James Dobson, Blackwater Group and the Jesus Machine

[Bruce Gourley]

I received an email this morning (not from anyone associated with these forums) discussing the relationship between private Iraq contractor Blackwater Group and James Dobson's Focus on the Family. It was news to me, but after doing a little research on the Net, I discovered that indeed the owner of Blackwater was an Focus insider, and a longtime player in the Republican Religious Right. Yet as far as I know, these connections have not been reported by mainstream media.

This morning I also came across an obscure news story from over a week ago which I somehow missed. .

Finally, I also found a reference to a book published earlier this year I've previously not heard of: The Jesus Machine: How . Has anyone here read it?

[William Thornton]

[Bruce Gourley]

[Ed Pettibone]

Bruce wrote in part "Finally, I also found a reference to a book published earlier this year I've previously not heard of: The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning the Culture War. Has anyone here read it?

ED: Not I, seldom take time to read fiction.

[KeithE]

Blackwater much in the news lately:









I do not know about Blackwater ties to Focus but these mercenaries have been getting away with much for a long time. And now our "state department" has allowed them to continue.


A National Guardsman co-worker who went to Iraq several years ago working administrating the prisons around Baghdad (including Abu Ghraid) said that the groups he thought were doing the worse stuff (in terms of roughing people up) were the Navy Seals and the security contractors when bringing people into the prison system. He thought the prisons were now (post Abu Ghraid story being broken) "sqweaky clean". He told me yetserday that Blackwater was the largest of the security contractors he had in mind (but no worse or better than any of the mercenaries over there). He was not surprised about the recent news.

[KeithE]

[Big Daddy Weaver]

Bruce,

I haven't read The Jesus Machine yet. But I heard Dan Gilgoff speak at an alumni reception for Wake Forest Divinity during this years CBF.

Gilgoff was sharp. After his speech, a question and answer period was held and Gilgoff and Dr. Leonard answered questions about Baptists, politics, and the upcoming election. By far the best "break-out" session that I attended at CBF.

[Jim]

KE: A National Guardsman co-worker who went to Iraq several years ago working administrating the prisons around Baghdad (including Abu Ghraid) said that the groups he thought were doing the worse stuff (in terms of roughing people up) were the Navy Seals and the security contractors when bringing people into the prison system. He thought the prisons were now (post Abu Ghraid story being broken) "sqweaky clean". He told me yetserday that Blackwater was the largest of the security contractors he had in mind (but no worse or better than any of the mercenaries over there). He was not surprised about the recent news.

J: This is a statement of today: WASHINGTON (AFP) — The private security firm Blackwater USA has been involved in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, according to a US Congress report that depicts the company's employees as dangerously out of control. This may be true…no one actually knows. However, there probably have been that many shootings in two years in Washington, D.C., or New Orleans, mostly for no other purpose than crimes of one kind or another.

Erik Prince and a partner operate Blackwater (established 1997). Prince, a former Navy Seal (duty in Haiti, Bosnia – Clinton administration stuff) is a billionaire who happens to be a religious conservative, contributor to republican causes, and is connected to the billionaire, religiously conservative DeVos clan through the marriage of his sister. His father helped Gary Bauer establish American Values. There’s plenty of info on this guy and his extended family.

Making judgments from the location of an easy chair in this country about what it’s like 24/7 on the streets and roads of Iraq bespeaks arrogance and ignorance. The same is true with respect to contracts between the government and any company at work in Iraq, and there are many of those, not just Halliburton and Blackwater. It’s instructive to remember that self-preservation is an instinct that most in this forum would have if faced with danger to themselves or family. I wouldn’t presume to make judgments on what caused those shootings, since I haven’t been there to see for myself, but I think I know what I would do if I felt someone was trying to kill me. The Blackwater operatives may be called mercenaries, but they do a job, just as do policemen in this country.

[Dave Roberts]

It seems strange to me in all this that the State Department and American embassies abroad have always depended on the US Marines for security. That way we gain two things. First, the people doing the guarding are trained professionals, and second, they are under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There is no chain of command with private mercinary armies. It seems an easy way the Bush Administration has found not to have to send the number of troops needed to do the job and risk greater political fallout in this country. BTW, I would apply the same standard had it been Bill Clinton sending them. It seems to me we are trying now to have a private army as well as a national one. Somewhere this whole issue needs desperately to be addressed because it seems dangerously hard to control and avoids the whole civilian/military chain of command. These people do not seem answerable to anyone ultimately. That is not the American way for which my dad fought in WWII.

[Jim]

DR: It seems strange to me in all this that the State Department and American embassies abroad have always depended on the US Marines for security. That way we gain two things. First, the people doing the guarding are trained professionals, and second, they are under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There is no chain of command with private mercinary armies. It seems an easy way the Bush Administration has found not to have to send the number of troops needed to do the job and risk greater political fallout in this country. BTW, I would apply the same standard had it been Bill Clinton sending them. It seems to me we are trying now to have a private army as well as a national one. Somewhere this whole issue needs desperately to be addressed because it seems dangerously hard to control and avoids the whole civilian/military chain of command. These people do not seem answerable to anyone ultimately. That is not the American way for which my dad fought in WWII.

J: There’s quite a difference between standing guard at an embassy, a tiny patch in the middle of a city, with, at least supposedly, the backup of the local police, and watching over people working in an overall area the size of California. Private operatives are probably better trained than the traditional soldier. Like Erik Prince, they come from some of the toughest, meanest outfits like the Navy Seals or Green Berets or Army Special Ops. Taking combat troops away from their actual responsibility and assigning them to hundreds of private operations is too unrealistic even to consider. Military units cover their own convoys and other undertakings, but expecting them to guard workers at oil wells and other enterprises is unrealistic, besides the fact that they would operate little differently from those private guards – shoot first and ask questions later. After all, both the private companies and all their employees sign on to jobs they know are hazardous…they pay their money and take their choice. Asking them not to defend themselves is also unrealistic.

Blaming Bush for this situation is predictable, even though so-called “private armies” have been a fact of life for hundreds of years. Bush can stop the whole thing by simply expelling all private companies from Iraq; however, the problem with that is that this country is paying billions in trying to put the place back together, notwithstanding that the Iraqis themselves form the worst impediment to this endeavor. Of course, the whole shooting match is hard to control, but Iraq is not Camelot; rather, it includes small cadres of people intent upon killing each other or anyone who looks other than Arabic. The “mercenary” knows this and has to be tough and unfeeling enough to do whatever’s necessary. They are answerable, however, otherwise they wouldn’t be under investigation. Congressional committees are literally licking their chops at yet another opportunity to tag the administration for the murderous outfit they claim it is.

General Patton of WWII fame had it about right. The battle plans are perfect…until the first shot is fired, and than all bets are off. The same is true with the private sector. The whole thing is messy. Why wouldn’t it be?

[wilkey]

Interesting artilce in my files about H.L. Hunt's grandson having lots of stock in Haliburton. He was pushing getting the Bush Library at SMU, against the wishes of many of the SMU faculty. The grandson was supposed to have made fortune off the war in Iraq.

[James]

An NPR commentator (name starts with an S) stated last night that there are 160,000 US Military people in Irag and over 180,000 private contractor security personnel. That's a scary thought even though all presidents have been outsourcing government functions to private firms for the last 50 years.

[Bruce Gourley]

More information on the Blackwater Group, the Religious Right's mercenary army (just who would Jesus kill?):

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/9/18/122342/856

http://www.mediamouse.org/reviews/041307black.php

[Dave Roberts]

[Chris]

[ET]