A man is born gentle and weak.

At his death, he is hard and stiff.

Green plants are supple and filled with sap.

At their death they are withered and dry.

Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.

The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.

A tree that is unbending is easily broken

The hard and strong will fall.

The soft and weak will overcome.

Tao Te Ching (Ch-76)

If I gave you everything that I owned

And asked for nothing in return

Would you do the same for me as I would for you

Or take me for a ride

And strip me of everything, including my pride

But spirit is something that no one destroys

And the sound that I'm hearing is only the sound

Of the low spark of high-heeled boys

Heeled boys

Steve Winwood

This song from Traffic has always been fascinating to me. I found a story in Wikipedia about all this. I mean I thought it had something to do with some gay prostitution ring. And the pimp is eventually killed by a weapon with a silencer.

Pollard and I would sit around writing lyrics all day, talking about Bob Dylan and the Band, thinking up ridiculous plots for the movie. Before I left Morocco, Pollard wrote in my book 'The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.' For me, it summed him up. He had this tremendous rebel attitude. He walked around in his cowboy boots, his leather jacket. At the time he was a heavy little dude. It seemed to sum up all the people of that generation who were just rebels. The 'Low Spark,' for me, was the spirit, high-spirited. You know, standing on a street corner. The low rider. The 'Low Spark' meaning that strong undercurrent at the street level.[citation needed

The song always haunted me. "What is jazz?" C asked me, when I asked him what Zen was. I said: "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys." C said: " Good enough for me."

I was going to just quote the above zen-like verse and go onto other things when I caught this article at The Nation. One of those seven pagers about Blackwater, a company I have written about before. And something clicked. 

The article is more than 3 years old now.

Blackwater is in trouble right now. At least what is left of it.

Seventeen 'innocents' died in Iraq on September 16, 2007. Five soldiers are indicted and another pled guilty.

Blackwater claimed the convoy was attacked by armed insurgents, but Iraqi officials immediately denied that. As Jeffrey Taylor, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, where the case will be tried, said: "None of the victims of this shooting was armed. None of them was an insurgent. Many were shot while inside civilian vehicles that were attempting to flee from the convoy. One victim was shot in the chest while standing in the street with his hands up.   http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9840

Indeed, Blackwater issued a statement that, in part, said, "Blackwater is extremely disappointed and surprised to learn that an individual independent contractor has said he committed wrongdoing related to his activities on Sept. 16, 2007. If true, at the time of the incident and in the months that followed, this individual gave false information to the company to conceal that behavior. Both the conduct itself and misleading Blackwater after the fact would violate the high standards of conduct required of each Blackwater independent contractor."

See what Blackwater did. It distances itself from 'the sin' through legal documents, through obfuscation. Makes me sick. Its like those kids at GTMO. Rummy and cheney and gonzo and yoo all set it up for torture at strongholds around the globe. Pursuant to direct order manuals are printed. In the end the kids get the shaft and the pigs go scott free.

This would not be the first time Blackwater has tried to put some distance between itself and its contractors. Earlier this year U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., released a memorandum stating his committee had obtained evidence indicating Blackwater may have improperly designated its security guards as independent contractors rather than employees in order to avoid paying and withholding federal taxes. That was old news. But, according to the memo, "Blackwater has asserted ... that its security guards are independent contractors because the company does not exercise sufficient control over their activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blackwater has claimed in official communications that its security guards are 'in no way directly supervised or controlled by Blackwater'; that they 'do not report to any of the Blackwater entities regarding their work in the field'; and that they 'do not report to Blackwater regarding their operations in country.' Blackwater has also claimed that it 'plays no role in the development or planning of the contractors' security missions' and 'has little if any knowledge regarding the location or activities of these independent contractors.' According to Blackwater, its 'only real involvement is to pay the independent contractors.'" http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9840

What part did our government play in all of this?

...in the end it may very well be that the security guards were entirely at fault, but it must be noted that for a long time some, including those in the private security industry itself, have believed the immunity Blackwater received under its State Department contract encouraged it to emphasize its mission -- the protection of its clients -- to the exclusion of all other considerations: a sort of "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude.

