Another Lawsuit Targets Christian Right Founder of Blackwater

Erik Prince - the Christianist founder of Blackwater USA - has been hit with another lawsuit arising out of the gratuitous murder of innocent Iraqi civilians by his Blackwater mercenaries. Personally, it could not happen to a better person. Prince's parents have been long time sponsors and donors to far right organizations that demonize gays and his mother made a major six figure contribution to the supporters of Proposition 8. If the claims set out in the lawsuit prove true, they demonstrate that despite his professed Christian beliefs, Prince (and many like him) are actually heartless, despicable bigots and monsters who kill others for sport. I continue to be shocked by the Christianist mindset that views non-Christians as little more than animals. WWJD? I hope the allegations of the lawsuit prove to be true and that Prince's mercenary operation is ultimately shut down. Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

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Yet another civil lawsuit accuses Blackwater guards of driving through the streets of Baghdad randomly shooting innocent Iraqis. The latest case accuses Blackwater founder Erik Prince of personally directing murders from a 24-hour remote monitoring "war room" at the private military company's Moyock, N.C., headquarters.

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Prince "personally directed and permitted a heavily-armed private army... to roam the streets of Baghdad killing innocent civilians," alleges the suit, filed by four Iraqi citizens. Prince was well aware that his men, including top executives, "viewed shooting innocent Iraqis as sport," the suit says. In fact, "those who killed and wounded innocent Iraqis tended to rise higher in Mr. Prince's organization than those who abided by the rule of law." Prince's top executives openly discussed "laying Hajjis out on cardboard" and "bragged about their collective role in killing those of the Islamic faith," the suit alleges.

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On more than one occasion, the suit says, Prince's men went "night hunting" in helicopters after 10 p.m. over the streets of Baghdad, wearing night goggles, killing at random. The lawsuit says Prince caused murders to occur on at least 11 occasions, including one and perhaps more in the United States. The suit describes one case in which a young man, not identified in the court papers, died after photographing Anna Bundy, a Blackwater executive, packaging illegal weaponry outfitted with silencers for shipment to Iraq.

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The latest suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, is the sixth civil case brought against Prince and his company, now known as Xe, by the Washington law firm Burke O'Neil on behalf of more than 60 Iraqis or their estates. Many of them were injured or killed two years ago today - Sept. 16, 2007 - in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in a shooting incident that left 17 Iraqis dead and ultimately led to the loss of Blackwater's diplomatic security contract.

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In one episode described in those papers, one of the five defendants, Evan Liberty, allegedly drove through Baghdad on Sept. 9, 2007, a week before the Nisoor Square incident, randomly shooting Iraqis through the porthole of an armored vehicle.

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By all accounts, Prince and his Blackwater henchmen are nasty individuals who truly give Christians and Americans a bad name. If the allegations are true, I hope Prince eventually will do prison time.

Tortured and Killed in Iraq for Being Gay

We've done posts on this issue before, yet the murders of gays in Iraq continue and worse yet the USA which continues to bankroll the current Iraqi puppet government seems to be totally indifferent to the ongoing deaths. The so-called "Golden Rule" of he who has the money sets the rules obviously is not being applied by the Obama administration. Amnesty International and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs are on top of the issue, but the USA is missing in action - yet again - offering more proof that LGBT lives mean little to the current administration other than opportunities fro flowery rhetoric not backed by action. Here are some highlights from ABC News:

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Two gay men were killed in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, and police confirmed they found the bodies of four more men, all killed during a 10-day period after an unknown Shiite militia group urged a crackdown on homosexuals in the country.

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The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs believes as many as 30 people have been killed during the last three months because they were -- or were perceived to be -- gay. In a letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the human rights group Amnesty International called for "urgent and concerted action" to end the violence against the gay community, the group reported on its Web site.

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Homosexuality is prohibited almost everywhere in the Middle East, but conditions have become especially dangerous in recent years for gays and lesbians, as religious militias have become more powerful since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. . . . "Two young men were killed Thursday. They were sexual deviants. Their tribes killed them to restore their family honor," an Iraqi army member who did not want to give his name told ABC News.

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Two gay men were found elsewhere in Sadr City, alive but bearing the scars of severe torture. They were beaten, their chests showed signs of cigarette burns, and when police found them they were rushed to the hospital. They had been sodomized with iron bars, sources said. Other men said they had had their chests slashed and their nipples cut off.

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The irony is that such murders were much more rare under the overthrown regime of Saddam Hussein. Welcome to Iraqi democracy US style. Oh, and as for fundamentalist religion - both Islamic and Christian - it continues to be one of the greatest force for evil in the world. How many lives would not have been needlessly lost over the centuries but for religious based hate and evil?

