"(F&SF; 10-11/03)

(Hugo nominations must be received by the Noreascon 4 committee by March 25th, 2004, so this might be a good moment to consider your short fiction ballot. I have provided award categories where I had them, checking our list against the LOCUS Recommended Reading List.)

Posted by Kathryn Cramer at 01:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)