Cuban Propaganda Agency Issues Phony Blackwater Report

The Cuban government's Soviet-built propaganda agency, Prensa Latina, is running a false report that the US has announced that Blackwater will withdraw its security operations from Iraq.

"US Announces Blackwater Pullout of Iraq," Prensa Latina says in a headline today. Google News is giving it prominence, having pulled down most other reporting on Blackwater as questions continue about the objectivity of its search engine. Most of the recent positive reporting on Blackwater from the past few days no longer appears on Google News.

The Cuban article is difficult to read because its Mexico-based server is slow and the site requires readers to register.

A banner on the top right of the Prensa Latina page champions the cause of the "Miami Five," a group of Cuban infiltrators and saboteurs currently in federal US prison. Prensa Latina calls the five "anti-terrorists [who] battle for justice."

Prensa Latina is the Castro version of the old Soviet TASS "news" agency created during the Cold War. Why it's reporting a false story about Blackwater at this time remains to be seen, but we're putting down this marker to keep track.

(Note: For the record, The Nation magazine, which has sponsored Jeremy Scahill's writing on Blackwater, has been a strong sympathizer with the Castro regime for decades.)

Wife of Felon Wants to Drive Blackwater Out of Business

The wife of a convicted felon is using the indictments of five ex-Blackwater men as an excuse to drive the company out of the security business.

Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois), whose husband recently served a prison term for federal felony convictions, says she doesn't like Blackwater and wants to "get them out of this business."

Schakowsky has parrotted the conspiracy theory line of anti-Blackwater activist Jeremy Scahill for a couple of years. Now she says she intends to run for the Senate seat left vacant by President-Elect Barack Obama.

“The indictments will likely get rid of a few bad apples, but there will be no real consequences for Blackwater," Schakowsky tells The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress. "This company could continue to do business as usual — the solution is to get them out of this business."

Senator Kerry Says He's OK with Blackwater

Senator John Kerry has joined Senator Jim Webb in rebuffing calls for the US to ban Blackwater. Like Webb, Kerry is a sharp critic of Blackwater - but says that the company should be allowed to compete for contracts.

Kerry's comment further isolates House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, who is the only senior member of Congress to say he wants to force Blackwater out of the government contracting business.

The Massachusetts senator indicates he has no problem with Blackwater's security services in Iraq, as long as the company operates under the same rules as everyone else.

Anti-Blackwater gadfly Jeremy Scahill posed questions to congressmen and senators at the Democratic National Convention to elicit comments against the firm. Here's the transcript as copied from the DemocracyNow! website:

JEREMY SCAHILL: Senator Kerry, should Blackwater be banned? Senator Kerry, you’ve been aggressive on Blackwater recently. Do you think they should be banned?
SEN. JOHN KERRY: I’m not having a press conference right now. I’ve got to get to an airport, because I have to go to a funeral.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Just answer the one question. I know you know about this.
SEN. JOHN KERRY: I need to—I need—I’m not doing this right know. That’s all.
JEREMY SCAHILL: It’s a simple yes or no. Do you think they should be banned—Blackwater, the mercenary company—from operating in Iraq?
SEN. JOHN KERRY: No, I don’t think they should be banned. I think they need to operate under rules that apply to the military and everybody else.
JEREMY SCAHILL: But it’s OK if Senator Obama continues to use them, if he wins the presidency?
SEN. JOHN KERRY: You guys, I’m not—this is not the moment.

Senator Webb Won't Back Waxman; Says Blackwater Should Still Compete for Contracts

Senator Jim Webb won't back Congressman Henry Waxman's call for the US government to cancel Blackwater's contracts.

Moonbat writer Jeremy Scahill buttonholed politicians at the Democrat National Convention this week for a left-wing website. While getting Waxman to make his unprecedented call to cut off Blackwater - and receiving some praise for his own work against the company - Scahill didn't get Senator Webb to say the same.

