Daily Blog 
           Tiger Software 

                    October 3, 2007 
                    updated 10/29/2007

                  BLACKWATER:  
    A Dagger Aiming at The Heart
        of American Democracy

     WHY DO WE ALLOW A PRIVATE
     ARMY OF DANGEROUSLY
     ARMED  MERCENARIES
     TO RUN FREE IN AMERICA?

     WHY ARE THEY PAID SO MUCH
     AND LEFT SO UNACCOUNTABLE
     IN IRAQ?
                   
      WHAT WOULD LINCOLN HAVE
       DONE?
                        Updated 10/4/2000
      Bush Secretly  Did Approve
      CIA Torture. 
                       Updated 10/25/2000    
      Who Controls All That Iraq Oil?
                (Who Do You Think?!)

              William Schmidt, Ph.D. 
              Creator ot Tiger Software

• Insufficient controls
• Missing records
• Two sets of books at Iraq's Finance Ministry, which did not match
  
          In one example of insufficient controls, the United States stored hundreds of millions of oil dollars
  in a vault in a Baghdad palace. Government auditors found that the key to the vault was kept “unsecured”
  — in a U.S. official’s backpack.

  Iraq’s U.S. administrator, Paul Bremer, pledged last year to hire a certified public accounting firm to
  ensure proper controls. But the United States gave the contract not to an accounting firm but to a tiny
  consulting company, Northstar — which NBC News found is headquartered at a private home near San Diego.

  "They violated the rules. They picked a contractor who didn’t meet their requirements," says Paul Light,
  a government contracting expert and professor at New York University.

  Northstar’s president says the Pentagon knew Northstar was not a certified public accounting firm and that
  four experienced employees went to Iraq and did a good job. However, one audit notes that a single Northstar employee maintained spreadsheets tracking billions of dollars.

  Bremer would not comment. His aides say Iraq is a war zone and their top priority was getting money quickly
  where it was needed, even if the accounting wasn't perfect.   But NBC News has learned that a draft government
  audit faults the United States for “inadequate stewardship” of up to $8.8 billion in oil money, handed over to Iraq’s ministries but never fully accounted for. "
  
       BUSH SAYS "NO".  Iraq Oil Is Not Their Oil To Do Waht They Want.    

  During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush and his aides sternly dismissed suggestions that the
  war was all about oil. "Nonsense," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld declared. "This is not about that,"
  said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

  Now, more than 3 1/2 years later, someone else is asserting that the war is about oil -- President Bush.

  As he barnstorms across the country campaigning for Republican candidates in Tuesday's elections, Bush
  has been citing oil as a reason to stay in Iraq. If the United States pulled its troops out prematurely and
  surrendered the country to insurgents, he warns audiences, it would effectively hand over Iraq's considerable
  petroleum reserves to terrorists who would use it as a weapon against other countries.

  "You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources," he said at a
  rally here Saturday for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.). "And then you can imagine them saying, 'We're going
  to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following. And the following
  would be along the lines of, well, 'Retreat and let us continue to expand our dark vision.' "

  Bush said extremists controlling Iraq "would use energy as economic blackmail" and try to pressure the United
  States to abandon its alliance with Israel. At a stop in Missouri on Friday, he suggested that such radicals would
  be "able to pull millions of barrels of oil off the market, driving the price up to $300 or $400 a barrel."
  
  Oil is not the only reason Bush offers for staying in Iraq, but his comments on the stump represent another
  striking evolution of his argument on behalf of the war. The slogan of "no blood for oil" became a rallying cry
  for antiwar activists prior to the March 2003 invasion and angered administration officials. "There are certain
  things like that, myths, that are floating around," Rumsfeld told Steve Kroft of CBS Radio in November 2002.
  "It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil."
  
