RAGINGLY PSYCHOTIC NATION (continued): A Blackwater USA employee walked into a bar ...

Only in the United States under the rule of George W. Bush can you have a spectacle in which no one can know the name of the raging drunk from Blackwater who killed a security guard in Iraq.

In today's Los Angeles Times, one has two good examples of this tortured way of practicing journalism, where black is white, down is up, gravity no longer applies and common sense is absent.

"In one incident, a Blackwater employee was quickly flown out of the country after killing an Iraqi vice-president's security guard after a holiday party," reads an account on page A6.

Weekly, almost daily, the Los Angeles Times prints the names of murderers and accused murderers apprehended, in prison or on the lam in the region. Newspapers like the Times do not generally refer to them as anonymous "employees" and decline to print names.

On the Op-Ed page, Patt Morrison of the Times writes in "Blackwater Has No Business Here" (she refers to the company's efforts to set up shop in San Diego County):

"An Iraqi vice-president's security guard killed by a drunken off-duty security contractor. The shooter was fired and quickly bustled out of Iraq."

Morrison calls the man a drunk and a shooter, not the usual "employee of Blackwater" -- as is the practice of the standard news journalist mysteriously bound from reporting that which logically needs to be reported.

In our America, even those who richly deserve being thrown under the bus can't be thrown under the bus because they're working for our government in Iraq.

Surely many have thought to send FOIA requests to the State Department with queries to release information on the incident in question. They must be asking WHO WAS THAT MAN? Is the information protected by classification? Is it a state secret?

Morrison quotes a Blackwater official, Seamus Flatley, commenting that Blackwater USA employees are simply like doctors, lawyers, funeral directors and newspapers, in reference to earlier news that it had been hired by the government to furnish security after Katrina.

Flatley: "...[I]t's a distateful fact ... doctors, lawyers, funeral directors, even newspapers ... they all make a living off of bad things happening. So do we, because somebody's got to handle it."

Such an astounding thing to say!

Only in newspaper land, like the Virginian Pilot, a newspaper local to Blackwater in Moyock, NC, where the quote originally appeared, can a journalist be constrained from laughing superciliously at it.

Corporate spokesmen know this.

They know their most intelligence-insulting, malicious, self-serving and just plain nasty comments must be reprinted straight, without reprimand or denunciation.

The practice of medicine is not comparable to what employees of Blackwater USA do.

Going to medical school to learn how to heal is in no way existentially or philosophically similar to being enrolled in a course at Blackwater USA in Moyock to sharpen one's skills in the use of heavy weapons, firing to kill and storming buildings in a mock-up combat town.

Blackwater USA, however, as part of its arsenal of talking points, frequently tries to pass its function off as humanitarian.

Yesterday, DD blog again published Cofer Black's statement about Blackwater allegedly spending a great deal of thought on this.

"How can [Blackwater] contribute to the common good?" said the man in April of 2006.

Blackwater could have not smuggled a power drunk/murderer out of Iraq, is one obvious answer, among others.

"Contractors play a critical role - not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Somalia and many other places where international peace and stability operations are underway. Indeed, peacekeeping could not happen without them," wrote a Blackwater USA lobbyist for the Google News tab yesterday.

Disguised as a president of a group called the International Peace Operations Association, the commentary was another in a long list of efforts by Blackwater USA to confuse people into thinking a mercenary army is a humanitarian organization, similar to teams from the World Health Organization or the Red Cross, only with big muscles, heavy weapons, armored cars and helicopter gunships.

Perhaps Blackwater USA could help in controlling malaria in Africa! They could shoot up, throw hand grenades into, drive over and stomp through bodies of stagnant water where the Anopheles mosquito is known to breed.

On Monday, the Los Angeles Times op-ed page, in its constant effort to be edgy for the sake of being of edgy, published "In Defense of Blackwater" by Max Boot. Again, Blackwater USA was stood up for its humanitarian potential.

"Under the right circumstances, we could even expand the use of [mercenary] companies. In the past, I have suggested hiring [them] to end the genocide in Darfur," Boot wrote.

If only Blackwater USA could be sent to Darfur!

In the meantime, outside the environment of the Beltway, Blackwater USA is a corporate pariah. It's an image of what's s--- and bad news in America. Iraq can't get rid of Blackwater USA but in California we still can be immunized against its disease.

In San Diego county, there is a strong opposition effort underway to forbid its setting up shop in Potrero. For those not familiar with the area, Blackwater USA wants to be in Potrero because it puts it in close proximity to the Navy in San Diego and the Marines at Camp Pendleton. This would enable contracting services in training special forces and providing firing ranges and mock-up combat facilities for the US military in much the same way the Moyock, NC, facility is geographically convenient to the military at Bragg, Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Hampton Roads (Virginia) and the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

"Blackwater is a corporation the puts profits above human life, a corporation that sees themselves as above the law," said one local to the Los Angeles Times.

Described as a peace activist, readers should know that in the context of the Times' story, written by Tony Perry, a journalist who acts as a fugleman for the Marine Corps and Navy in San Diego County, being called a "peace activist" is a vague putdown.

"A recall movement is underway aimed at the members of the Portero community planning group who voted to recommend to county officials that the proposal [to admit Blackwater] be approved," wrote the Times.

In additional news, it was mentioned Rep. Bob Filner (D -- Chula Vista) -- who serves that region of southern California, had introduced a bill to allow training facilities by mercenary groups [Blackwater USA] only on federal government land.

California may be able to inhibit the plans of Blackwater USA. Morrison's column in today's Times seemed to indicate various officials at the state level were running for cover whenever the company's name was brought up.

Unfortunately, the US government will never inhibit Blackwater USA. Our government --the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and the Congress will stall and stall and stall. They will count on everyone getting worn out and down by the big long nothing which transpires when there is any effort to get in the way of conducting endless war in the Middle East.

Getting rid of Blackwater USA in Iraq would burden the military in Iraq, is the argument. The US military is already burdened in Iraq and has been for a good long time. Kicking 1,000 security guards out of the country and forcing the regular military to replace their function is one productive way to redirect the forces of occupation and pacification. And it would eliminate a national shame and source of trouble in the process.

That would be hard, though, like getting Lindsay Lohan off booze.