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By Benny Morris
$17.16
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By James H. Cone
$35
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Jeff Vespa/WireImage
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With his new book “Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield,” Jeremy Scahill brings the last decade of the American government’s clandestine war making into the clearest possible focus.
Posted on Apr 27, 2013
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ElDave (CC-BY)
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By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch —
If Apple made weapons, they would undoubtedly be drones, those remotely piloted planes getting such great press in the U.S.
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Wikimedia Commons
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Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater (now Xe Services), the world’s most notorious private military contractor, is discreetly training an 800-man army capable of defending infrastructure, suppressing rebellions and battling regional state enemies for the UAE. (more)
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AP / K.M. Chaudary
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Last month’s arrest in Pakistan of one Raymond Davis, an American working security for other U.S. operatives in Lahore—and an American with clear employment ties to the CIA and previously to Blackwater Worldwide—has made for additional diplomatic strain between the two nations.
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AP / Gerry Broome
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The mercenary firm formerly known as Blackwater has argued in court that the company’s private contractors who killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in 2007 should not be held accountable. Why? It’s Washington’s fault, they claim, as Blackwater fighters were acting as employees of the U.S. government at the time.
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Wikimedia Commons
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In your face, foreign community! Afghan President Hamid Karzai has begun dissolving foreign private security companies, including the firm formerly known as Blackwater, as he moves to make good on a promise to ban the private contractors by year’s end.
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AP / Gerry Broome
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The company formerly known as Blackwater (now renamed Xe Services) has agreed to pay $42 million in fines, thereby avoiding criminal charges for the hundreds of alleged export violations it committed as a leading private contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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U.S. Air Force
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The U.S. military, despite reports to the contrary, has continued to rely on a secret private spy network, akin to a Blackwater with brains, that has provided a stream of intelligence to military forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan for more than a year.
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pithhelmet.wordpress.com
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Once-esteemed (by the government, at least) mercenary corporation Blackwater is in some hot legal water after the company’s former president and four other former employees were slapped with federal charges over the alleged stockpiling of automatic weapons.
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By Byard Duncan, AlterNet —
The winner of the second annual Izzy Award, named after muckraking journalist I.F. Stone, discusses independent media and this critical moment in journalism.
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pithhelmet.wordpress.com
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The company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide has been mired in scandal ever since its guards massacred some Iraqi civilians, but the government work keeps coming. Sen. Carl Levin has asked the Pentagon to think carefully about awarding a $1 billion contract to the company now known as Xe.
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Flickr / jamesdale10 (CC-BY)
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The Senate Armed Services Committee is investigating a Blackwater subsidiary’s role in the shooting of two Afghans last year. The panel also criticized the Army for not properly supervising the company. Despite a dreadful track record, Blackwater, now called Xe, continues to have contracts with the U.S. government.
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Flickr / aresauburn™
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The Justice Department is reportedly looking into whether private security firm/mercenary agency Blackwater Worldwide attempted to buy off Iraqi officials following a shooting rampage in Baghdad. Blackwater employees have so far escaped criminal charges for the Nisour Square massacre that killed 17 Iraqis. (continued)
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AP / Hadi Mizban
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Vice President Joe Biden expressed his personal regrets to Iraqi leaders and promised that the U.S. will appeal the dismissal of manslaughter charges against five Blackwater security contractors over a bloody Baghdad shooting in 2007 that killed 17 people.
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Wikimedia Commons / jamesdale10
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A federal judge let five Blackwater Worldwide security contractors off the hook Thursday, dropping all charges against them in a 2007 case in which 14 Iraqi civilians were killed and 20 wounded during a Baghdad shooting. The Justice Department wasn’t thrilled with this outcome, and a DoJ spokesman told The Washington Post that his colleagues are “still in the process of reviewing the opinion and considering our options.”
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Was Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech just idle wordplay or something more “muscular”? “Left, Right & Center” regular Tony Blankley thinks it was tantamount to a “triumph of belief in words over actions” and even invokes deconstructionism (eek!) in his analysis. Is the CIA in bed with Blackwater? And are big banks really cracking down on egregious executive bonuses?
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Reports are coming out that mercenaries from Blackwater Worldwide played central roles in some of the CIA’s most sensitive missions, including clandestine raids and the transport of detainees. Many guards claimed that Blackwater’s participation was so routine that the lines between military and contractor were blurred.
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Still: AP via youtube.com
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced the unenviable task of trying to change U.S.-Pakistani relations for the better during her three-day diplomacy spree in the South Asian nation. However, it was unclear as her visit drew to a close whether she’d made any headway, as she herself acknowledged on Friday.
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Was Thursday’s election in Afghanistan a step forward for representative democracy in the South Asian nation? What exactly does President Obama aim to accomplish in Afghanistan anyhow? This week’s lineup of commentators explores the possible connections between the CIA and Blackwater and considers the current status of the health care debate.
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AP / Susan Walsh
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Jeremy Scahill reports in The Nation that a “former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine ... claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company.”
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eyeball-series.org
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Saying that he’s “taking on new challenges,” Blackwater Worldwide founder and CEO Erik Prince announced Monday that he’s resigning from his long-held position at the top of the security company, which has now changed its name to the spooky and sci-fi-tinged Xe.
