When combining totals for arms sales to developed and developing nations, the ranking of world arms dealers remained the same. The United States led with $16.9 billion, followed by Russia with $8.7 billion and Britain with $3.1 billion. The 2006 sales figures for all three nations were higher than their totals in 2005.

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Gus: Renewing weapons doe not happen without a trade of old stock down the line. Or a wastage of munitions somewhere... Otherwise a country ends up with ten times the amount of weapons it "needs" in barely ten years. Thus quite a substantial amount of the old stock of armament goes down the line and ends up in the hands of "freedom" fighters, terrorists and tinpot army generals, as long as they salute the U.S. flag and "kill" their opponents, especially the commos — even if they are peaceful. So the world becomes awash with weapons used to combat anything that moves, giving the U.S. "good" reasons to go and fight — or help their friend fight — the other side now equipped with "old" weapon...

Is this a fantastic way to help create real under strength moving living targets for training purposes or what? The rest is mangled history....

And, last Thursday, Gen. Peter Pace told reporters, "Blackwater has been a contractor in the past with the department and could certainly be in the future."

The next day, that future arrived. The Pentagon issued a new list of contracts, including one worth $92 million to Presidential Airways, the "aviation unit of parent company Blackwater."

"Presidential Airways, Inc., an aviation Worldwide Services company (d/b/a Blackwater Aviation), Moyock, M.C., is being awarded an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) type contract for $92,000,000.00," reads a press release.

Government officials have repeatedly ignored Blackwater's transgressions. Senior Iraqi officials have "repeatedly complained to U.S. officials" about Blackwater's "alleged involvement in the deaths of numerous Iraqis, but the Americans took little action to regulate the private security firm."

From The New York Times

Report Depicts Recklessness at Blackwater
By DAVID STOUT and JOHN M. BRODER
Published: October 1, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Guards working in Iraq for Blackwater USA have shot innocent Iraqi civilians and have sought to cover up the incidents, sometimes with the help of the State Department, a report to a Congressional committee said today.

The report, based largely on internal Blackwater e-mail messages and State Department documents, depicts the security contractor as being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets.

The State Department report that largely exonerates Blackwater personnel involved with the Sept. 16 Baghdad shootings was written by Blackwater.

The report was written out of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the folks who hired Blackwater to provide security for US diplomats in Iraq. But it turns out that the State Department employee who interviewed the Blackwater folks and wrote the report, Darren Hanner ... well, he wasn't a State Department employee. He was another contractor from Blackwater.

So yes, you've got that right. We've now reached what can only be called the alpha and the omega of contracting accountability breakdown ridiculousness. We're outsourcing our investigations of Blackwater to Blackwater.

And yet, through it all, the U.S. keeps awarding Blackwater more and more lucrative contracts.

Blackwater Covered Up 195 Shootings & More

meanwhile, Erik Prince, the CEO of Blackwater USA, is set to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, after the committee issued a stinging memo yesterday revealing that Blackwater employees who engaged in shooting incidents in Iraq had fired first 84 percent of the time.

The controversial firm, which was involved in a shootout in Iraq last month that left 11 Iraqis dead, has long-standing ties to right-wing causes. Prince's father, Edgar Prince, "was instrumental in the creation of the Family Research Council, an influential right-wing Christian group.

Furthermore, Erik Prince is the vice-president of the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, a group founded by his parents that "gave at least $470,000 to the FRC and $531,000 to Focus on the Family," a conservative Christian group run by James Dobson. Prince has also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservative causes including the American Enterprise Institute and the Prison Fellowship Ministries.

In his opening statement today, Blackwater Chairman Erik Prince will tell the House Oversight Committee that his company and its employees are victims of a "rush to judgment" about a shootout in Baghdad last month.

Though Prince says Blackwater employees "acted appropriately," the Iraqi government has concluded that they were "unprovoked" when they opened fire.

U.S. military reports from the scene of a shooting incident in Baghdad involving security contractor Blackwater indicates its guards opened fire without provocation and used excessive force, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

At least 11 Iraqis were killed in the September 16 incident, which has outraged Iraqis who see the firm as a private army which acts with impunity.

Citing a senior U.S. military official, the Post said the military reports appear to corroborate the Iraqi government's contention that Blackwater was at fault.

"It was obviously excessive. It was obviously wrong," a U.S. military official speaking on condition of anonymity told the newspaper.

"The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. And none of the IP (Iraqi police) or any of the local security forces fired back at them," the official was quoted as saying.

Blackwater Faulted By US Military: Report

We were on a narrow stretch of highway with no shoulders and foot-high barriers on both sides. The lead Suburban in our convoy loomed up behind an old, puttering sedan driven by an older man with a young woman and three children.

As we approached at typical breakneck speed, the Blackwater driver honked furiously and motioned to the side, as if they should pull over. The kids in the back seat looked back in horror, mouths agape at the sight of the heavily armored Suburbans driven by large, armed men in dark sunglasses. The poor Iraqi driver frantically searched for a means of escape, but there was none. So the lead Blackwater vehicle smashed heedlessly into the car, pushing it into the barrier. We zoomed by too quickly to notice if anyone was hurt.

"Where do you all expect them to go?" I shrieked. "It was an old guy and a family, for goodness' sake. Was it necessary for them to destroy their poor old car?"

My driver responded impassively: "Ma'am, we've been trained to view anyone as a potential threat. You don't know who they might use as decoys or what the risks are. Terrorists could be disguised as anyone."

"Well, if they weren't terrorists before, they certainly are now!" I retorted. Sulking in my seat, I was stunned by the driver's indifference.

The military has established rules of engagement, plus it is required to pay compensation for damages (though it is a difficult and bureaucratic process). Blackwater seemed to have no such rules, paid no compensation and, per long-standing Coalition Provisional Authority fiat, had immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: This is what BushCo has created. And to repeat what Clive Stafford Smith said, "The immoral has become so mundane."

Blackwater Crushed Car With Three Kids, Old Man To Avoid Traffic

As the Bush administration deals with the fallout from the recent killings of civilians by private security firms in Iraq, some officials are asking whether the contractors could be considered unlawful combatants under international agreements.

The question is an outgrowth of federal reviews of the shootings, in part because the US officials want to determine whether the administration could be accused of treaty violations that could fuel an international outcry.

America's Own Unlawful Combatants?