33rd Degree: June 2008

PMCs are also known as security contractors, although this term usually refers to individuals employed or contracted by PMCs. Services are mainly rendered for other business corporations, international and non-governmental organizations, and state forces.

U.S. administration policy on PMCs
On December 5, 2005, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held a lecture dubbed "The Future of Iraq" at Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.[6] During a Q&A session afterwards he was asked a question by graduate student Kate Turner regarding PMCs.
Turner: "There are currently thousands of private military contractors in Iraq and you were just speaking of rules of engagement in regards to Iraqi personnel and US personnel. Could you speak to, since the private contractors are operating outside the Uniform Code of Military Justice, can you speak to what law or rules of engagement do govern their behavior and whether there has been any study showing that it is cost effective to have them in Iraq rather than US military personnel. Thank you."
Rumsfeld: "Thank you. It is clearly cost-effective to have contractors for a variety of things that military people need not do, and that for whatever reason other civilians, government people, cannot be deployed to do. There are a lot of contractors, a growing number. They come from our country but they come from all countries, and indeed sometimes the contracts are from our country or another country and they employ people from totally different countries including Iraqis and people from neighboring nations. And there are a lot of them. It's a growing number. Of course we've got to begin with the fact that, as you point out, they're not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. We understand that. There are laws that govern the behavior of Americans in that country. The Department of Justice oversees that. There is an issue that is current as to the extent to which they can or cannot carry weapons, and that's an issue. It's also an issue, of course, with the Iraqis. But if you think about it, Iraq’s a sovereign country. They have their laws and they're going to govern, the UN resolution and the Iraqi laws, as well as U.S. procedures and laws govern behavior in that country depending on who the individual is and what he's doing. But I personally am of the view that there are a lot of things that can be done for a short time basis by contractors that advantage the United States and advantage other countries who also hire contractors, and that any idea that we shouldn't have them I think would be unwise."

Is the DEA Contracting Blackwater?
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
August 3, 2008
On Friday, August 1, The Agitator blog posted the following: “Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project sends the photo below. It’s from a series of L.A. Times photos from a federal raid on a medical marijuana clinic in California. I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions from it. But it is a little disconcerting.”
So disconcerting, apparently, the L.A. Times pulled this particular photo from its slideshow and fed it into the memory hole.

Man dressed as a Blackwater mercenary partakes in a DEA raid on a Culver City medical marijuana dispensary.

Maybe this particular DEA agent gets his jollies dressing up like a Blackwater mercenary — and maybe he is a Blackwater mercenary. I leave it up to you to decide, although the latter as opposed to the former makes more sense, that is unless the DEA has relaxed its dress code to the point of absurdity.
“As a U.S. Marine, I would have faced charges for simply wearing my camouflage utility uniform into a store,” writes Tim King for Salem-News. “There are these things called standards that the Corps and other military and police groups are obligated to follow. It is to avoid giving someone the wrong idea about who you are and your application in society. I guess Blackwater and the federal marijuana plant warriors don’t care what people think.”
Is it a stretch to conclude Blackwater operates domestically? Last week, Raw Story’s David Edwards and Muriel Kane wrote a story about Jeremy Scahill, who detailed Blackwater’s foray into intelligence. Blackwater is not only providing intelligence to “foreign governments, but to Fortune 500 corporations.” Moreover, Blackwater’s Total Intelligence Solutions appears to be a catch-all for former CIA spooks, including J. Cofer Black, who ran the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. As Tim Weiner wrote for the New York Times on January 20, 2002, the CIA now operates domestically, never mind this is prohibited by its charter.

Recall FEMA and the DHS contracting Blackwater after Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater mercenaries were even “deputized” by the Louisiana governor. “What is most disturbing is the claim of several Blackwater mercenaries we spoke with that they are here under contract from the federal government and the state of Louisiana,” wrote Daniela Crespo and Jeremy Scahill for Alternet on September 12, 2005. “That raises a key question: under what authority are Blackwater’s men operating? A spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department, Russ Knocke, told the Washington Post he knows of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private security.”
As Wayne Madsen noted last October, Blackwater is now in the business of “training” domestic law enforcement in the United States — in Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, New York, Indiana, Virginia, New Jersey, Florida, Oregon, Alaska, and elsewhere. Madsen’s exhaustive list also indicates the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration receives training from Blackwater, although a Google search does not return mention of such training (this video, however, claims to show Blackwater and the DEA jointly training counternarcotics police in Afghanistan).
As it turns out, the DoD has tapped Blackwater to work its “counter-narcoterrorism activities,” along with Raytheon, Lockheed, and Northrop Grumman. As I wrote last November, “the military-mercenary complex is expanding operations” and the Pentagon’s “Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program” is just the ticket — and in the case of Blackwater and the others, a handsome meal ticket.
Considering all of this, is it possible Blackwater is working with the DEA here in America? I’d say the possibility is more than fifty percent they are.
Now that John McCain has called for the military to be used in American cities to “fight crime” — crime that is largely related to illegal drugs — no doubt Blackwater will be tapped, as they were in New Orleans, even though the DHS claimed ignorance of the fact. Of course, McCain’s idea was not his own, and it will not be limited to crime infested inner cities, but will be expanded in order that the commoners get accustomed to the idea of martial law and mercenary thugs in black uniforms toting automatic weapons.

BLACKWATER MAY MEAN DEEPWATER: INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR CONTROVERSY ERUPTS
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We all know Blackwater as the company that has been given one billion dollars in federal contracts to do work in Iraq. There have already been numerous allegations concerning the activities of Blackwater agents and their tactics. Now, it appears that this company may have, on a widespread scale, been violating labor law by classifying individuals as independent contractors when they should have been deemed employees.
Blackwater classified its security guards as independent contractors. As they were not deemed employees by the company, the company was able to qualify for small business contracts without competing with other qualified bidders. This is the essence of the allegation made by Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Calif). The company claimed that it did not sufficiently control the activities of the guards in Iraq and Afghanistan for them to be labeled employees. Not only does this contradict what a Blackwater lawyer had argued in a wrongful death case, when he was seeking money damages for their estates, it also strikes me as a position without foundation.
In order to establish the element of "control," which then shows someone is an employee, it is not necessary for the putative employer to control every aspect of the individual's work day. It is enough if a general umbrella of control, actual or potential, exists over the employee(s). It appears to me, based on the little that is now public, that Blackwater did exercise sufficient general control over these people and its claim that "all" that it did was to pay them seems bland.
At stake are millions of dollars in taxes to the IRS and probably millions of dollars in overtime monies to the employees. It is very tough to establish a true independent contractor relationship and the framework of these relationships seems to be the antithesis of such a relationship.

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