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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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 Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:35 am Post subject: Maliki slams Blackwater |
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki suggested on Wednesday the U.S. embassy stop using American security firm Blackwater after a deadly shooting and said he would not allow Iraqis to be killed in "cold blood."
Iraq has said it would review the status of all security firms after what it called a flagrant assault by Blackwater contractors in which 11 people were killed while the firm was escorting a U.S. embassy convoy through Baghdad on Sunday.
With emotions running high, U.S. civilian officials have been barred from road travel in Iraq outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone because of possible attacks.
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The Interior Ministry has said Sunday's incident was sparked when Blackwater guards opened fire indiscriminately after mortar rounds landed near their convoy in western Baghdad.
Blackwater is one of the biggest private security operators in Iraq and protects the U.S. embassy. It said its guards reacted "lawfully and appropriately" to a hostile attack. Maliki said that account was "not accurate."
The Iraqi and U.S. governments have set up a joint committee to investigate the killings.
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http://tinyurl.com/32ncrr |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 4:34 am Post subject: |
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BAGHDAD - Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.
The U.S. Attorney�s Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17149369/ |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 7:47 am Post subject: Re: Maliki slams Blackwater |
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[quote="On the other hand"]
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The Interior Ministry has said Sunday's incident was sparked when Blackwater guards opened fire indiscriminately after mortar rounds landed near their convoy in western Baghdad.
..It said its guards reacted "lawfully and appropriately" to a hostile attack. Maliki said that account was "not accurate." |
This has been the rule of engagement from the beginning. And people wonder why they object. First time some scumbag soldier for hire took out my loved one with no justice to follow, I'd be an instant radical, too. Who wouldn't? |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 9:17 am Post subject: |
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BAGHDAD - Iraq's Interior Ministry has expanded its investigation into incidents involving Blackwater USA security guards amid the furor following a shooting that claimed at least 11 lives, a ministry spokesman said Saturday.
Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said the Moyock, N.C.-based company has been implicated in six other incidents over the past seven months, including a Feb. 7 shooting outside Iraqi state television in Baghdad in which three building guards were fatally shot.
Khalaf said other incidents include: a Sept. 9 shooting in front of Baghdad's municipal government building that killed five people and wounded 10; a Sept. 12 shooting that wounded five on the capital's Palestine Street; a Feb. 4 shooting near the Foreign Ministry, in which Iraqi journalist Hana al-Ameedi died; a May shooting near the Interior Ministry that claimed the life of a passer-by and a Feb. 14 incident in which Blackwater employees allegedly smashed windshields by throwing bottles of ice water at cars.
"These six cases will support the case against Blackwater, because they show that it has a criminal record," Khalaf told The Associated Press.
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http://tinyurl.com/3942xc |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 11:19 am Post subject: Blackwater Merc Scum |
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I remember back in 2004 when I said something negative about Blackwater re: the four merc assholes who went way outside their patrol boundaries and were hung for it in Fallujah.
I was attacked for it. Of course, I did not say it was right to mutilate their bodies, I just said that attacking Fallujah in response, which was what happened, was not worth the mercenary scum. Or something along those lines.
Well, I just gotta say, I was right to poop on those mercenaries. The mercs and their recklessness has been part of the problem in Iraq. You ever meet a contractor in Iraq, remember that they get paid ample financial compensation, or they wouldn't be there! They might or might not be mercenary scum, thats a generalization. But certainly some Blackwater gun-for-hires are pretty unscrupulous. And its more than a guess that some of these guys feel that being above-the-law is one of the perks of the job. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 11:48 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| They might or might not be mercenary scum, thats a generalization. |
I think they remain American citizens and, in fact, former American armed forces. Not mercenary in the least.
In any case, given their numbers on the ground, I am ready to conclude that Washington and/or the Pentagon are likely playing "creative-accounting" games with "troop levels," etc. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 11:53 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| They might or might not be mercenary scum, thats a generalization. |
I think they remain American citizens and, in fact, former American armed forces. Not mercenary in the least.
In any case, given their numbers on the ground, I am ready to conclude that Washington and/or the Pentagon are likely playing "creative-accounting" games with "troop levels," etc. |
They're certainly not all Americans.
| WaPo wrote: |
There are about 100,000 government contractors operating in Iraq, not counting subcontractors, a total that is approaching the size of the U.S. military force there, according to the military's first census of the growing population of civilians operating in the battlefield.
The survey finding, which includes Americans, Iraqis and third-party nationals hired by companies operating under U.S. government contracts, is significantly higher and wider in scope than the Pentagon's only previous estimate, which said there were 25,000 security contractors in the country. |
Blackwater might be all-American.
| WaPo wrote: |
| Blackwater USA has more than 1,000 employees in the country, most of them providing private security. |
They did! Ha! Good riddance to Blackwater. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 11:57 am Post subject: |
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I was referring to Blackwater and others I know of, such as Vance, for example.
By the way, how certain are you that Blackwater is out of Iraq? I understood the company was resuming ops this weekend. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 12:05 pm Post subject: |
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The Iraqi government seems to be leaving the doors open for a compromise...
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Following the Nisoor Square shooting, the Interior Ministry banned Blackwater from operating in Iraq but rolled back after the U.S. agreed to a joint investigation. The company resumed guarding a reduced number of U.S. convoys on Friday.