  In truth, even if Iraq did not sell oil to the United States, it would not matter as long as it sold it to someone
  because the international market is fungible and what counts is the overall supply and overall demand, according to analysts. If Iraq cut off exports altogether, it still would not have the dire effect on the world market that Bush
  predicts, they said. The price of oil began rising dramatically in 2002 as the confrontation with Iraq loomed,
  but many factors contributed, including increasing demand by China and problems in Nigeria, Venezuela and
  elsewhere. The world, in fact, has already seen what would happen if Iraqi oil were cut off entirely, as Bush suggests
  radicals might do. Iraq effectively stopped pumping oil altogether in the months immediately after the invasion.
  "They're a minor exporter," said Edward Morse, managing director and chief energy economist at Lehman Brothers. "They have potential to be a greater exporter. But it's ludicrous to suggest someone could hold the world hostage by withholding oil from the market, especially a regime that needs money."
  (Source:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/04/AR2006110401025.html )
  
      The Bush administration is pressuring the Iraq government to sell off their oil reserves.   If they do this
  they will have no moral authority at home.  And so, Bush again shows he is encouraging the civil war,
  not ending it.  And with his oil lust America pays a higher and higher price for its occupation.

  .

  
 

    Blackwater CEO,  Erik Prince - "I believe we acted appropriately at all times."
                   Erik Prince is a former Navy Seal.  He is the son of a very wealthy Michigan businessman.
                   He interned with Bush Sr.  He and his family have given over $2 million dollars to
                   Republican candidates.  This has bought him much entre into the Bush Adminstration.
                   War profiteering by Prince and  Blackwater are the subject of a Video you can see at this
                   link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-greenwald/erik-prince-blackwater-w_b_30235.html  


                                                                      Erik Prince's Biography

                         He attended the United States Naval Academy after high school,^[4] but left the Academy after
                   a short time, and ultimately graduated from Hillsdale College. He was an intern in the White House
                   under President George H. W. Bush.^[5] After college, he earned a commission in the United States Navy
                   after joining in 1992 via Officer Candidate School. He served as a Navy SEAL officer on deployments
                   to Haiti, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, including Bosnia. When his father, Edgar,
                   unexpectedly died in 1995, Prince ended his Navy service prematurely. Prince's mother, Elsa, sold the
                   family's automobile parts company, Prince Corporation, for $1.3 billion to Johnson Controls, Inc.
                   Now a billionaire, Prince moved to Virginia Beach and personally financed the formation of Blackwater
                   USA in 1997.^[4][6]

                               Prince serves as Vice President of the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation which gives money to
                   organizations of the Christian right. Salon reports that "between July 2003 and July 2006, the foundation
                   gave at least $670,000 to the Family Research Council and $531,000 to Focus on the Family"^[10] headed
                   by James Dobson.  


     Prince's Campaign Contributions to Republicans since 2000

                                Since 1998, Prince has personally donated over $200,000 to Republican causes.^[11][12
                        His contributions to  various Republican Committes stand out. 
                        (Rep   Congressional Committee = RCC)

                                             7/26/2007      $20,000  RCC
                                             8/5/2005      $25,000    RCC
                                             7/14/2004      $25,000   RCC
                                             10/15/03       $2,000 - Bush/Cheney
                                              1/30/01        $3,950 - Rep Natl State Elections Comm. 
                                              1/30/01        $20,000 - Rep. Natl Comm.
                                             10/4/00         $68,000   Rep Natl State Election Comm.

                                Republican Congressmen who got more than $2000 include:
                                         James Talent, Jon Ky, George Allen, Mike Pence ($3,000), Tom Delay $(3,100),
                                          Rich Santorium, Abe Spencer ($2,000)
                   
========================== Details of Campaign Contrinutions ===========================================

         ( Source: http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Erik_Prince.php )
                                       
=====================================================================================

                 Blackwater: A Dagger Pointing at The Heart of American Democracy


                             Why do we even need a Blackwater?  Why can't out own military protect us?  Why
                   is money spent on private contractors rather than US soldiers?  The answer is that Bush
                   has received a lot of campaign contributions from folks who want him to throw them
                   a lot of no-bid big contract business.  That is the case with Blackwater.