To the contrary: Despite all his criticism of the company, Webb says he thinks Blackwater should still compete for contracts. Here's the dialogue:

JEREMY SCAHILL: "Do you think that, though, that Senator Obama should cancel Blackwater’s contract with the State Department, because it will be there if he wins? What should he do on Blackwater specifically?"

SEN. JIM WEBB: "I’m not—I mean, I’m not in a position right now to say that Blackwater’s contract specifically should be cancelled. I think all of them should be aggressively reviewed and, you know, have standards put on them, and I think Blackwater, like other companies, ought to compete."

Waxman Joins Moonbat Writer and Calls for Obama to Cancel Blackwater Contracts

Congressman Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who has abused his committee chairmanship to help a trial lawyer make millions in a suit against Blackwater, is now calling on Barack Obama to have the US cancel its contracts with the company.

Waxman made the statement in league with moonbat writer Jeremy Scahill for a leftwing website.

In his commentary, Scahill appears upset that Senator Obama is not for an immediate pullout from Iraq. "Obama’s Iraq policy in reality is one of downsizing and rebranding the occupation, not entirely ending it," he says. That would be good news for Blackwater, which is needed to provide security as US troops pull out.

Waxman tells Scahill that he thinks Blackwater is doing a "very poor" job in Iraq, and promises to "investigate" the company even more. He also praises Scahill, saying, "And so, they’re going to be investigated much further by the Congress and people in the administration and good people like you on the outside."

Waxman says Blackwater has not "lived up" to its Worldwide Personal Protective Services (WPPS) contract in Iraq - an odd comment because the company has been universally praised for its stunning 100 percent success record in keeping Americans safe.

Even Senator Obama has said that he thinks Blackwater's "getting a bad rap." And Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.), another Blackwater critic, would not back Waxman when Scahill asked him to.

So Waxman is putting himself out on the extreme fringe with his comments - and his praise of one of Blackwater's goofier critics.

Raleigh News & Observer Tops Duke Lacrosse Scandal with Scahill Collaboration

The Raleigh News & Observer, whose editors and reporters helped destroy the lives of young men with the discredited Duke lacrosse team scandal, now brags about how its crack team has taken on Blackwater Worldwide.

In an edited interview with ProPublica.org, News & Observer investigations editor Steve Riley boasts about the paper's coverage. But he says nothing about the special relationship between one of his reporters, Joe Neff, and moonbat writer Jeremy Scahill.

In the public interest, the newspaper should reveal the nature and scope of that relationship, and detail any collaboration between Neff and Scahill that the paper might have kept from its readers.

Scahill Uncloseted at Socialism Conference

Gadfly Blackwater critic Jeremy Scahill let his hair down at the Socialism 2008 conference in Chicago last month. In remarks published by Socialist Worker, Scahill lashes out at the Iraqi government, the Democratic Party and Senator Barack Obama, in addition to his predictable diatribes. His comments show that he is far from the detached observer he purports to be when criticizing Blackwater and the private security industry.

Among Scahill's comments:

• The elected government of Iraq is an American "puppet regime."


• The Iraqi prime minister is nothing more than a U.S. stooge: "this is a government that the United States put in place, and there's no such thing as independence in this Iraqi government. They tell Nuri al-Maliki to jump, and he says how high. They tell him to do jumping jacks, and he says how many."


• Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), who has led two congressional hearings against Blackwater, is a big disappointment and is not doing enough.


• There is no real difference between Democrats and Republicans; in Scahill's words, they are "really one party."


• Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) has sold out to the warmonger establishment: "people who were at the center of a brutal and violent foreign policy during the Clinton era. . . . are now the top folks at Barack Obama's campaign. Once he sewed up the nomination, the old guard comes right in, and it's back to being the same Democratic Party. So much for change."


• The only legislation Scahill endorsed was authored by Capitol Hill's only openly avowed socialist, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and by Scahill's fringey stalking horse in the House, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).


• The U.S. presence in Iraq is has no just cause, but remains "a war of aggression and occupation."