But there are some witnesses that have been killed. And I think Blackwater is in deeper doo doo than this article says. See: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/dikkday48yahoocom/2009/08/the-black-prince.php#comments

The head of Blackwater and his employees may have killed or ordered the killing of people suspected of cooperating with federal investigators probing their activities, according to an anonymous affidavit filed in federal court Monday. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=8258915&page=1

The affidavit, one of two filed Monday, makes an extraordinary bundle of claims about the former Blackwater CEO, Erik Prince, and his employees. The existence of the documents was first reported by the Nation magazine Tuesday. They were filed as part of a civil suit against Prince and Blackwater by several Iraqis, which accuse the firm and owner of war crimes, wrongful death and more.

The men gave the affidavits as "John Doe" and "John Doe 2," saying they feared for their safety. "Mr. Prince's management has personally threatened me with death and violence," wrote Doe 2. He says also that others told him "Mr. Prince and his employees murdered, or had murdered" one or more people who had cooperated with the feds, or were planning to.

THE NATION

17 innocents die and 6 soldiers face 340 years.

What was it like to be in the shoes of the soldiers hired by Blackwater? How on earth did 6 goooooooooood soldiers, men who fought valiantly for this country, some who did so for as long as a decade end up like this?

Okay. So this three year old article is old news is it?  Remember Erik Prince is under indictment and claims he has stepped down as CEO. The guy inherited at least 100 million and built up his own army on American soil. Employees attended mandatory prayer meetings as well as debriefing or propaganda sessions.  Blackwater was the assassination squad cheney had planned to build. For chrissakes, Blackwater actually signed its contracts with cheney's own company. Remember the company for some 7 years received all its money as a subcontractor of Halliburton.  Oh and it looks like there were other Blackwaters, other assassination squads and their names will come to light at a later date along with their affiliations:

Even more troubling, I think we will find out that in the unraveling of the Bush years, Blackwater was not the worst of the contractors, some of which did reportedly end up carrying out their assigned hits. http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/dikkday48yahoocom/2009/08/the-black-prince.php#comments  http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1917759,00.html

Let me go back to Winwood a minute. This song could be seen as a story about gay prostitution of course. The low spark according to the co author was kind of the 'life force' concept you might find in D.H. Lawrence or Nietzsche. A 19th century perspective.

The pimps can use this life force, they can find these high heeled boys and make some damn good money.

If you see something that looks like a star

And it's shooting up out of the ground

And your head is spinning from a loud guitar

And you just can't escape from the sound

Don't worry too much, it'll happen to you

We were children once, playing with toys

These children do not know the power they had. The talent. 
The value. They are confused and are guided to a place they 
should never have gone with false promises along with the 
constraints of poverty and wanderlust.  Some of them rather
 young and playing with toys; the toys of patriotism, the toys 
of religious zealotry, the toys of mass destruction.

The article in The Nation gives individual examples of the men
 involved. Some might have ten solid years of experience as 
soldiers in the Army, Navy, Marines or Air Force.  They ran 
into trouble. They ended up divorced with alimony and support 
payments due. The service did not pay them enough money to 
handle these problems and Blackwater was there to use their life
 force to its own advantage.

Some had less experience but had a wanderlust and wanted 
to experience the life of a Templar, bringing Christianity to the 
Pagan Muslim.  And they really thought that Saddam had 
something to do with Al Qaeda....with the bombing of the
 Twin Towers and the Pentagon and Blackwater fostered
 all of these lies.

I submit that the real investigation of this corporate army--
with no real allegiance to America since it is multi-national--
began with a civil suit by the families of the deceased soldiers
who were hoodwinked by false promises. By the by, whenever 
you hear those two words 'tort reform' think twice before you
 jump on the bandwagon.  Civil suits oft times ignite further 
investigations by D.A's and justice is eventually served.

But in this instance:

More than 428 private contractors have been killed to date in Iraq, and US taxpayers are footing almost the entire compensation bill to their families. "This is a precedent-setting case," says Marc Miles, an attorney for the families. "Just like with tobacco litigation or gun litigation, once they lose that first case, they'd be fearful there would be other lawsuits to follow."