                              Eisenhower, we all know, warned of a growing Military Industrial Complex.  Did you
                   know that Lincoln threatened to hang war time profiteers in the Civil War?  He considered
                   them "worse than traitors".  In World War II, FDR spoke out against "war millionaires"
                   who made excessive profits exploiting the calamity of war.  President Truman, when he
                  served in the Senate, traveled across the country holding now-famous public hearings
                  which expose gross fraud, waste and abuse by military contractors.

                                
                                     Here's a question.  How can a company that gets rich from war
                and its connections within the Administration correctly boast that they ARE
                capitalists?  It beats me.   It's just like the Chicken-Hawks, who boast they are
                Pro-Military but never themselves served.   It is Socialism for the Military.
                It is pure GRAFT!  Bush is paying them back for their campaign contributions.
                And they are being made rich at the expense of everyone else to pays the bill
                for Bush's war.
                                    
                                      Surely, the central tendency of the last seven years has been
                that the Bush Adminstration has served his biggest campaign contributors very
                well.   (Look at what I wrote about the mutually profitable ties between him and
                Philip Morris.)  With Bush, many of the biggest contracts were made without
                competitive bidding.  This is totally corrupt, immoral and an impeachable offense.
                Legal redress against excessive wartime profiteering doe sexist now.  The Bush
                Adminstration just has no interest in pursuing it.

                                                   
                                     What's Worse?

                                     Blackwater has claimed the privilege of the prostitute throughout
                the Ages: Power without Responsibity or Accountability! It is unclear that Blackwater is
                responsible to anyone. 

                                   They are above law and justice in Iraq. In 2004, U.S.-appointed occupation
                                    governor, Bremer signed Order 17, which made U.S. contractors immune from
                                    "arrest, detention or legal proceedings in Iraqi courts."

                                   They are not subject to military law or discipline.  They often lord it over US soldiers
                                   in Iraq.  Many are paid nearly $1,000 a day.  They do not coordinate with US forces
                                    unless they find it convenient.  They are above  military law? They cannot be court
                                    martialed? A new law does apply to civilians who "serve with" or "accompany" US
                                    "armed forces in the field". But the Blackwaters serve as guards to civilians or act
                                    very independently of the army. 

                                  They are not presently suject to the FBI or the Department of Justice for their
                                  misconduct in Iraq.    To charge Blackwater or its employees for a criminal act that occurred in
                                  Iraq,   the case would have to fall under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act: a prosecution
                                  would only be permitted if Blackwater was "supporting the mission of the Department
                                  of Defense overseas."   In the recent cases of misconduct, Blackwater's primary mission
                                  was to protect State Department officials. 

                                The US Has Violated The Geneva Conventions

                        The Geneva Conventions make hired mercenaries illegal.  So, Bush claims that they
              are not in the battle zones to actually fight or assassinate.  They are only in Iraq for "security"
              or "training" or (perhaps)  "guarding food shipments."  There are probably 1,000 Blackwaters
              in Iraq now, though Congress is having a hard time finding this out.  They have received
              $1,000,000,000 by the Adninstration since 2001.

                          Blackwater serves many useful purposes for an Administration that wishes to
              conceal its illegal actions, threaten its own enemies or extend its power.  The more diabolical
              it plans, the more it will need private armies for hire like Backwater.  Blackwater should
              be made illegal!

                                1)   The U.S. government does not count mercenaries as their soldiers, and it does not count
                                     dead mercenaries as military casualties. In other words, using mercenaries means the
                                     Pentagon can downplay the size of its involvement.  The public has no way of knowing
                                     how many Blackwater mercenaries have been killed or wounded. Or how their families
                                     stateside are treated if they are killed.

                                2)   The U.S. government is involved in growing numbers of "under the radar" interventions
                                      and mini-wars all over the world.  Efforts to unseat Chavez in Venezuela are of that type.
                                      Using mercenaries to carry out these operations enables the U.S. government to keep
                                      "plausible deniability" in the violation of sovereignty and the commitment of atrocities.

                               3) The third advantage is that Blackwater gives the US military officers and experts a
                                    very lucrativesourve of future income, when they quit the service.  US Ex-military personnel
                                    are welcomed into Blackwater.  They can use their in-house contacts to win massive
                                    contracts for Blckwater in logistics, training, and special operations.  Blackwaters
                                    can become millionaires, even while continuing their former military assignments
                                    "in the private sector".