• The American Embassy in Baghdad "was built largely on slave labor."


• Private security companies aren't the real problem in Iraq. The real problem is the United States itself: "This is the sort of dirty open secret: that Blackwater has done exactly what it's supposed to do in Iraq. Blackwater's number one job--their only job--is to keep alive the most important people in Iraq by any means necessary, and the most important people in Iraq are not Iraqis. They are U.S. occupation officials."


• The U.S. must abandon Iraq completely: "The reality is that Obama has painted himself into a corner with his Iraq plan. The only solution and the only way to stop using these companies is the only way to stop the violence in Iraq. The U.S. needs to pull out completely - all of its soldiers, all of its mercenaries, all of its contractors. Short of doing that, business is going to be very, very good in Iraq, not to mention elsewhere in the world."
  
• The war on drugs is really a plot to oppress poor people of color: "This isn't any more a war on drugs than it was a war on communism. This is a war against people's right to self-determination and the right of nations to independence. That's what it always has been, and that's what it is now."
  

The tone of Scahill's presentation is one of class struggle - a staple in extreme socialist and Marxist rhetoric for more than a century. Blackwater, he claims, hires poor people from poor countries as "cannon fodder." (He gives no examples, and we can't find any.) As Scahill puts its, "This is the internationalization of war, and using the poor of the world as cannon fodder to occupy a country that has been systematically targeted by the United States and whose economy has been destabilized."

Nowhere in his lengthy comments did Scahill express a desire to help defend Iraq against al Qaeda or Iran, or that there is any justification in doing so.

He seemed to feel at home at Socialism 2008.

Gadfly Author Admits an Obama Administration Would Need Blackwater

Even a standard-bearer of the kook fringe admits that an Obama Administration would need Blackwater Worldwide and its services.

The admission from writer Jeremy Scahill comes as somewhat of a surprise. Scahill made a name for himself, as well as a tidy bit of cash, in his partially-true book on Blackwater, and his fans seemed to think of him as a latter-day David against the security provider. But as the most prolific of an embarrassingly tiny and ineffective group of anti-Blackwater protesters in San Diego recently, Scahill seems to have seen reality.

"Here is the cold, hard fact," he writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Blackwater knows its future is bright no matter who next takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

It gets better. Scahill notes Blackwater President Gary Jackson's recent observation that despite all the controversy, the company has had its two best consecutive quarters in a row. The US has renewed its big diplomatic security contract with Blackwater in Iraq, despite the Iraqi government's objections after the Nisoor Square shootout last fall.

"Blackwater is also winning at home," writes Scahill. "The company recently fought back widespread local opposition to its plans for a new warfare training center in San Diego."

But wait - there's more: "Obama may want to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq, for instance, but 'diplomatic security' is where Blackwater's bread is lathered with golden butter. Obama has pledged to increase diplomatic activity in Iraq and to keep in place the Green Zone and the monstrous U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Despite his criticism, Obama may have no choice but to use these private forces. His top advisors have painfully acknowledged Obama 'cannot rule [it] out.'

"Consider the numbers: At present, Blackwater has about two-thirds as many operatives in Baghdad as the US State Department has diplomatic security agents in the entire world, including Iraq. Although Obama has said he wants diplomatic security to be done by U.S. government employees, accountable under US law, the State Department estimates that it could take years to recruit, vet and train a force to take over Blackwater's work.

"In addition, Obama's rhetoric on Latin America strikes familiar 'drug war' chords, which bodes well for Blackwater, and he plans to send 7,000 more troops to Afghanistan, where the company is already firmly entrenched. . . .

"There is no question that a McCain White House would be preferred by Blackwater and its allies. The question is: Would a Democratic victory really be bad for business?"

"Experts" Get It Wrong, VP Gets It Right

Reuters reported yesterday on a conference at New York University School of Law titled "Privatizing Defense: Blackwater, Contractors and American Security." Comparing the comments of various participants with the actual course of events is striking.

