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Hired Guns at the Border? Senate Passes $3 Billion For Border Patrol/Blackwater Connection

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1776Forever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-01-07 07:44 PM
Original message
Hired Guns at the Border? Senate Passes $3 Billion For Border Patrol/Blackwater Connection

http://controlcongress.com/immigration/blackwater-border-patrol

Hired Guns at the Border? The Contracting Has Begun: I take it that a private contracting company, DynCorp International of Virginia, is sending out press releases (basically advertising itself) hoping to be hired by Homeland Security in this border region. It is offering ‘to train and deploy 1,000 private agents to the U.S.-Mexican border within 13 months, offering a quick surge of law enforcement officers to a region struggling to clamp down on illegal immigration.’

It’s starting to look like that movie we’ve already seen too many times during the Bush/Cheney regime. A caller to the Ed Schultz show named “Captain Bob”, former USMC officer, informs us that a fellow jarhead he’s friends with is working for Blackwater, and that Homeland Security is currently working on a contract negotiation with them to patrol the US-Mexico border. They’re (right at this very moment) arranging for Blackwater personnel to be deputized! Where did this money come from?

7/26/2007: “Senate Passes $3 Billion For Border Patrol” — The money approved Thursday would go toward seizing “operational control'’ over the U.S.-Mexico border by using additional Border Patrol agents, vehicle barriers, border fencing and observation towers. In addition, there is Cornyn’s effort against people who overstay their visas. Graham said the $3 billion would pay for “more boots on the ground, more people patrolling our border making it harder for somebody to come across illegally. We should have done this a long time ago.'’ The deal, approved by an 89-1 vote, resurrects a GOP plan to pass some of the most popular parts of Bush’s failed immigration bill. That includes money for additional Border Patrol agents and fencing along the southern border.

Was this the plan all along? Starve the beast until the clamor for border security grew loud enough that they could justify outsourcing it? Let’s check the archives:

2/9/2005: “Bush budget scraps 9,790 border patrol agents” — President uses law’s escape clause to drop funding for new homeland security force — Officially approved by Bush on Dec. 17 after extensive bickering in Congress, the National Intelligence Reform Act included the requirement to add 10,000 border patrol agents in the five years beginning with 2006. Roughly 80 percent of the agents were to patrol the southern U.S. border from Texas to California, along which thousands of people cross into the United States illegally every year.

But Bush’s proposed 2006 budget, revealed Monday, funds only 210 new border agents. The shrunken increase reflects the lack of money for an army of border guards and the capacity to train them, officials said. Retired Adm. James Loy, acting head of the Department of Homeland Security until nominee Michael Chertoff takes over, said funding only 210 new agents was a “recognition that we need to balance those things as we go on down the road with other priorities.” The White House referred questions about the border agents to the Homeland Security Department.

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And check this site out for more information:

http://texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1040
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thunder rising Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-01-07 07:48 PM
Response to Original message
1. Deputizing Blackwater
now we are in trouble. Bush's private Army with the force of law behind it.
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Divine Discontent Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-01-07 09:29 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. right on... K&R let's get this where more can see what's coming soon!
they've handed him a private army... can you imagine the atrocities these hired guns are gonna inflict over time? Time to write my congress critter and my 1 good Senator and the crotchety ass kissing b*sh apologist that is the junior senator from fl.
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Dr.Phool Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-02-07 01:42 PM
Response to Reply #4
12. Umm, if you're in Florida, you don't have a good Senator.
You've got a DINO, and a crotchety, ass-kissing, b*ush apologist.
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Divine Discontent Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-01-07 10:49 PM
Response to Reply #1
6. I feel like they'll be putting us liberal 'rebelrousers' in the holding centers they've built
seriously.... WTF?
why did Congress do this? what a horrible mistake.



Armed Blackwater Mercenaries in New Orleans after the storm


http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/blackwater_box.htm
"This vigilantism demonstrates the utter breakdown of the government," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "These private security forces have behaved brutally, with impunity, in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of New Orleans is frightening and possibly illegal."
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aquart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-01-07 07:48 PM
Response to Original message
2. This is going to be horribly regretted.
Edited on Wed Aug-01-07 07:49 PM by aquart
If you think the cost of crossing the border illegal is high now, wait till you see what the Blackwater mercenaries charge.
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partylessinOhio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-01-07 07:51 PM
Response to Original message
3. Where will this end if it ever does end?
This is a nightmare. None of it will benefit America. She's a goner!

:thumbsdown:

:cry:

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Divine Discontent Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-01-07 10:36 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. when there's little furor over this passing
I feel you may be right - hello Europe, Australia or Canada if this keeps up. The bushies are privatizing everything it seems to their backers and we're in for some horrible times ahead unless they're impeached... I'm not happy unless that is done!
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GreenTea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-02-07 03:16 AM
Response to Original message
7. Bring the troops home & they''ll have 160 thousand paid US troops to guard our borders....
I'm sure the troops would rather be home....not to mention another 100K Blackwater paid 'contractor" (mercenaries)!
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Pachamama Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-02-07 04:46 AM
Response to Original message
8. This means w/ Blackwater "guarding the border", they won't let anyone in, or out!
:eyes:
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The Backlash Cometh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-02-07 05:17 AM
Response to Original message
9. And so it begins.
Is there a bean counter out there who will be allowed to check to see how much we're paying Blackwater versus increasing our own public workforce?

I'm guessing that we won't really know the cost until the lawsuits come in.
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bonito Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-02-07 06:16 AM
Response to Original message
10. Check out all their into
Edited on Thu Aug-02-07 06:42 AM by bonito
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_USA

It's a private corporate army big time.

and this http://www.charlotte.com/204/story/218607.html found this on blackwater watch. site.
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Hydra Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-02-07 11:31 AM
Response to Original message
11. Sneaking mercs into our cities
Like everything else these megalomaniacs do, it's slow creeping death to us.

Let's have the CIA play in the US openly!
Let's tear down the walls between the various agencies for a national information database!
Let's wiretap as many people as we can without warrants!
Let's datamine using AT&T's lines...they won't mind as long as we cut them in on it!
Let's use the military for law enforcement!
Let's hire mercenaries!
Let's make it so we can imprison people without charges and habeus corpus!
Let's make speaking out a crime!

and now:

Let's put Mercs at the border where we just fired all those people, and let them filter north slowly, under the cover of "border enforcement"!

Can I get off this roller coaster? I think I'm gonna be sick! :puke:
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