                                 4)   Blackwater operations are far outside the usual budgetary and political scrutiny. It is
                                      almost impossible for Congress to figure out how much they are paid and what they
                                      are doing.

                                        Black Water and New Orleans  

                              Sept 10, 2005 - "New Orleans - Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater
                   private security  ...  are openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Some of the mercenaries say they
                   have been "deputized" by the Louisiana governor; indeed some are wearing gold Louisiana state
                   law enforcement badges on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards on their arms.
                   They say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given
                   the authority to use lethal force...
                                  "Blackwater mercenaries are some of the most feared professional killers in the world
                   and they are accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences. Their presence on
                  the streets of New Orleans should be a cause for serious concern for the remaining residents of the
                  city and raises alarming questions about why the government would allow men trained to kill
                  with impunity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here."
                              (Source: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091005A.shtml   )


              ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                      BUSH LIED.  HE DID APPROVE ILLEGAL TORTURE

                       The New York Times today (10/4/2007) reported that in 2005, soon after the US Justice
                   Department and Bush publicly condemned torture as "abhorrent" and denied that the US
                   engages in torture,  the Bush Administration secretly approved the harshest interrogation
                   techniques ever used by the CIA/  White House spokesperson Dana Perino lied again,
                   saying, it is the US policy not to engage in torture  (What was Anu Grave all about?).
                   Bush authorized, through his willing Attorney General, interrogators "to barrage prisoners
                   with a combination of excruciatingly painful physical and psychological tactics.  They lie
                   because they are embarrassed.  Now Bush's torturers deny that head slapping, water-boarding,
                   drowning simulation, standing and awake for long hours and being kept very cold are not
                   torture. They are the first that would cry "foul" if it was done them!

        "In 2004, there was a minor revolt in the
                   Justice Department.  A conservative law professor, Jack Goldsmith, took a job as a legal adviser to the
                   general counsel of the Pentagon. Nine months later he resigned. He had fought to change the Bush
                   Administraton's wish to use torture.  But he quit.  He said he was worn out. “I was disgusted with the
                   whole process and fed up and exhausted,” Alberto Gonzales came in soon after as attorney general with
                   the mandate of bringing the department back in line with the White House — and to make sure such
                   dissention would not happen again.  Shane says the CIA eventually stopped using some of the harshest
                   interrogation techniques, including waterboarding (because they do not work).  However these techniques
                   are still considered legal under Justice Department legal interpretations."

                        Torture does not work!  The person tortured just says whatever he thinks will get the pain to stop.
                   So why do the Bush Administration still want to use torture?  BECAUSE BUSH IS A CERIFIABLE
                   SADIST.   He tortured little frogs as a kid. He branded fraternity pledges.  He relished executing
                   a record number of Texas inmates and smirked when asked about one of them begging for mercy.  

                        It is amazing that the Democrats and Nancy Pelosi have taken IMPEACHMENT off the table.
                    If it is not used against George Bush, the US Constitution is a fraud to Democrats, too.

          Blackwater Wants to Build A Training Center in San Diego County

       The proposed site is 42 miles east of
                    San Diego. Sierra Club and Anti-War activists are conducting educational activities.
                   ( http://www.sdcpj.org/ )



                        Other Private Para-Mailitary Contractors Not under US Conbtrol
                                                            10/18/2007

                           "Guns for Hire.  Blackwater has more than 1,000 men under arms in Iraq, but it is just
                     one of dozens of security companies there. Across the country, there are now anywhere from
                     20,000 to 30,000 armed contractors, many of them performing duties that in previous conflicts
                     were the domain of uniformed soldiers...Some security convoys keep a low profile, using cars and
                     dress that blend into the bustling streets of the city. Others - especially Blackwater - "roll heavy" in
                     large convoys of big, armored SUVs, driving aggressively to keep a 100-ft. (about 30 m) bubble
                     of space around the client at all times, intended to ward off suicide car bombers. To maintain that
                     bubble, convoy drivers bump other cars off the road, and gunners fire shots into radiators. Iraqi
                     drivers have learned from painful experience to stay well clear of convoys, but in crowded Baghdad
                     streets it's not always possible to swerve out of the way. All too often, accidents turn fatal. (There
                     are no reliable statistics on the number of Iraqis killed or hurt in such incidents.).///

