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“Let’s all be clear about one thing,” writes Josh
Marshall. “President Bush has now put us on notice, the Gulf
Coast reconstruction effort is going to be run as a patronage and political
operation,” the same way Iraq is, and with the same disgusting
corporate players—Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, Shaw Group, Bechtel, the
entire roster of carpetbaggers and opportunists who have soaked and defrauded
the American people in the past, treating the bamboozled American taxpayer as
an oblivious cash cow. Disaster and human suffering is considered an
“opportunity” for the likes of Joe Allbaugh, Bush’s former
campaign manager and former head of FEMA. As if to demonstrate political
patronage and cronyism knows no bounds, Bechtel’s CEO was named
to Bush’s Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy was
put in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
“Experts say it has been common practice in both Republican and
Democratic administrations for policy makers to take lobbying jobs once they
leave office, and many of the same companies seeking contracts in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina have already received billions of dollars for work in Iraq,”
notes CNN.
Of course, this practice should be illegal, and in the case of New Orleans local
business and workers should be involved in the rebuilding of their city. But
then, as the War Street Journal tells us, the new New Orleans will exclude the
poor and concentrate on catering to the rich and tourist middle class. Katrina
was the perfect excuse to cleanse New Orleans of undesirables, more than a few
of them African-American, thus giving the impression of racism. It’s
really about class, however, and the rich corporate elitists who will lord over
the new New Orleans are not concerned about skin color, for they view the world
through green-tinted glasses.
It’s really unfortunate the political left, mired as they are
in government-loving myopia, do not see the military and “security firm”
occupation of New Orleans for what it is—an incubator and testing ground
for a long-sought after police state. For instance, Jeremy
Scahill, Democracy Now! producer and correspondent, has provided us with
an excellent overview of the military and paramilitary occupation of New Orleans,
and yet he is bereft of obvious conclusions, instead concentrating on contracts
doled out by the Ministry of Homeland Security and opportunistic Republican
patronage. His comments, however, are worth examination:
It’s interesting, we talked earlier this week about the Blackwater
mercenaries and I talked about my hour-long conversation with them when they
had first arrived here, and I reported that they were saying they were on contract
with the Department of Homeland Security. This, of course, was denied by the
federal government. Well, now they have been forced to admit, the federal government,
that Blackwater is on federal contract with FEMA to protect—so-called
protect, its rebuilding or reconstruction efforts in Louisiana. This is just
one of the firms that is getting now federal money. I think that
these firms view the current situation in Louisiana as the biggest pot of federal
money.
Blackwater is not in Louisiana exclusively to “protect”
the so-called federal “rebuilding or reconstruction efforts” (at
the behest of corporate elitists), but rather as an experiment in privatizing
and farming out functions of police state control. As Scahill
notes elsewhere,
Blackwater mercenaries are involved in “general law enforcement activities
including ’securing neighborhoods’ and ‘confronting criminals,’”
in other words turning out the remaining residents, who become “internees”
in FEMA organized concentration camps around the country, and killing residents
who refuse to leave or who forage for food and water, as the government has
stated its intention to not provide assistance and instead engage in a medieval-like
siege of the city in an effort to depopulate it in preparation for the vision
of the new New Orleans as planned by the corporate elitists and their business
interests.
Scahill tells Amy Goodman:
I remember the other night you called me and you alerted me to this [spraying
of the city with pesticide], and just today I had seen what I thought were some
sort of spy drones because really, what we have seen here is sort of—some
people are calling it “New Oraq” instead of New Orleans, because
of all of the various forces, the Halliburtons, the KBR’s, the Blackwaters
that are here now, the connections to Iraq are so incredible. The same looters
who have raided the federal funds in Iraq, U.S. funds in Iraq, are looting federal
funds here in New Orleans. Yes, I saw the drones flying overhead. I’m
concerned, very concerned of the toxic waste that they’re now dumping
on the city in addition to the horribly unsafe waters that flow through the
city and continue to flow through the city.