With regards to the deaths of 17 Iraqis in a shootout with Blackwater last September, Reuters cited the New York Times as reporting that "an FBI investigation... found at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified." Reuters cites Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, as going even further, claiming that a military investigation concluded all the deaths were the result of "unjustified and unprovoked fire."

In fact, the FBI's investigation, which began quite late, is still underway. Likewise, no military investigation has been concluded. So in spite of all their alleged journalistic training, Reuters jumps to conclusions, engaging in little more than rumor-mongering.

Who's account most closely matches the actual state of the investigation? Blackwater Vice President Marty Strong's. "Irrespective of The New York Times or any other newspaper saying they think they know what's going on, the FBI is going to complete an official investigation, not one done by the seat of the pants.... At that time we're going to find out exactly what they found out."

On nothing more than their own authority, Reuters reports that Blackwater has "operated with impunity." This runs contrary to the government's own affirmation only a few days ago that Blackwater and other private security contractors are accountable to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and has been unmistakably since 2006.

The suggestion from Scahill and others was that Blackwater's behavior has been irresponsible and unjustified. Though the quotation comes from elsewhere, these experts could easily have been the ones to ask Who drives against traffic in a traffic circle? The answer, quite simply, is the State Department and its contract, which stipulates the aggressive tactics that have made Blackwater famous. (Then again, who ever wrote a news article about all the quite missions going according to plan?)

In light of these trying circumstances, Marty Strong's explanation to the conference was as good as any: "I spent nine months in Iraq, it's a very difficult place."

New Republic Editor Sees Role for Blackwater

Michael Walzer of the New Republic, in an article titled "Mercenary Impulse," dispels some of the nonsense surrounding Blackwater and discusses possibilities for the private security contractor.

Though Walzer is critical of Blackwater in many ways, he makes several common sense observations. To those who argue that the North Carolina-based company is waging a private war, Mr. Walzer answers that "Blackwater's employees, of course, are not fighting a private war--Iraq is an American war." Against the charges that private security contractors are accountable to no one, the New Republic contributing editor points out that "a voluntary code of conduct has been accepted by many of the security companies operating in Iraq." Finally, Mr. Walzer is aware of the unrecognized cost being borne by Blackwater and other contractors: "The US government keeps no record of the security guards who have died or been wounded."

With regards to the literature surrounding Blackwater, Mr. Walzer has this to say:

Jeremy Scahill's Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army is informative but written as if readers already know the argument and so it is necessary only to present Blackwater's history in appropriately indignant tones. Then there is Gerald Schumacher's A Bloody Business: America's War Zone Contractors and the Occupation of Iraq, which defends the contractors but also considers in detail the criticism directed against them. (This happens shamefully often these days: political correctness on the left, intellectual engagement on the right.)

Mr. Walzer understands that private security contractors are sometimes able to perform jobs that others are not. He explains,

Speaking at a conference of arms merchants and war contractors in Amman, Jordan, in March 2006, Blackwater vice chairman J. Cofer Black offered to stop the killing in Darfur. "We've war-gamed this with professionals," he said. "We can do this." Back in the United States, another Blackwater official, Chris Taylor, reiterated the offer.

Since neither the United Nations nor NATO has any intention of deploying a military force that would actually be capable of stopping the Darfur genocide, should we send in mercenaries? Scahill quotes Max Boot, the leading neoconservative writer on military affairs, arguing forcefully that there is nothing else to do. Allowing private contractors to secure Darfur "is deemed unacceptable by the moral giants who run the United Nations," Boot writes. "They claim that it is objectionable to employ--sniff--mercenaries. More objectionable, it seems, than passing empty resolutions, sending ineffectual peace-keeping forces and letting genocide continue."

Some of us might prefer something like the International Brigade that fought in Spain over a force of Blackwater mercenaries. But the International Brigade was also a private militia... never under the control of the Spanish republic.... Whatever Blackwater's motives, I won't join the "moral giants" who would rather do nothing at all than send mercenaries to Darfur.