                    "Some security men carry the aggression too far, treating all the Iraqis they encounter as potential enemies,
                     using hostile body language and verbal abuse - and sometimes worse. Many uniformed American
                     soldiers regard the contractors with disdain, describing them as reckless and trigger-happy. Since
                     Iraqis don't always distinguish between private and military convoys, soldiers say, bad behavior by
                     contractors only deepens Iraqi antagonism toward the military. "The contractors caused problems
                     that the Iraqi leaders - imams, tribal sheiks, elected officials, military commanders - expected the
                     U.S. [military] to solve," says retired Army Major General John Batiste, who commanded the
                     1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004 and '05. "Their attitude was, They're Americans and therefore
                     they work for you...a senior Western diplomat told TIME he was especially alarmed by the attitude
                     of the men guarding senior U.S. embassy officials. "They behave like Iraq is the Wild West and Iraqis
                     are like 'Injuns,' to be treated any way they like," he said, asking to remain anonymous because of the
                     sensitivity of inter-embassy relations. "They're better-armed and -armored than the military, but they
                     don't have to follow military rules, and that makes them dangerous." The men he was describing
                     worked for Blackwater...
                           "No serious attempt was made to rein in Blackwater until the Sept. 17 shootings. When the Iraqi
                     government temporarily rescinded the firm's gun permits, it forced the embassy to cancel all convoys
                     into the Red Zone. As a compromise, the embassy announced that all future Blackwater convoys
                     will include video cameras and a diplomatic-security agent to keep a close watch on the contractors.
                     Some U.S. Congressmen have proposed legislation to close the legal loopholes that exempt contractors
                     from Iraqi and American laws."
                     ( http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20071018/wl_time/americasotherarmyy ) 

                            And There Are Still More Killed Recently by These Hired Guns
                                              10/18/2007

                           "KIRKUK, Iraq (AFP) - Guards from a private security company opened fire Thursday on a taxi that
                       approached their convoy near the Iraqi city of Kirkuk wounding three civilians, including a woman journalist,
                       police said.  "I saw a convoy of three cars pass a taxi and one of the guards took his weapon and opened
                       fire on the taxi," said police officer Hussain Rashid. "I tried myself to stop the convoy but they didn't pay
                      attention to me. They stopped about 300 metres from the scene, then they moved," he added.
                          Finally, The New York Times reported that US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates wants all
                      armed security contractors working for the US government in Iraq to be brought under a single,
                      possibly military command."  That they have not been under strict military control along is
                      ludicrously derilect. 
                      ( http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071018/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestguards )
               ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

                                         The Much Bigger Danger:


                  Learn from History. Blackwater Is AThreat To America!

     What Bush is doing to America is wrong. .  
         It is deadly dangerous   It reminds me of Hitler's Brown Shirts.  If we think it cannot happen here,
        it most certainly can!   In 1935 America's famour novelist, Sinclair Lewis penned a novel by the
         name: "It Can't Happen Here."  In it a right-wing populist-pretending president destroys civil
         liberies and sets up a fascist state.   He is advised by a diabolically clever and cynical political 
         strategist and is backed by some hypocitical religious fundamentalists.

                       James Madison warned that war empowers the President with “all the means of
        seducing the minds . . . of the people”.  
                                 "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it
                                   comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed
                                   debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the
                                   many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is
                                   extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the
                                   means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people....
                                   [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state
                                   of war, and ... degeneracy of manners and of morals.... No nation could preserve its freedom in
                                   the midst of continual warfare...
                                            "A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions
                                   to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of
                                   tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt
                                   was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending,
                                   have enslaved the people."  (Quoted from:  http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0409a.asp )

                                           His words were prophetic.  Presidents and Senators have all too often put
                       themselves above the law when they could stir up enough fear:
                               1798 Alien and Sedition Acts
                               Lincoln’s Civil War suspension of habeas corpus
                               1919-1921 Red Scare Palmer Raids
                               Internment of Japanese in World War II
                               1954 McCarthy’s witch-hunt of the State Department
                               Richard Nixon’s many abuses of power: political break-ins, spying, using IRS
                                      against political "enemies" during the war in Vietnam and extorting campaign
                                      contributions.

