Next Test for Blackwater (Bidding for Anti-Narcotics Contract)

Source: Wall Street Journal

A Defense Department contract involving antidrug training missions may test the durability of the political controversy over Blackwater Worldwide's security work in Iraq.

The Moyock, N.C., company, which was involved in a September shooting in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead, is one of five military contractors competing for as much as $15 billion over five years to help fight a narcotics trade that the government says finances terrorist groups.

Also competing for contracts from the Pentagon's Counter Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office are military-industry giants Raytheon Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp., as well as Arinc Inc., a smaller aerospace and technology contractor.

The contracts are expected to be awarded as the need arises, so the Pentagon's level of concern about employing Blackwater will likely be measured over time and by whether the company wins leading roles or is shut out.

Companies competing for the work might be called on to develop detection or surveillance technology; train U.S. and foreign forces; or provide logistics, communications and information-technology systems, among other areas.



Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119492018449490830.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us

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Would you trust Blackwater and Erik Prince not to actually aid the smuggling of drugs to finance the neo and theocons Black Ops?

It has always been about business...making money for the corporate scumbags and the military/prison industrial complex. It will never end..there is too much money to be made in criminalizing human frailties. No better way to control a population either...

humans a beautifully flawed creatures, not automatons. The government, being made up of the most severely flawed, knows this first hand. However, they are obedient to their corporate masters, as always.

Don't we have a division of the government that handles this sort of thing?

(But surely, the higher paid force is the superior one, no?)

WTF are those merc scumbags doing here?

I guess their newly found billions are buying them a lot of influence.

They must never get another government contract, EVER!

If Blackwater wins the bid, so be it.

:eyes:

the contract must go to the low bid.

We agree the WoD makes no sense at all. None. Given that, how can we proceed, logically, to stating that a contract (to do a thing that makes no sense) is only important insofar as it goes to the lowest bidder?

I don't get the logic there, sorry.

In my mind, because the WoD makes no sense, therefore this contract makes no sense (insofar as it is unconstitutional).

Not tryin' to flame. Just debating. :hi:

as a result, means and methods will be employed in this so-called war. This in turn, necessitates a waste of resources.

One way to limit the waste of resources is to utilize the fair bid solicitation process. Until the argument against the WOD prevails, there is little else that can be done to limit the damage.

it's unconstitutional to the core.

Nowadays, no one cares about the constitution.

Presuming, of course, that Blackwater brings the same brand of expertise to the "war" on drugs that it did to the "war" on terror.

Why is our only solution to any problem always "war"?