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Blackwater
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This not news, nor fact. It is propaganda.
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I figured you'd say as much. Here's some facts:
On September 16, 2007, Blackwater employees in Nisour Square, Baghdad shot and killed 17 Iraqis, at least 14 of whom were killed "without cause" according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. No charges have been laid.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/world/middleeast/14blackwater.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Blackwater Worldwide is currently the largest of the U.S. State Department's three private security contractors. Of the 987 contractors Blackwater provides, 744 are U.S. citizens. At least 90 percent of its revenue comes from government contracts, two-thirds of which are no-bid contracts.
http://hamptonroads.com/node/66271
US: Private Security Company Creates Stir in New Orleans
Blackwater USA, the North Carolina-based security firm best known for supplementing U.S. troops in Iraq, is now attracting international attention patrolling the flooded streets of New Orleans.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12634
Blackwater was also hired during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by the Department of Homeland Security, as well as by private clients, including communications, petrochemical and insurance companies. Overall, the company has received over US$1 billion in government contracts.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38379
In 2006 a car accident occurred in the Baghdad Green Zone when an SUV driven by Blackwater operatives crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee. Blackwater guards disarmed the Army soldiers and forced them to lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle their SUV from the wreck.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/42487
On Christmas Eve 2006, a security guard of the Iraqi vice president, Adel Abdul Mahdi, was shot and killed while on duty outside the Iraqi prime minister's compound. The Iraqi government has accused Andrew J. Moonen, at the time an employee of Blackwater USA, of murdering him while drunk. Moonen was subsequently fired by Blackwater for "violating alcohol and firearm policy", and travelled from Iraq to the United States days after the incident. United States Attorneys are currently investigating.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/world/middleeast/04contractor.html?hp
On February 6, 2006, a sniper employed by Blackwater Worldwide opened fire from the roof of the Iraqi Justice Ministry, killing three guards working for the state-funded Iraqi Media Network. According to 13 witnesses, the guards had not fired on the Justice Ministry. An Iraqi police report described the shootings as "an act of terrorism" and said Blackwater "caused the incident." Iraqi Media Network concluded that the guards were killed "without any provocation." The U.S. State Department, based on information obtained from Blackwater guards, who said they were fired upon, determined that the security team's actions "fell within approved rules governing the use of force."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/07/AR2007110702751_pf.html
Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq was revoked by the Iraqi Government on September 17, 2007, resulting from a highly contentious incident that occurred the previous day during which seventeen (initially reported as eleven) Iraqis were killed. The fatalities occurred while a Blackwater Private Security Detail (PSD) was escorting a convoy of U.S. State Department vehicles en route to a meeting in western Baghdad with United States Agency for International Development officials. The US State Department has said that "innocent life was lost." An anonymous U.S. military official was quoted as saying that Blackwater's guards opened fire without provocation and used excessive force. The incident has sparked at least five investigations, and the FBI says it will begin a probe.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0439965120071005
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3699197&page=1
A Committee on Oversight and Government Reform staff report, based largely on internal Blackwater e-mail messages and State Department documents, describes Blackwater as "being staffed with reckless, shoot-first guards who were not always sober and did not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/w...bl&ex=1191556800&en=2794af83a6d6c99c&ei=5087
Blackwater charges the government $1,222 per day per guard, "equivalent to $445,000 per year, or six times more than the cost of an equivalent U.S. soldier," the report alleged.
Blackwater is one of five companies picked by the Department of Defense Counter-Narcotics Technology Program Office in a five-year contract for equipment, material and services in support of counter-narcotics activities. The contract is worth up to $15 billion. The other companies picked are Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Arinc Inc.. Blackwater USA has also been contracted by various foreign governments. In 2005, it worked to train the Naval Sea Commando regiment of Azerbaijan, enhancing their interdiction capabilities on the Caspian Sea.[87] In Asia, Blackwater has contracts in Japan guarding AN/TPY-2 radar systems.[88]
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/online/1_1/31393-1.html
http://www.blackwaterusa.com/training/inter_default.asp
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/blackwater-japa.html
According to an Army report, on November 27, 2004, a Blackwater plane, "in violation of numerous government regulations and contract requirements," crashed into a mountainside in Afghanistan, killing all six passengers on board. Several U.S. military personnel were on board because there was space on the cargo plane. Underqualified Blackwater staff made a series of errors leading to the plane crashing into a rock wall. Errors included failing to file a flight plan and failing to use oxygen masks, which may have caused the pilot to succumb to high-altitude euphoria. The families of the three soldiers killed — Lt. Col. Michael McMahon, Chief Warrant Officer Travis Grogan and Spec. Harley Miller — filed a wrongful death suit against Blackwater, alleging negligence.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,509852,00.html
On September 22, 2007, U.S. federal prosecutors announced an investigation into allegations that Blackwater employees may have smuggled weapons into Iraq, and that these weapons may have been later transferred to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Kurdish nationalist group designated a terrorist organization by the United States, NATO and the EU. The U.S. government was investigating Blackwater for these alleged crimes. On October 4, 2007, the FBI took over the investigation.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17149369/
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j-JDedemHNNq6z0KByaqzbMRbrCw
In January 2008, Marshall Adame, a Democrat running for Congress in North Carolina's 3rd District, took part in a live question-and-answer forum where he was asked a question about Blackwater. Adame, who had served as a State Department official in Iraq recounted, "I saw them shoot people, I saw them crash into cars while I was their passenger. There was absolutely no reason, no provocation whatsoever." He then stated, "There is no place in the American force structure, or in American culture for mercenaries, they are guns for hire; No more, no less." This led Blackwater executive vice president Bill Mathews to send an internal corporate email to staff:
There is a man named Marshall Adame who is running for congress in our district. He just put a quote online which says he wants this company and all of us to cease to exist. Do you like your jobs? Are you sick and tired of the slanderous bull**** going on in DC? If so, would you all mind joining me in reminding Mr. Adame that he is running for office in our backyard. Tell all your friends and family too. We welcome their assistance in making this point very clear to Mr. Adame.