The al-Maliki aide said Friday that the Iraqis were pushing for an apology, compensation for victims or their families and for the guards involved in the shooting to be held "accountable."
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Hadi al-Amri, a prominent Shiite lawmaker and al-Maliki ally, also said an admission of wrongdoing, an apology and compensation offered a way out of the dilemma.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20921619/ |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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US Repeatedly Rebuffed Iraq on Blackwater Complaints
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Senior Iraqi officials repeatedly complained to U.S. officials about Blackwater USA's alleged involvement in the deaths of numerous Iraqis, but the Americans took little action to regulate the private security firm until 11 Iraqis were shot dead last Sunday, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
Before that episode, U.S. officials were made aware in high-level meetings and formal memorandums of Blackwater's alleged transgressions. They included six violent incidents this year allegedly involving the North Carolina firm that left a total of 10 Iraqis dead, the officials said. |
How Bush has created a moral vacuum in Iraq in which Americans can kill for free
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The moral vacuum of Iraq�where Blackwater USA guards can kill 10 or 20 Iraqis on a whim and never be prosecuted for it�did not happen by accident. It is yet another example of something the Bush administration could have prevented with the right measures but simply did not bother about as it rushed into invading and occupying another country. With America�s all-volunteer army under strain, the Pentagon and White House knew that regular military cannot be used for guarding civilians. As far back as 2003, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld convened a task force under Undersecretary of Defense David Chu to consider new laws that might be needed to govern the privatization of war. Nothing was done about its recommendations. Then, two days before he left Iraq for good, L. Paul Bremer III, the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator, signed a blanket order immunizing all Americans, because, as one of his former top aides told me, �we wanted to make sure our military, civilians and contractors were protected from Iraqi law.� (No one worried about protecting the Iraqis from us; after all, we still thought of ourselves as the �liberators,� even though by then the worst abuses at Abu Ghraib and other places were known.)
Nor can these private armies even be prosecuted in America under U.S. law. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, which permits charges to be brought in U.S. courts for crimes abroad, apparently applies only to Defense Department contractors (and even then the administration has rarely used it). Blackwater and other security firms work for the State Department. Even today, despite the crucial role of Blackwater and other private security firms�who employ up to 30,000 operatives in keeping the civilian side of the U.S. occupation going�Iraqis can do nothing if they are abused or killed by them. While many Blackwater operatives are brave and honorable�the company has lost some 30 of its employees in Iraq�many of these paramilitaries have long been known to be cowboys who act as if they are free to commit homicide as they please. And according to numerous Iraqi witnesses, they sometimes do. |
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some waygug-in
Joined: 25 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 10:24 pm Post subject: |
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And then there's this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070923/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Iraq: Blackwater guards fired unprovoked By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 1 minute ago
BAGHDAD - Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in a shooting last week that left 11 people dead, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case was referred to the Iraqi judiciary. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 8:47 am Post subject: |
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Gopher, ever the apologist (They're not mercs, they're Americans!), what the hell do you define as a merc? They are paid to protect and kill in a war zone. They are performing a function that in past wars was done by soldiers. How are they NOT mercs?
Criminy Jicket. 
They most certainly are mercs and should be branded as such by the media. Calling them bodyguards is a white wash. The fact they are not beholden to Iraqi law nor American law reinforces their status as mercs. The fact they have been shown to kill indiscriminately on multiple occasions further supports this.
But, hey, let's go with your worthless pronouncement: They not mercs! They're Americans!
Being an apologist means you are, by definition, dishonest.
Think on this.
PS: I've yet to find the term antiAmerican in a dictionary. There might be a reason for this, straw man:
Anti-American, with a hyphen, would mean against Americans or things American. Like anti-dumping campaign. A campaign against dumping.
antiAmerican would be describing someone as the opposite of American. Like Antichrist. The opposite of the Christ. That would include any person not holding US citizenship.
To illustrate: Your friend in Venezuela is anti-American. BushCheney are antiAmericans: they don't support the Constitution of the US, the Bill of Rights or the rule of law and so are the opposite of what it means to be an American.
I am entertained by the thought you have not been saying what it is you have thought you were saying all this time.
Bonus points if you can figure out which you are.
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Zutronius
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Location: Suncheon
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:15 am Post subject: |
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I saw that somewhere. Thanks for the link.
From your link,
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| It was not clear if Blackwater employees suspected of selling to the black market knew the weapons they allegedly sold to middlemen might wind up with the PKK. If they did, possible charges against them could be more serious than theft or illegal weapons sales, officials said. |
Erm, mercenaries, who are often former American armed forces as Gopher pointed out, did not realize that their guns sold on the black market might end up in the hands of insurgents?
Blackwater is making Halliburton look like Ben & Jerry's by comparison. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:25 am Post subject: |
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Erm, mercenaries, who are often former American armed forces as Gopher pointed out, did not realize that their guns sold on the black market might end up in the hands of insurgents?
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I guess it would depend who they thought the weapons were being sold to. Let's say the buyer presented himself as representing Group X. and claimed that the weapons were for the use of Group X, but then turned around and sold them to the PKK. Then, the mercenaries(or whatever you call them) might not have known who they were really supplying.
But if the buyer just said "yeah, I'm gonna sell to the highest bidder", then the mercs would have less of an excuse.
Either way, gun smuggling is bad and government emplyees should not do it. |
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