Amnesty International Condemns Iraqi President

It is a sad state of affairs that the Obama administration and the U. S. State Department appear to be utterly indifferent to the unrestrained murder of gay Iraqis that are taking place at present. Both seem unwilling to demand that their Iraqi puppets take action and stop the travesty. Thus, it is good to see that Amnesty International is calling attention to the blatant murders that are taking place and going after Iraqi president Nouri al-Maliki personally for allowing the bloodshed. Candidly, I find Maliki and his government to be pretty worthless and content to suck off the tit of the American taxpayers. It is a damning situation when gays had better protections under Saddam Hussein than they do now. Here are highlights from Pink News:

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Amnesty International has taken the unusual step of writing to Iraqi president Nouri al-Maliki to demand "urgent and concerted action" by his government to stop the killings of gay men in the country. Although confusion has led to conflicted reports over the numbers being killed, Amnesty believes the murders have been carried out by militiamen and relatives of the victims, after being incited by religious leaders.

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According to the Independent, Amnesty's letter to Mr Al-Maliki accuses his government of failing to condemn the killings publicly or to investigate the murders. It also suggested that evidence shows police are encouraged to target gay men and calls for officers who incite homophobic attacks to be "held to account and either prosecuted or disciplined and removed from office".

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Amnesty International is calling on Nouri al-Maliki to condemn all attacks on members of the gay community, publicly, unreservedly and in the strongest terms possible." Writing for PinkNews.co.uk in February, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell claimed: "Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, homophobia and the terrorisation of LGBT people has got much worse.

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"The western invasion of Iraq in 2003 ended the tyrannical Baathist dictatorship. But it also destroyed a secular state, created chaos and lawlessness and allowed the flourishing of religious fundamentalism. The result has been an Islamist-inspired homophobic terror campaign against LGBT Iraqis." "Queers are being shot dead in their homes, streets and workplaces," he added.

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"Even suspected gay children are being murdered. They killers claim to be doing these assassinations at the behest of the 'democratic' Iraqi government, in order to eradicate what they see as immoral, un-Islamic behaviour."

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Once again, religious fundamentalism of all stripes and cowardly politicians are proving to be a main force of evil in the world.

Kaboom War Journal - Army Censors Blogging Soldier

The Washington Post has an interesting story about a young army officer whose blog has been shut down by the Military. The body of the blog was saved on an archive and can be found here: http://kaboomwarjournalarchive.blogspot.com/. I'm not so sure what was so offensive, but it is illuminating of a mindset where often superior officers act like petty potentates. Living in this heavily military area and knowing countless guys and women in the military, one hears frequent stories of jackass superior officers (my mother ran a lab in the huge local Naval Hospital for decades and had many an unflattering story to tell as well). Unfortunately, moving up the ranks often involves ass-kissing and playing politics rather than true competence as a warrior and commander. Here are a few story highlights:

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An indictment of the war it was not. Lt. G's dispatches -- at turns hilarious, maddening and terrifying -- provided raw and insightful snapshots of a conflict many Americans have lost interest in. Word got around, and more and more readers closely followed the postings of 25-year-old Lt. Matthew Gallagher, with the site drawing tens of thousands of page views. By the time Kaboom went kaput last month -- Lt. G was ordered to take down his blog -- it had a following that would be the envy of many a small-town paper.

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The blog's downfall was a May 28 posting that, in violation of military blogging rules, Gallagher failed to have vetted by a supervisor. (That the posting depicted an officer in the unit unflatteringly might have played a role. Gallagher declined a request to comment.) The blogosphere, as it's wont to do, went berserk.

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Sometimes overtly, sometimes not, Lt. G wrote about what he saw as a widening disconnect between America and its warriors. His dispatches often read like a desperate call from a largely forgotten war. The Gravediggers received odd letters and care packages from strangers. Some were from older women probably looking for love. One was from someone in corporate America who somehow figured golf shirts would come in handy in a war zone. Then there were the letters from children, which spoke volumes about how many Americans have come to feel about this war.

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Gallagher, who is now a captain, was ordered to delete his blog. He did. The content remains on an archive blog one of his friends created: http://kaboomwarjournalarchive.blogspot.com. The old blog site is now controlled by City Girl, Gallagher's fiancee, who occasionally pens updates on the Gravediggers. Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a military spokesman, said in an e-mail that Kaboom was "deemed by the commander to be counter to good order and discipline of his unit."