Actually, the name “New Oraq” is a perfect fit, since the
military seems to be using the same tactics they use in Iraq against the American
people—or at least (for now) the most expendable of the American people
(and no doubt, for the Blackwater mercenaries, there is little difference between
the people of New Orleans and those of Fallujah).
Goodman mentions “reports of the spraying of the city with pesticide
that’s never been used on urban populations and they’re mixing it
with blue dye so that the pilots can see where they have sprayed, I think its
called something like NALID.” Actually, the pesticide is called NALED
(it is an organophosphate insecticide) and it is used for mosquito control.
It is well established that such chemicals are carcinogens and induce “structural
chromosome aberrations” in human immune system, according to research
located at the University
of Florida Medical Library. As this research indicates, NALED and other
pesticides are often applied to vast areas with helicopters and other aerial
vehicles. Obviously, with all the standing water in New Orleans, mosquito infestation
is an issue. However, the military seems to be using NALED (and who
knows what other chemicals) with the same cavalier disregard they used Agent
Orange (a herbicide) in Vietnam. “On January 23, 2003, the National
Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine officially released the fifth
comprehensive report in a series entitled Veterans and Agent Orange” and
reported “that there is
’sufficient evidence of an association’ between herbicides used
in Vietnam and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.” On January 30, 2004, lawyers
from the National Lawyer’s Guild in association with the Vietnam Lawyers
Association, filed a lawsuit
against Dow, Monsanto, Hercules, Diamond Shamrock, and the other chemical companies,
alleging the companies that produced the herbicides used in the Vietnam war
were in “violation of international law and war crimes.” (On March
10, 2005 the Brooklyn Federal Court dismissed the lawsuit.) It is unconscionable
that the U.S. military would use a dangerous pesticide in an American city where
people still live. But then, as reported on numerous occasions in the corporate
media, the military and their paramilitary allies consider hold-out residents
of New Orleans “insurgents” the same way they consider the Iraqi
people insurgents.
Scahill also notes the involvement of a “security company”
called B.A.T.S. in Alabama (Bodyguard And Tactical Services). “I
was talking to his head of security, I told him I was from New York, he said,
I’ve been to New York during the daily news strike, referring to the strike
the at the New York Daily News,” Scahill told Goodman.
Democracy Now! co-host, Juan Gonzalez, is a Daily News columnist [and]
was one of the leaders of the strike. I told him that Juan Gonzalez was a colleague
of mine and he told me that he spiked Juan Gonzalez’s car. He
said he had put sugar in the gas tank of Juan Gonzalez’s car. The man’s
name is Michael Montgomery, and he is the head of security for B.A.T.S. Security
in Alabama, bragging about spiking the car of Juan Gonzalez and other strike
leaders in the New York Daily News strike. He is heading up security for the
Decatur Hotel chain, owned by Patrick Quinn, a major businessman in New Orleans,
his wife a Republican state senator. This is just one example of
cronyism that we see on the ground where the wealthy Republican contributors
are being considered now for these tremendous federal contracts.
It should not be surprising goons such as Montgomery (that is if Scahill’s
story is correct) are employed against labor organizers and strikers—and
are now used against the people of New Orleans, or rather the untouchables the
corporate elite (in collusion with the federal, state, and local government)
are in the process of driving (or maybe the Israeli term “transfer”
works here) from the city with military tactics similar to those used in Iraq.
“One of the [Blackwater] guys had just gotten back from Iraq two weeks
ago. These are some of the most highly trained killers, professional killers
in the world. And they had served in Iraq in a number of cities and in a number
of capacities,” Scahill
told Goodman on September 12th.
And one of them was wearing a golden badge, that identified itself as being
Louisiana law enforcement, and in fact, one of the Blackwater mercenaries
told us that he had been deputized by the governor of Louisiana,
and what’s interesting is that the federal government and the Department
of Homeland Security have denied that they have hired any private security firms,
saying that they have enough with government forces. Well, these Blackwater
men that we spoke to said that they are actually on contract with the Department
of Homeland Security and indeed with the governor of Louisiana. And they said
that they’re sleeping in camps organized by the Department of Homeland
Security.
