Easy, stick your head in the sand. The LA Times provides some contemporary examples based on a TPMmuckracker review:

For instance, there was this. Problem: In 2005, a congressionally mandated annual State Department report on international terrorism showed that terrorism worldwide was on the rise. Solution: The administration announced that future editions of the report no longer would include statistics on international terrorism. See? Presto! Just like that, the problem went away.

And then there was this. Problem: In 2004, data released by the Department of Education showed that public charter schools, promoted by the administration as a solution to public school woes, were lagging regular public schools in performance. Solution: The administration decided to stop collecting data on charter school performance.

And this. Problem: Environmentalists complained that administration land-use plans for our national parks and forests could have long-term negative effects on the environment. Solution: The administration decided it no longer would conduct environmental impact studies to assess the potential consequences of its land-use plans.

Just think how it worked for Enron, the company Bush held up in his 1999 campaign as the kind of “CEO style” of leadership he would bring to the office. Oh, yeah, the intimate connection to Enron has disappeared too…

As a “Bush Pioneer” in the run-up to the 2000 presidential election, Lay was a key member of the Bush campaign’s fund-raising inner circle. Under Lay’s leadership, Enron ultimately gave Bush $550,025, making the corporation the Texan’s No. 1 career patron at the time the 2000 election campaign began, according to the Center for Public Integrity. Lay personally pumped almost $400,000 into Republican hard- and soft-money funds, while Enron slipped another $1.5 million into the GOP’s soft-money cesspool.

But that was just the beginning. Lay sent a letter to Enron executives urging them to contribute to Bush’s campaign. More than 100 of them — including Skilling, a major Bush giver since 1993, when he cut his first $5,000 check to GW’s gubernatorial campaign — did just that. Dozens of spouses wrote, including “homemaker” and frequent $10,000 donor Linda Lay, gave as well, making the Enron “family” a prime source of the money that gave Bush his early advantage over Republican rivals such as Arizona Senator John McCain.

All told, it is estimated that, over the years prior the company’s bankruptcy, Lay, his company and its employees contributed close to $2 million to fund George W. Bush’s political rise.

Lay found other ways to help, as well. He put Enron’s corporate jets at the disposal of the Bush campaign in 2000. He kicked in $5,000 to pay for the Florida recount fight, while a top Enron “consultant,” former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, ran the Republican’s recount effort. He even paid for his own bookkeeping, chipping in $1,000 to help the Bush-Cheney campaign comply with campaign-finance laws. And Lay and Enron gave $300,000 to underwrite the Bush-Cheney inauguration festivities in 2001.

See how easy it can be? It’s like it never happened.

I recently wrote about how destabilization has created a growing soldier of fortune industry (some call it the “security industry”) in the Middle East. That was based on the need by oil companies to protect their pipelines when no capable conventional force is available (or such a use might be too politically controversial). Now there is more news from the Sydney Morning Herald on a more personal level:

A former Australian soldier and a New Zealander have been arrested in Lebanon on accusations they’re part of a mercenary squad that seized the two daughters of Canadian Melissa Hawach from her estranged Australian husband north of Beirut.

[…]

Lebanese police claim all five men are ex-commandos who had staked out the girls’ father, Joseph Hawach, for several days before launching the daring raid.

Police say Pemberton arrived in Lebanon after receiving an email asking him to find and seize the girls for a fee. Corrigan arrived on December 9.

I suppose this sort of incident will be more and more likely as mercenaries flock to troubled regions on behalf of troubled leaders on special missions for whomever is the highest bidder.

It all reminds me of the 1960s UN struggle in the Republic of the Congo when ill-equipped international volunteer forces were sent to impose international orders against a (Belgian) seasoned group of Korean War veterans turned mercenaries. And even after these mercenaries were forced out of the Congo they apparently moved on to other jobs around the world, eventually ending up as honorary guests (long arm of state intelligence services) in some countries. I think reviewing this sort of stuff is all now starting to be referred to International Security studies, although it was still referred to as International History or International Relations when I was a student.

On a side note, it’s curious that the Rainbox-Six theory that Tom Clancy popularized in 1998 did not include agents from Australia or New Zealand:

…we must face the fact that there remain many experienced and trained international terrorists still roaming the world, some with lingering contacts with national intelligence agencies – plus the fact that some nations, while not desirous of a direct confrontation with American or other Western nations, could still make use of the remaining terrorist “free agents” for more narrow political goals.

Perhaps Tom didn’t factor in the more narrow personal goals or did not consider them serious enough threats to people living in American or other Western nations.