Anyone who wants to send a letter may do so at the following address…....
His email is ....
He was too cowardly to put a phone number on the web. I ask that you keep your comments to Mr. Adame professional (well, mostly professional). We help him if our comments get threatening or too crass. Let’s run this goof out of Dodge….!
As a result of the letter writing campaign Adame stated, "I feel very strongly about how extensively organized Blackwater has become, and I will do everything I can as a congressman to look into that, to find out whether or not the things they're doing are even legal." Ultimiately however, Adame was defeated in the 2008 Democratic primary by Craig Weber.
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/03/using-blackwater-campaign-issue
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/01/hbc-90002175
So we've got the largest mercenary for hire group in the world here in the USA, who will work for any one at any time for pay....even work US streets.
Don't know about you but it just gives ME the warm fuzzies...
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Our tax dollars being used to fund an organization that operates outside the law,they are a carbon copy of the Bush administration itself.
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3,182 Posts
Agreed. Maybe the banks will start hiring them soon to throw people out of their foreclosed homes...
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356 Posts
I guarantee you we haven't seen the last of these ****suckers.
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Sorry, I shouldn't call them that. ****suckers are appreciated and actually provide a useful service to mankind. I apologize to any ****suckers reading this.
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1,369 Posts
Where I might have a problem shooting at a member of the Military until the moment of last resort, a mercenary would not get this courtesy.
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13,890 Posts
Not propaganda at all. Blackwater are thugs. If the world of the PMC could be said to have ethics, Blackwater doesn't have any. The shenniagens they pulled in New Orleans -not covered in the media- would have caused a call for their shut down, had the average person known about it.
Monica Lewinsky told me to tell you no problem, waka waka waka.
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33,879 Posts
Ahhh mercenaries...the societal pimple that just won't go away.
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10,167 Posts
1) No large country can wage any kind of war without the help of large corporations. That is a fact of life. Get used to it.
2) The paramilitary do paramilitary things. That is why they exist.
3) All you have done chronicle events. That is like making a list of all the things the a police department has done and then asserting we don't need one.
4) To make a credible argument to adults you also have to provide A) what was needed and B) the results. Then, only in context, can an argument be made it was done poorly et cetera.
5) Without those two elements all one has is propaganda. The point of propaganda is to derail thinking and drum up support. In that regard it works well. As for reality, it is way off the mark.
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i think SR's cd is scratched, its skipping, saying the same thing over and over and over.
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Yes, it is called being a thinking adult, not an emotional child.
I highly, highly doubt any soldiers let anyone, ANYONE, disarm them. That idea, as a veteran, is just beyond absurd. If someone, anyone here was in N.O., and has proof that the Evil Blackwater merc's did something besides patrol and provide security, please let us know. Not speculation, not heresay, not articles from unreliable, half assed, left wing psuedo news orginizations. I'm sure Blackwater, and it's employees have screwed up, and should pay the price, but we should keep in mind the political nature of everything concerning the war, and what that means. We should also keep in mind that bad thing's happen in war, innocent people always die. The question is what they saw, what their mindset was, when they engaged. If you're tasked with protecting someone, and are fired upon, you lay down fire and burn rubber. If someone rolled out drunk, they were as wrong as two boys you know what in church, and if they killed someone because of it, they should pay the price. But unless you were there, on the ground, you don't KNOW JACK. It's just as likely the they were fired upon and the enemy's full involvement was covered up, or lessened, for poltical gain. You don't think INSURGENT'S would be capable of that? Someone, running for congress, as a dem, has a bone to pick with them, when everyone hates them? Shocker. The worst thing's I see about them are no-bid contracts and that maybe, as a company, they grew to large, to fast, and lives were lost because of insufficent support staff. The guy in the video is a limpwristed, liberal hack, and Evil Blackwater is his ticket. Like alot of people,deep down inside, he probably has some fantasy where he's just as tough and masculine as these Evil Blackwater mercs, but he's really more of a man, because he chooses peace, or some such crappola ( is that word allowed- if not, sorry).
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oh so being an adult means rejecting anything you dont like or that makes you uncomfortable? that sounds childish and thats what you do. you dont care about facts, figures, eyewitnesses, or anything else. you just dismiss anything and everything cuz you dont like it. you take the easy way out, by sideing with the status quo.
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