The families' two-year quest to hold those responsible accountable has taken them not to Falluja but to the sprawling Blackwater compound in North Carolina. As they tell it, after demanding answers about how the men ended up dead in Falluja that day and being stonewalled at every turn, they decided to conduct their own investigation. "Blackwater sent my son and the other three into Falluja knowing that there was a very good possibility this could happen," says Katy Helvenston, the mother of 38-year-old Scott Helvenston, whose charred body was hung from the Falluja bridge. "Iraqis physically did it, and it doesn't get any more horrible than what they did to my son, does it? But I hold Blackwater responsible one thousand percent."

Big, high priced law firms, invested millions in this case knowing it would drag on and on and on. But think about this, our country is paying the bills on all this. Amazing is it not. The idea of 'outsourcing'; that wondrous vision of rummy and cheney was to save taxpayers money. Governmental pensions and as well as union safe guards cause us to lose so much money. But get a good capitalist enterprise involved and what happens. Things are streamlined. In other words, the workers get the shaft. But in this instance, the taxpayers are paying the survivors. This is before the suit ever happened.

Just a point here. OUTSOURCING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STREAMLINING. IT IS THE BEST WAY TO GET GOVERNMENTAL HANDOUTS TO CORPORATE FRIENDS OF THE POLITICIANS AND TO ATTEMPT TO LAY THE BLAME ON AN INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR RATHER THAN THE POLITICIAN RUNNING THE AGENCY. Do not ever forget that. Outsourcing is a fricking sham of the first magnitude. It is a sin against man and god.

Now these attorneys were attempting to nail Blackwater for being a substantial contributing factor in the deaths of the soldiers, its own employees, on the basis of fraud, nondisclosure of risk....basically intentional as well as negligent conduct and they got their suit started in Erik Prince's back yard. I assume they sued Erik Prince individually as well as the corp and all of its ghost corps as well as other individuals. Remember also that individual responsibility is an issue with regard to any corporate suit or suit against the government.  The courts kept closing the doors on suits against cheney and rummy and feith and Bolton as well as others over the last eight years.  It is just that Prince's original training camp was built upon land he inherited in North Carolina.  It would also be of importance to note that this is yet another difference between the two Carolinas because South Carolinian Courts would have dumped this mess two days after filing.

What exactly is being alleged in these suits? 

It seemed relevant to me that Blackwater had been rather duplicitous in its dealings with our government (Pentagon) even though it was supposedly a subcontractor in that its direct contracts were with a go between, usually Halliburton or some ghost corp of Halliburton.  This is of import to the US Taxpayers, but also shows a regular pattern of fraud, deceit and just plain theft.

Now the Black Prince is promising to pay the professional soldiers six hundred dollars a day for their work. The trips to Iraq were short junkets of a couple of months.  But Blackwater charged the government $815 dollars a day.  No there were no costs to Blackwater because all incidentals including clothing and food and transportation and paper clips were also accounted for (hahahahaha) and the corp was duly reimbursed. And reimbursed some more. And reimbursed some more. So this was just a plain outright goddamanable lie on the part of Balckwater. There is no defense to this as far as claims by our government. None.

And it demonstrates a pattern of deceit which is admissible in court and which the families could claim that the soldiers should have received the difference or two hundred a day. Now we get to the meat, or at least a part of it. Original contracts with the government called for armored cars to be used by these soldiers.  Somehow down the line to Blackwater's subcontract, the word 'armored' was taken out of the contract. By doing this slight of hand Blackwater made an extra 1.5 million.

You see the survivors are saying that the soldiers had been promised armored vehicles and that some of the deaths were directly a result of the fact that the cars were not armored. See? And the soldiers had been promised the armor in their contracts with Blackwater.