Obama Gives Thumbs-Up for Blackwater

Presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a qualified show of support to private security contractor Blackwater Worldwide, The Nation reports.

Jeremy Scahill, one of the most vitriolic opponents of the company, has written that:

A senior foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has told The Nation that if elected Obama will not "rule out" using private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq.

The same unnamed advisor explains that,

Obama does not plan to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009, when a new President will be sworn in.

No doubt Scahill is upset about the matter - he goes on to criticize the position in the rest of the article. But the fact remains that even someone of Obama's political persuasion can see that Blackwater does important, even critical, work for the US government, and they do it well. Obama has been a strong critic of the company, which has a facility in the senator's home state of Illinois.

Even Scahill concedes:

If Obama maintains [the US] embassy [in Iraq] and its army of diplomats and US personnel going in and out of the Green Zone, which his advisers say he will, a significant armed force will be required for protection. The force that now plays that role is composed almost exclusively of contractors from Blackwater, DynCorp and Triple Canopy.

Why? Because the US government is not able to provide this security. So the private sector has boldly stepped into the gap. Props to Senator Obama and his staff for recognizing that.

Can Rep. Jan Schakowsky think for herself?

We've followed Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's attacks on Blackwater for quite a while, but we still can't find an original thought. Indeed, it looks like she's been cribbing from Blackwater stalker Jeremy Scahill, because her comments track about 100 percent with his.

And when Scahill's been silent, so has Schakowsky. Indeed, both have been pretty quiet for a while now. In fact, Schakowsky has been rather reserved since last fall, when we raised the issue of her husband being a convicted felon.

But when Scahill recently resumed making public comments against Blackwater, Schakowsky did as well, starting this week.

Doesn't she have a mind of her own?

Scahill writes in Aljazeera

Blackwater critic Jeremy Scahill, the longtime collaborator with terrorist attorney Michael Ratner, is now writing against the company in Al Jazeera magazine.

'Lawyers for Terror' - New York Post looks at anti-Blackwater attorneys

"A legal group with a four-decade record of aiding and abetting terrorists, spies and cop-killers is suing" Blackwater for the September 16 Nisoor Square tragedy in Baghdad, accoding to an op-ed in the New York Post. "Joining it is an Egyptian attorney who has been representing what the US Treasury Department calls a fund-raising operation for al Qaeda."

The column, by Center for Security Policy Vice President Michael Waller, exhumes the skeletons from the closets of the Center for Constitutional Rights and its president, Michael Ratner, to show their decades-long legal and propaganda efforts on behalf of terrorists, murderers of FBI agents and police officers, and Soviet spies.

The column also links pro-terrorist attorney Ratner to Jeremy Scahill, author of an inflammatory if partially accurate book about Blackwater, showing how the lawyer and writer worked together in opposition to ousting Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic.

This blog covered part of the group's record, and that of lawyer Shereef Hadi Akeel, when the suit was announced last week. The New York Post is the first newspaper known to have published that record since Ratner announced the suit.

Full text of 'Lawyers for Terror'

For some reason, a powerful op-ed about the trial lawyers suing Blackwater is practically impossible to find on Google. The item, which exposes the terrorist connections of some of the attorneys, appeared in the New York Post on October 17, 2007. Our illustrated story about the op-ed is above, but for Googlers we're reprinting the entire text below.

'Lawyers for Terror: Radical Attorneys in the Blackwater Suit'

by J. Michael Waller, New York Post, October 17, 2007

October 17, 2007 -- HERE'S a new twist in the Blackwater story: A legal group with a four-decade record of aiding and abetting terrorists, spies and cop-killers is suing the company.
Joining it is an Egyptian attorney who has been representing what the U.S. Treasury Department calls a fund-raising operation for al Qaeda.

The Sept. 16 incident in Baghdad's Nisoor Square resulted in at least 17 deaths. Three families of the Iraqi victims, plus one injured survivor, are suing the "contract-security" firm. But their choice of attorneys is remarkable.

