Subject: BlackwaterUSA Amway Richard DeVos 4 Americans in Iraq crash shot in head
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 12:51:31 -0500

http://www.socanon.com

 

DO DA DO DO DODODO REDRUM BLACKWATER / BLOODWATER ROLLS ON.....WITH SOME SOAP TO SLIP ON.

 

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Amway

4. Politics and culture

Commentators have often identified Amway as supporting the
U.S. Republican Party, [24] and it contributed $4,000,000 to a
conservative 527 in the 2004 election cycle. [25] However, Amway Corporation claims to
support no political party.[citation
needed]

 

Former Amway CEO Richard DeVos
as well as his son (and former Alticor CEO) Dick DeVos and daughter-in-law Betsy DeVos, and other members of the DeVos family are heavily connected with the dominionist political movement in the U.S.[26][27] The DeVos foundation is one of the single largest donors to specifically dominionist political groups in the U.S. [28] Other members of the DeVos family known to be involved in rightwing politics include Betsy DeVos's brother Erik Prince, CEO of the controversial
military contractor Blackwater USA. Richard DeVos himself is known to be a member of the
secretive Council for National Policy, an invitation-only group that is a "think
tank" for both dominionist and Neoconservative groups. [29][30][31][32][33]

 

Multiple high-ranking Amway leaders, including Richard DeVos, Dexter Yager, and others are
also owners and members of the board of Gospel Films, a producer of movies and books
geared towards conservative Christians as well as co-owner (along
with Salem Communications)
of Gospel
Communications. [34]

 

Many of Amway's best-known distributors, including Dexter Yager, have also declared themselves
Republicans. Yager has attacked Democratic President Bill Clinton [35] and allowed
Republican George W. Bush to send messages to thousands of downline distributors using Yager's voicemail system. [36]

 

Doug Wead, who was a Special
Assistant to former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, is a successful IBO
who is a regular speaker at group rallies.

 

Amway cofounder, the late Jay Van
Andel (in 1980), and later his son Steve Van Andel (in 2001)
were elected by the board of directors of the United States Chamber of
Commerce as chairman of that organization.

 

In May of 2005, former Amway President Dick DeVos, one of the wealthiest and largest
charitable givers in Michigan, announced that he would run against
Governor Jennifer Granholm in
Michigan's 2006 gubernatorial election. DeVos won 42% of the popular vote,
while Granholm won 56%.

 

Amway touts the environmental
benefits of many of its products, and in June 1989 the United Nations
Environmental Program's Regional Office for North America
recognized it for its contributions to the cause of the
environment. [37]

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070124/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

 

 

4 Americans in Iraq crash shot in head

 

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four of the five Americans killed when a U.S. security company's helicopter crashed in a dangerous Sunni neighborhood in central Baghdad were shot execution-style in the back the head, Iraqi and U.S. officials said Wednesday.
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A senior Iraqi military official said a machine gunner downed the helicopter, but a U.S. military official in Washington said there were no indications that the aircraft, owned by Blackwater USA, had been shot out of the sky. Two Sunni insurgent groups, separately, claimed responsibility for the crash.

 

In Washington, a U.S. defense official said four of the five killed were shot in the back of the head but did not know whether they were still alive when they were shot. The defense official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

 

The helicopter was shot down after responding to assist a U.S. Embassy ground convoy that came under fire in a Sunni neighborhood in central Baghdad, said a U.S. diplomatic official in Washington.

 

A second helicopter also was struck, but there were no casualties among its crew, said the diplomatic official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to make statements.

 

The doomed helicopter swooped into electrical wires before the crash. U.S. officials said it was not clear if gunfire brought the aircraft down or caused its pilot to veer into the wires during evasive manuevers.

 

The Iraqi official, who also declined to be identified because details had not been made public, said the four were shot in the back of the head while they were on the ground. The crash occurred in an old neighborhood of narrow streets on the east bank of the Tigris River, north of the central city.

 

In separate fighting Wednesday, U.S. and Iraqi troops battled gunmen firing heavy weapons from concrete high-rises in another Sunni insurgent stronghold, on the west bank of the Tigris north of the heavily fortified Green Zone.
Iraq's defense minister said as many as 30 militants were killed and 27 captured.

 

Apache attack helicopters buzzed past the tall buildings and radio towers along Haifa Street, while several Humvees drove on the tree-lined street below. Gunfire rang in the background as shells fell, according to AP Television News footage. The clashes were the second major fighting to break out in the area in less than a month.

 

In the aftermath of Tuesday's Blackwater helicopter crash, U.S. forces were planning to blow up the wreckage to prevent people from scavenging equipment, the Iraqi official said.

 

Blackwater USA confirmed that five Americans employed by the North Carolina-based company as security professionals were killed, but provided no identities or other details.

 

On Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad offered condolences for the five Americans killed.

 

"We lost five fine men," Khalilzad told reporters during a round-table discussion at the embassy in the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.

 

He said he had traveled with the men who were killed and had gone to the morgue to view the bodies, but offered no further details beyond saying that it was difficult to determine what happened because of "the fog of war."

 

Another American official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said three Blackwater helicopters were involved. One had landed for an unknown reason and one of the Blackwater employees was shot at that point, he said.

 

That helicopter apparently was able to take off but a second one then crashed in the same area, he added without explaining the involvement of the third helicopter.

 

The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television said the 1920 Revolution Brigades insurgent group claimed responsibility for shooting down the helicopter and showed a video taken by a cell phone of a mass of still-smoldering twisted metal that it was said was the wreckage of the chopper.

 

Another Sunni insurgent group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, also claimed responsibility and posted identity cards of men who were on the helicopter on a Web site, including at least two that bore the name of Arthur Laguna, who was later identified by his mother as among those killed.

 

Laguna was a 52-year-old pilot for Blackwater who previously served in the Army and the California National Guard, his mother, Lydia Laguna, of Rio Linda, Calif., told the AP. She said she received a call from her other son, also a Blackwater pilot in Baghdad, notifying her of Arthur's death.

 

Witnesses in the Fadhil neighborhood told the AP that they saw the helicopter go down after gunmen on the ground opened fire. Accounts varied, but all were consistent that at least one person operating the aircraft had been shot and badly hurt before the crash.

 

Blackwater USA provides security for State Department officials in Iraq, trains military units from around the world, and works for corporate clients.

 

"These untimely deaths are a reminder of the extraordinary circumstances under which our professionals voluntarily serve to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people," the Blackwater statement said.

 

Katy Helvenston, mother of Scott Helvenston, a Blackwater employee who died in March 2004 when a frenzied mob of insurgents ambushed a supply convoy they were escorting through Fallujah, said Tuesday's crash "just breaks my heart."

 

"I'm so sick of these kids dying," she said.

 

Before Tuesday's crash, at least 22 employees of Blackwater Security Consulting or Blackwater USA had died in Iraq as a result of war related violence, according to the Web site iCasualties.org, which tracks foreign troop fatalities in Iraq.

 

The crash of the small surveillance helicopter, believed to be a version of the Hughes Defender that was developed during the Vietnam War, was the second associated with the U.S. war effort in Iraq in four days.

 

A U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter went down Saturday northeast of Baghdad, killing all 12 service members on board. The American military in Baghdad has refused to confirm a report by a
Pentagon official that debris at the crash site indicated the helicopter was shot out of the air by a surface-to-air missile.

 

___

 

Associated Press writers Steven R. Hurst in Baghdad, and Barry Schweid and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.

 

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

 

- Samuel Adams