Shortly after Helvenston left that message, the men left the base and set out for their destination. Without a detailed map, they took the most direct route, through the center of Falluja. According to Callahan, there was a safer alternative route that went around the city, which the men were unaware of because of Blackwater's failure to conduct a "risk assessment" before the trip, as mandated by the contract. The suit alleges that the four men should have had a chance to gather intelligence and familiarize themselves with the dangerous routes they would be traveling. This was not done, according to Miles, "so as to pad Blackwater's bottom line" and to impress ESS with Blackwater's efficiency in order to win more contracts. The suit also alleges that McQuown "intentionally refused to allow the Blackwater security contractors to conduct" ride-alongs with the teams they were replacing from Control Risk Group. (In fact, the suit contends that Blackwater "fabricated critical documents" and "created" a pre-trip risk assessment "after this deadly ambush occurred.")

See, you tell the government through the forms and all that you have spent money doing reconnaissance, and risk assessments and whatever. You do not perform these tasks of course. People die. But what the hell, you make more money. So we are dealing with more here than the indictments regarding the deaths of innocent civilians by soldiers working for Blackwater. Blackwater was killing its own employees, walking away from the deaths and putting the financials back in the hands of the government.

This article is soooooooo enlightening. First it makes it clear what Blackwater was doing. Second it demonstrates that Blackwater cut corners in violation of the promises it had

made to the soldiers IN ORDER TO MAKE MORE MONEY. Other promises had been made and subsequently broken take a look at the article of course. But that brings us to:

And the thing that you're hearing is only the sound

Of the low spark of high-heeled boys

The percentage you're paying is too high-priced

While you're living beyond all your means

And the man in the suit has just bought a new car

From the profit he's made on your dreams

The Black Prince was receiving to high a percentage in all of this. 
He purchased islands and citizenship in other lands as well as ships
 and weapons.......But Blackwater was using these soldiers after
 luring them into hell will false promises. And pain and suffering
 and death were a direct result of this subterfuge.

But today you just read that the man was shot dead

By a gun that didn't make any noise

But it wasn't the bullet that laid him to rest

Was the low spark of high-heeled boys

Indictments are being brought, men are going to jail, 
Prince is no longer CEO. And what was the cause of the demise
 of Blackwater?  Well first Blackwater is very much alive and 
will continue to be until all government contracts are performed 
and paid. But I would certainly say that the end of Prince was 
not a bullet from a gun that did not make any noise, but from 
the low spark of high heeled boys. The spirits of these 
brave soldiers are arising from the graves with one aim,
 destroy Blackwater.

This line particularly got to me from the article:

Thus began the legal battle between Blackwater and the dead men's families. In one of its few statements on the suit, Blackwater spokesperson Chris Bertelli said, "Blackwater hopes that the honor and dignity of our fallen comrades are not diminished by the use of the legal process." Katy Helvenston calls that "total BS in my opinion," and says that the families decided to sue only after being stonewalled, misled and lied to by the company. "Blackwater seems to understand money. That's the only thing they understand," she says. "They have no values, they have no morals. They're whores. They're the whores of war."

The whores of war I am afraid were the soldiers risking their lives for six hundred a day. Blackwater was the pimp.

If you had just a minute to breathe

And they granted you one final wish

Would you ask for something like another chance

Or something similar as this

Don't worry too much, it'll happen to you

As sure as your sorrows or joys

And the thing that disturbs you is only the sound

Of the low spark of high-heeled boys

High-heeled boys

If I gave you everything that I owned

And asked for nothing in return

Would you do the same for me as I would for you

Or take me for a ride

And strip me of everything, including my pride

But spirit is something that no one destroys

And the sound that I'm hearing is only the sound

Of the low spark of high-heeled boys

Heeled boys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVlbgqmxXNY

Blackwater is not dead yet. But that really is a subject for another post.

Just days before two former Blackwater employees alleged in sworn statements filed in federal court that the company's owner, Erik Prince, "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," the Obama administration extended a contract with Blackwater for more than $20 million for "security services" in Iraq, according to federal contract data obtained by The Nation. The State Department contract is scheduled to run through September 3. In May, the State Department announced it was not renewing Blackwater's Iraq contract, and the Iraqi government has refused to issue the company an operating license. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/07/just-days-before-being-ac_n_254464.html

"The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" was written by Jim Capaldi and Steve Winwood. In addition to being performed solo by Capaldi and Winwood after the breakup of Traffic, the song has been covered by Rickie Lee Jones[1],Widespread Panic[2], and The Dead[3], among others.