The legal team includes attorneys from the Philadelphia firm of Burke O'Neil LLC - plus the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, as well as CCR's president, Michael Ratner - plus Shereef Hadi Akeel of Akeel & Valentine PC.

The Center for Constitutional Rights calls itself a civil-rights group, working for the "least popular" in society in order to defend the rights of all. But it seems to specialize in defending the enemies of American society.

The CCR and its lawyers have provided legal aid to the murderer of two FBI agents; bombers and bank robbers from the 1960s, and '70s terrorist groups. It has even litigated on behalf of illegal-combatant detainees at Guantanamo and mounted a spirited moral defense of Lynne Stewart, convicted for conspiring with the spiritual leader of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

If a terrorist needs help, the CCR isn't far away. Its lawyers gave legal aid to the Puerto Rican FALN terrorists who planted more than 100 bombs in Chicago and New York. You know, the group that in 1975 blew up the Fraunces Tavern in New York City, killing four and wounding 54.
CCR leader Michael Ratner went to the U.S. Supreme Court to get constitutional protections extended to captured terrorists and illegal combatants. He sued to weaken post-9/11 counterterrorism laws.

He's also an aggressive propagandist of the Soviet old school who knows how to make headlines to spin public opinion. Where he once pushed communist causes, today he's pushing Islamist extremism. His involvement in the Blackwater lawsuit must be seen in that context.
Joining Ratner as counsel in the suit is Akeel, an Egyptian-born lawyer in Michigan who has represented a group the Treasury Department says is a fund-raising operation for al Qaeda.

Akeel has been a defense counsel for the Islamic Relief Agency, which Treasury says supports Osama bin Laden. A federal court backed Treasury's findings in a decision earlier this year, rejecting Akeel's request that the government unfreeze his client's assets.

CCR lawyers, either individually or as part of the organization, provided legal help to the late Soviet KGB agent Wilfred Burchett, who operated undercover as a journalist; and to a U.S. Marine guard at the U.S. embassy in Moscow who was seduced to betray his country for the Soviet KGB.

They gave legal and political support to Leonard Peltier, an Indian militant convicted of murdering FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams. They've defended or litigated on behalf of cop-killers who left a trail of dead policemen and deputies in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

They gave legal support to Abdul Majid and Bashir Hameed, now in prison for snuffing the life from New York City Police Officer John Scarangella and attempting to kill his partner. They provided legal counsel for Joanne Chesimard, convicted of murdering New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and now hiding in Cuba.

They filed motions for Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, a Muslim cleric formerly known as H. Rap Brown, now serving a life sentence for murdering Georgia Deputy Ricky Kinchen.

They provided legal counsel for Mousa abu Marzouk, a leader of Hamas; Mazin Assi, who firebombed a New York-area synagogue; and Japanese Red Army terrorist Yu Kikamura, who attempted to bomb a Manhattan building on behalf of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi.

They provided legal and political support to Lynne Stewart, the lawyer convicted of providing "material support" to Omar Abdel-Rahman, the "Blind Sheik" who was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York and was considered a spiritual leader to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

The CCR's Ratner has gone to the mat for Stewart, even after her conviction for supporting terror. At the same time, he has been a harsh - even hysterical - critic of Blackwater, serving as a longtime source of comment for The Nation magazine's anti-Blackwater agitpropster Jeremy Scahill. (Ratner and Scahill go back to at least 1999, when they co-wrote a bulletin on the former Yugoslavia denouncing NATO military involvement against the Milosevic regime.)

As we await the facts to establish responsibility for the Sept. 16 tragedy in Nisoor Square, we must demand answers to another question: Of the million-plus lawyers in the United States they could have chosen to sue Blackwater, how did ordinary Iraqis manage to pick the few who aid cop-killers and terrorists?