            In 1848, a year after the Mexican War had been declared, Illinois
     Congressmen Lincoln excoriated President Polk  for   wantonly starting a war with Mexico.  On Dec. 22,
     1847, a few days after he took his House seat, Lincoln introduced eight resolutions asking the President to inform
     the Congress bout  the "spot" on which "the blood of our citizens was shed." Wasn't it first Spanish, then Mexican
     territory, always occupied  by Mexican farmers and never by Texans? And wasn't the first American blood shed, that
     of soldiers, who invaded from Texas after Gen. Zachary Taylor had repeatedly said "that in his opinion no such
     movement was necessary to the defense or protection of Texas"?    Lincoln risked his career when he laid bare
   the false pretexts for the Mexican War; he resisted  the deluded war-mad public opinion. Though he lost public
     office and favor for a while, his political courage paved the way for his later election as President.
       (Source: http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2909lincoln_iraq.html
                         Lincoln said:   "All this shows that the President is, in no wise, satisfied with his own positions.
            First he takes up one, and in attempting to argue us into it, he argues himself out of it; then seizes another,
            and goes through the same process; and then, confused at being able to think of nothing new, he snatches
            up the old one again, which he has some time before cast off. His mind, tasked beyond it's power, is running
            hither and thither, like some tortured creature, on a burning surface, finding no position, on which it can settle
           down, and be at ease."(Quoted from:  http://www.mahablog.com/oldsite/id6.html )

                                                                Thugs Hired by Hitler

                 In 1920, Hitler ostensibly organized a band of ex-soldiers and  private right wing
        armysoldiers (Freikorps) to protect him when he spoke at public meetings, but they also carried
        out many acts of street violence against their political opponents.   They were called the Sturm
        Abteilungen (Storm Troopers). Their numbers grew by the thousands.  They wore grey jackets,
        brown shirts, swastika armbands, ski-caps, knee-breeches and combat boots. Carrying swastika
        flags, they paraded through the streets of Munich until Hitler would deliver a diatribe that
       encouraged his supporters to carry out acts of violence against Jews and his political opponents.
       They bestowed military like ranks and titles on their members.   By 1931, before Hitler took
       power, it had 170,000 members!     After taking power, Hitler felt so threatened by their
       independent power, that he arrested and executed their leadership in mid 1934. 
                     

I grew up in Cincinnati.  Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519 BC)  was regarded by the Romans as one of the heroes of early Rome and as a model of Roman virtue and simplicity. As a persistent opponent of the plebeians,  he resisted the proposal of Terentilius to draw up a code of written laws applicable equally to patricians and          plebeians. He lived in humble circumstances, working on his own small farm.  The statue of him I remember has the inscription:          "With one hand he returns the fasces, symbol of power      as appointed dictator of Rome. His other hand holds the      plow, as he resumes the life of a citizen and farmer."           "Cincinnatus's first term as dictator began when the Aequi tribe from the east and the Volscians from the southeast began to menace Rome. The Roman Senate pleaded with Cincinnatus to assume the mantle of dictator to save the city.          "According to Roman analysts, Cincinnatus had settled into a life of farming and knew that his departure might mean starvation for his family if the crops went unsown in his absence. He assented to the request anyway and within sixteen days had defeated the Aequi and the Volscians. His immediate resignation of his absolute authority with the end of the crisis has often been cited as an example of good leadership, service to the public good, civic virtue, and modesty. He came out of retirement again during his second term as dictator (439 BC) to put down a revolt by the plebeians. After the war Cincinnatus left the job and picked back up where he left off, working at a farm."                  ( Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnatus )