Shame Takes A Beating

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TerrorVille

A while back I introduced you all to my dastardly French friend, the guy who first introduced me to the vagaries of the American Newswell.

Anyway, it was this same nefarious cheese-eater who also introduced me to the remarkable comic book adventures of the boy wonder Franco-hero, Tintin.

And at first I mostly looked at the pictures. But now that my immersion-trained kids have been helping me to really learn French I can actually read the Tintin stories now.

And one of my most un-favorite favorite bad guys in the stories is Basil Bazaroff the weapons trader who starts wars and then sells his wares to both sides.

In other words, a war profiteer who, it turns out, is actually based on the real thing, Basil Zaharoff, a man who miraculously made gazillions by selling to the British, French, Germans and Russians both before and during World War I.

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Now, of course, there are many, many war profiteers running around these days.

And many of these modern war profiteers have, like Zaharoff did before them, managed to acquire all sorts of titles and honours from the very same government officials they helped put in power.

But here's a new one for the history books and all those Wikipedia entries not yet written.

It is a band of brothers recently described, sans irony, by business writer Matthew Goldstein which we have decided to call The Terror Profitteers:

"A month ago, Fortress America Acquisition (FAACU.OB:OTCBB - news - research - Cramer's Take), a so-called blank-check company dreamed up by (former congressman Tom) McMillen, raised $42 million in an initial public offering. The Bethesda, Md., start-up, whose only products are the resumes of its politically connected board, hopes to use those funds to buy a company that "contracts directly with the government on homeland security projects.

After the IPO, McMillen, Fortress America's chairman, owns 6.6% of its stock. In the offering, Fortress America priced its shares at $6. Buyers into the IPO also got warrants to buy two additional shares.

The money raised in the IPO is being held in an interest-bearing bank account until Fortress America finds a company in the homeland defense space as a merger partner. But even as that search goes on, McMillen stands to score again with another homeland defense firm he helped found.

Last Friday, Global Secure, a company McMillen resigned from earlier this year, filed a registration statement for a $100 million IPO underwritten by Jefferies (JEF:NYSE - news - research - Cramer's Take) and Morgan Keegan. McMillen, the former chief executive officer of Global Secure, owns 12% of the Washington, D.C., company's stock.

....snip....

...Like Fortress America, Global Secure is banking on political connections to resonate with investors. Global Secure recently named L. Paul Bremer III, President Bush's former Iraq envoy, to its advisory board. Other advisory board members include Mark Holman, a former deputy assistant on homeland security to President Bush; Richard Armey, a Texas Republican who served as House Majority Leader; and Howard Safir, the former New York City police commissioner.

Safir is chairman of another company trying to cash in on the homeland defense business, GVI Security Solutions (GVIS.OB:OTCBB - news - research - Cramer's Take).

Some of the political notables aligned with Fortress America include former Sen. Don Nickles (R., Okla.), who was once chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Asa Hutchinson, former undersecretary for the federal Department of Homeland Security."

Can't wait to see which former Roving Cheneyburtonians make a killing off an IPO designed to cash in on the privatization of the extraordinary rendition.

Shame.

It is a term that does not exist for these people.

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Original Link Source: PeeDee at Moon of Alabama

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