In addition to Blackwater, the Steele Foundation apparently has a role
in New Orleans. “Global Rapid Response, a Steele Foundation service,
has mobilized a Crisis Response Team to support those trapped in New Orleans
and neighboring cities and states to assist clients in the recovery efforts
of Hurricane Katrina,” a PR
Newswire reported on September 2. “In addition to the incident management
team, several Quick Reaction Security Teams and multiple Damage Assessment Teams
have been activated to travel into New Orleans to protect client personnel and
to help secure assets,” in other words the Steele Foundation was hired
by the corporate elite. It should be noted that Steele, as Blackwater, “is
made up of former US special forces soldiers, intelligence officers and other
security experts. The company has been on a State Department-approved contract
with the Haitian government since 1998,” according to Pacifica
Radio. It appears Steele played a role in the abduction and removal
of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically elected leader of Haiti. Steele
also has a role in the “vibrant marketplace” of Iraq where “hundreds
of multinational and local companies” are “combating the security
threats,” in other words the Iraqis don’t want them there.
(See David Barstow’s Security
Companies: Shadow Soldiers in Iraq.) “The experience gained by Steele’s
staff at the FBI and Secret Service have forged the techniques of Forensic Behavioral
Analysis to identify everything from ransom notes to potential employee eruptions,”
explains SourceWatch.
“The Indirect Profiling System of the FBI has been refined by Steele to
reach into problems beyond law enforcement.” Is it possible these
“problems beyond law enforcement” include how best to intimidate
and dispossess the remaining residents of New Orleans who stand in the way of
bulldozing flood ravaged neighborhoods and beginning construction of luxury
hotels, time-shared corporate condos, and casinos?
Finally, private mercenary firms are only one component of the emerging police
state in New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast “As the White
House unsuccessfully insists on seizing control of the Louisiana National Guard
to institute full-blown martial law in New Orleans, it has brought in foreign
troops moving on the Western and Eastern borders of the state,”
notes Total
Information, citing an Associated
Press story datelined September 9. “Two separate credible sources
known to Alex Jones have reported that armed combat ready Mexican troops
have entered Texas,” reports Prison
Planet, contradicting the AP report that the Mexican soldiers were unarmed.
“However, the [AP] report was only specific to one convoy. The convoys
reported to Alex Jones are said to be fully armed with Heckler & Koch German
assault rifles…. Another source known to Alex Jones called the Austin
Police Department and they said that they knew about the armed troops. The police
asked if the troops had threatened the caller. The caller said they threaten
the sovereignty of the country and the police laughed and hung up.” In
addition to Mexicans, Dutch troops are being used. “A
contingent of about 70 Dutch Marines also landed on the beach in Biloxi on Thursday
to clean up neighborhoods,” Knight
Ridder reported on September 9.
Bush’s attempt to commandeer state National Guards, working with
corporate elitists to hire mercenaries and privatize the police state emerging
in New Orleans, allowing foreign troops in to conduct “humanitarian”
work (as they carry Heckler & Koch German assault rifles), and doling out
no-bid “reconstruction” contracts to corporate cronies—these
are distressing signs of how the Bushian police state will unfold across much
of America in the wake of “disasters,” either natural or unnatural,
the latter in the form of a nuclear attack on America, as our corrupt and fascistic
plutocracy continually promises. New Orleans is nothing short of an authoritarian
motif designed to eliminate the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments of the
Constitution in other American cities and subject millions of Americans to the
jackbooted thugocracy Bush’s handlers and their transnational corporate
benefactors have in mind. As the recent Jose Padilla ruling warns, if you happen
to disagree, you may very well end up “disappeared” in a military
brig or worse, never heard from again, or at least not heard from until the
bogus “war on terrorism” is over, say in a hundred years or so,
certainly not, as Cheney tells us, in our lifetimes.
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