J. Michael Waller is a vice president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C.

Legal group that aids terrorists is suing Blackwater over 9/16 incident

A New York-based legal group with a 40-year history of aiding terrorists, foreign spies and cop-killers is filing suit against Blackwater over the September 16 incident in Baghdad.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) provides legal defense and litigation services to political extremists from around the world, from Marxist-Leninists to Islamist fundamentalists. The group's leader, Michael Ratner, is an occasional collaborator with Blackwater critic Jeremy Scahill.

Depending on one's perspective, the CCR has been described variously as a "human rights" group, a "civil rights" group, a "terrorist support" group and a "fifth column law factory."

As we reported on September 19, Ratner and CCR lawyers have represented or advocated for a rogue's gallery of cop-killers and enemies of the United States. Over the years they include:

• Abdullah al-Muhajir (aka Jose Padilla) , the convicted al Qaeda conspirator known as the "dirty bomber";
  
• Mumia Abu-Jamal, a convicted cop killer;


• Leonard Peltier, convicted of murdering two FBI agents;


• Clayton Lonetree, a former Marine convicted of spying for the Soviet KGB;


• Wilfred Burchett, a journalist and KGB agent.


• Victor Manuel Gerena, a Puerto Rican terrorist on FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, now hiding in Cuba;


• Kurt Groenwald, a German Red Army Faktion (Baader-Meinhof Gang) terrorist lawyer;


• Yu Kikamura, a Japanese Red Army terrorist working for Libya;


• Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (aka H. Rap Brown), a convicted cop killer;


• Abdul Majid and Bashir Hameed, both convicted cop killers;


• Assata Shakur (aka Joanne Chesimard), a convicted bank robber and cop killer;


• William Morales, a Puerto Rican convicted terrorist bomber;


• Mousa Abu Marzook, a leader of HAMAS;


• Mazin Assi, a Palestinian convicted of firebombing a Bronx synagogue;


• Omar Abdel Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh," a spiritual leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad who was convicted of being behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York; considered an early spiritual leader of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.


• Lynne Stewart, convicted of aiding a designated terrorist organization; a lawyer and activist on behalf of Omar Abdel Rahman.

Terrorist lawyer cited as Blackwater critic

The latest Blackwater USA controversy has caused much angst among critics in the blogosphere, several of whom have been making their case by favorably quoting a New York lawyer who has spent more than three decades defending terrorists.

The lawyer, Michael Ratner (pictured), sued the United States government on behalf of alleged terrorists being detained at Guantanamo, bringing about the Supreme Court decision that gave the terrorists the protection of the United States Constitution. Since the 9/11 attacks he has sued the U.S. on at least nine occasions to weaken counterterrorism legislation. Ratner's group is called the Center for Constitutional Rights.

An occasional collaborator with Blackwater critic Jeremy Scahill, Ratner is an admitted supporter of Cuba's Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Ratner and lawyers in the organization he leads have represented or advocated for a rogue's gallery of cop-killers and enemies of the United States. Over the years they include:

Jose Padilla, the convicted al Qaeda "dirty bomb" conspirator;
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a convicted cop killer;
Leonard Peltier, convicted of murdering two FBI agents;
Clayton Lonetree, a former Marine convicted of spying for the Soviet KGB;
Victor Manuel Gerena, a Puerto Rican terrorist now hiding in Cuba;
Kurt Groenwald, a German Red Army Faktion (Baader-Meinhof Gang) terrorist;
Yu Kikamura, a Japanese Red Army terrorist working for Libya;
H. Rap Brown, a convicted cop killer;
Abdul Majid and Basheer Hameed, both convicted cop killers;
Assata Shakur (aka Joanne Chesimard), a convicted cop killer;
William Morales, a Puerto Rican convicted terrorist bomber;
Mousa Abu Marzook, a leader of HAMAS;
Mazin Assi, a Palestinian convicted of bombing a Bronx synagogue;
Omar Abdel Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh," a spiritual leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad who was convicted of being behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York;
Lynne Stewart, convicted of aiding Omar Abdel Rahman;
Wilfred Burchett, a journalist and KGB agent.