Jeremy Scahill Hands Ann-Marie Slaughter Her Ass

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Machines of War: Blackwater, Monsanto, and Bill Gates

Pravda
Silvia Ribeiro
La Jornada

A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation (Blackwater's Black Ops, 9/15/2010) revealed that the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) clandestine intelligence services was sold to the multinational Monsanto. Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the U.S. Department of State "security services," that practices state terrorism by giving the government the opportunity to deny it.

Many military and former CIA officers work for Blackwater or related companies created to divert attention from their bad reputation and make more profit selling their nefarious services-ranging from information and intelligence to infiltration, political lobbying and paramilitary training - for other governments, banks and multinational corporations. According to Scahill, business with multinationals, like Monsanto, Chevron, and financial giants such as Barclays and Deutsche Bank, are channeled through two companies owned by Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater: Total Intelligence Solutions and Terrorism Research Center. These officers and directors share Blackwater.

One of them, Cofer Black, known for his brutality as one of the directors of the CIA, was the one who made contact with Monsanto in 2008 as director of Total Intelligence, entering into the contract with the company to spy on and infiltrate organizations of animal rights activists, anti-GM and other dirty activities of the biotech giant.

Contacted by Scahill, the Monsanto executive Kevin Wilson declined to comment, but later confirmed to The Nation that they had hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and 2009, according to Monsanto only to keep track of "public disclosure" of its opponents. He also said that Total Intelligence was a  "totally separate entity from Blackwater."

However, Scahill has copies of emails from Cofer Black after the meeting with Wilson for Monsanto, where he explains to other former CIA agents, using their Blackwater e-mails, that the discussion with Wilson was that Total Intelligence had become "Monsanto's intelligence arm," spying on activists and other actions, including "our people to legally integrate these groups." Total Intelligence Monsanto paid $ 127,000 in 2008 and $ 105,000 in 2009.

No wonder that a company engaged in the "science of death" as Monsanto, which has been dedicated from the outset to produce toxic poisons spilling from Agent Orange to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), pesticides, hormones and genetically modified seeds, is associated with another company of thugs.

Almost simultaneously with the publication of this article in The Nation, the Via Campesina reported the purchase of 500,000 shares of Monsanto, for more than $23 million by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which with this action completed the outing of the mask of "philanthropy." Another association that is not surprising.

It is a marriage between the two most brutal monopolies in the history of industrialism: Bill Gates controls more than 90 percent of the market share of proprietary computing and Monsanto about 90 percent of the global transgenic seed market and most global commercial seed. There does not exist in any other industrial sector monopolies so vast, whose very existence is a negation of the vaunted principle of "market competition" of capitalism. Both Gates and Monsanto are very aggressive in defending their ill-gotten monopolies.

Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really "donating" anything, but instead of paying taxes to the state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions. On the contrary, their "donations" finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world. What a coincidence, former Secretary of Health Julio Frenk and Ernesto Zedillo are advisers of the Foundation.

Like Monsanto, Gates is also engaged in trying to destroy rural farming worldwide, mainly through the "Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa" (AGRA). It works as a Trojan horse to deprive poor African farmers of their traditional seeds, replacing them with the seeds of their companies first, finally by genetically modified (GM). To this end, the Foundation hired Robert Horsch in 2006, the director of Monsanto. Now Gates, airing major profits, went straight to the source.

Blackwater, Monsanto and Gates are three sides of the same figure: the war machine on the planet and most people who inhabit it, are peasants, indigenous communities, people who want to share information and knowledge or any other who does not want to be in the aegis of profit and the destructiveness of capitalism.

* The author is a researcher at ETC Group

Scahill: Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch called me a ‘terrorist supporter’ during MSNBC spot

Raw Story

In a heated discussion broadcast by MSNBC's News Live on Thursday, investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill and former New York City Mayor Ed Koch traded verbal barbs over Israel's storming of a humanitarian aid flotilla from Turkey; an act of aggression in international waters that resulted in the killing of nine peace activists and the detention of hundreds of civilians.

The conversation was atypical of most televised coverage on the Israel-Palestine conflict, in that Scahill was able to present a glimpse into the reality faced by many Palestinians trapped within Israel's military blockade. At one point, Scahill even noted that out of the 1.5 million people in Gaza, "65 percent of that population are under the age of 18."

Offering a response, Scahill's directness appeared to fluster Koch, who, the reporter later claimed, called his disputant a "terrorist supporter" during the commercial break.

"I said, 'Say it on the air,'" the Nation contributor later tweeted.

Koch did not, although he did object allowing various herbs and cattle into Palestine: a caveat even the host seemed to remark on, telling the audience upon returning from a break they had been talking about "the flow of donkeys into Gaza."

Leading into said break, Koch had scoffed in retort to Scahill, "Don't give me kids ... It's simple."

"What these people were trying to do was break an illegal strangulation of these people and, contrary to what you say about them having ties to terrorist groups, I know people who were part of that flotilla, including ambassador Ann Wright, who helped to reopen the U.S. embassy in Kabul after 9/11," Scahill continued. "This was not a ship full of terrorists. There were well respected international diplomats trying to confront a strangulation policy."

"I don't want to argue with you," Koch began.

"You can't argue with that," Scahill answered.

He later concluded: "The fact is that only Israel, in the world, can board a ship and kill civilians, including shooting an American citizen four times in the head, Mayor Koch, and not have the U.S. come out and strongly condemn it. The United States is backing Israel with all of its rogue activities around the world. They have violated, minimum, 66 U.N. resolutions, Israel has, and they do it because they're backed by the U.S."

On TheNation.com, Scahill elaborated further ...

Israel and its apologists like Mayor Koch attempt to portray the humanitarian Flotilla as terrorist-affiliated, a "hate boat" in the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu, "capable of smuggling large amounts of weapons" that "was trying to break the naval blockade of Gaza, not bring humanitarian aid." But Koch and the Israeli spokespeople conveniently leave out the fact that there were no weapons being smuggled [...]

On the show today, I read from a list of the items Israel has banned from entering Gaza. Among these are such dangerous spices as sage, cardamom, cumin, coriander, as well as children's toys, fruit preserves, ginger, fishing rods, chocolate, fresh meat and well-known terrorist sympathizers such as horses, donkeys, goats, cattle and chicks. See a list of the banned and permitted items for yourself here [PDF].

As Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister, said earlier this year. 'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet."

When I asked Koch how a goat or a horse or a children’s toy could be used as rocket to hit Israel, Koch responded by saying only, “that’s nonsense.”

The U.S. has yet to officially criticize Israel's actions, with President Obama calling the events "tragic" and claiming he needed more information before making a conclusion.

This video is from MSNBC's News Live, broadcast June 3, 2010.