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Flickr / Photo Mojo
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By Eugene Robinson — It’s far-fetched to think Hillary Clinton’s performance as secretary of state would be influenced by foreign donations to her husband’s charitable foundation. But it is naive to think that the newly revealed list of donors won’t provoke suspicion and give rise to conspiracy theories.
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By Eugene Robinson — The federal manslaughter indictment of five Blackwater Worldwide security guards for the horrific massacre of more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad may look like an exercise in accountability, but it’s probably the exact opposite.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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Five Blackwater guards were indicted on charges of manslaughter on Monday in a case that will test the legal accountability of private contractors in Iraq. A sixth guard pleaded guilty. The Blackwater employees killed 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians without justification at a Baghdad traffic circle, the Justice Department alleges.
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AP photo / Morry Gash
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By Chris Hedges — War is a poison. It is a poison that nations and groups must at times ingest to ensure their survival. But, like any poison, it can kill you just as surely as the disease it is meant to eradicate.
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Composite: acc-tv.com/50states.com
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Juneau is hardly the top American target for terrorists, so what’s Blackwater doing in Alaska’s capital? Author Stuart Archer Cohen has spotted uniformed guards from the private security contractor, and he has some clues as to why they’re there.
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Wiki Commons
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Stung by lawsuits, protests, government audits, criminal charges and negative media attention, executives from the mercenary firm Blackwater Worldwide say providing security in Iraq and elsewhere has become a drain on the company’s future and will be gradually all but phased out. However, there are no immediate plans to end the contract with the State Department which became so controversial after the company’s agents went on a deadly shooting spree in Baghdad last year.
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Salon.com
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The folks at Blackwater and other private security outfits in Iraq encountered a dramatic setback Wednesday after an Iraqi minister announced that private guards will no longer be given immunity from U.S military and Iraqi law, ending more than five years of unregulated mercenary violence in the country.
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AP photo / Reed Saxon
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By Stanley Kutler — With our economic and financial crises deepening, government insiders reportedly are debating whether we need to restore some regulation—or not. Given the state of things, we can expect further woes and no regulation.
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Last week at the gates of the mercenary company Blackwater, nonviolent protesters who re-enacted an infamous Blackwater shooting were arrested. As “Blackwater” author Jeremy Scahill notes: “The arrest of the activists and the subsequent five days they spent locked up in jail is more punishment than any Blackwater mercenaries have received for their deadly actions against Iraqi civilians.”
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The questionable actions of Blackwater Worldwide are coming back to haunt the private security contractor once again, this time regarding an incident in May 2005. In that incident Blackwater teams on the ground and in the air near a busy Green Zone checkpoint released CS gas, which is used by the U.S. military only sparingly and only in strictly controlled circumstances. The gas temporarily compromised American troops’ ability to maintain security in the area.
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nytimes.com
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The FBI, which is still investigating Blackwater’s Sept. 16 killing rampage in Baghdad, has determined that at least 14 of the 17 shootings were unjustified and in violation of deadly-force rules. The Justice Department is looking into whether to press charges, if it even has the authority, which means that Blackwater could very well get away with murder.
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More than seven months before Blackwater’s September killing spree, one of the company’s snipers shot and killed three Iraqi guards, who, witnesses said, never opened fire. A brief “investigation” by the State Department, which included no Iraqi witnesses or visits to the scene of the crime, found that the incident “fell within approved rules governing the use of force.”
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chinadaily.com.cn
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Three senior law enforcement officials have revealed to the Associated Press that the State Department gave all of the Blackwater guards involved in the Sept. 16 killing of 17 Iraqi civilians immunity from prosecution.
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The State Department will implement new measures to guard against a repeat of last month’s Blackwater slaughter of 17 Iraqi civilians, but some of the new rules, including more cultural awareness training, feel like a Band-Aid on a serious head wound. In addressing this issue, the Iraqi government has chosen to make a point of its sovereignty, and so far the U.S. has done little to allay the Iraqi concerns.
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AP Photo
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Two women were shot and killed on Tuesday when private security contractors guarding a convoy of four cars in Baghdad’s Karrada neighborhood opened fire on the women’s Oldsmobile as it moved toward the convoy. Unfortunately, it was not the day’s only violent episode in Iraq. According to The Washington Post, a series of bombings claimed at least 34 lives in and around Baghdad.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Iraqi authorities have given the U.S. six months to cut ties with Blackwater, and are demanding custody of the private security guards who, according to a government investigation, recklessly opened fire on Iraqi civilians while escorting a State Department convoy.
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Patrick Chappatte, NZZ am Sonntag —
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The House voted 389 to 30 to pass a bill that would make private contractors working for the U.S. government in Iraq subject to United States law. It’s the second time Congress has attempted to apply some sense to the legal vacuum created by the Bush administration and its Coalition Provisional Authority, which pushed through what amounts to blanket immunity for mercenaries.
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Blackwater USA founder and chairman Erik Prince stubbornly defended his company Tuesday while members of the House Oversight Committee grilled him with questions such as “Why are we privatizing our military to an organization that has been aggressive and in some cases reckless in the handling of their duties?”
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AP photo / Hadi Mizban
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By Robert Scheer — How did it come to be that the ostensibly best-educated and most refined representatives of the United States in Iraq are guarded by gun-toting mercenaries who kill innocent civilians? More urgently, why did State Department employees and their bosses in Washington tolerate—and pay to conceal—the wanton murder conducted on their watch?
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The freshly sworn-in chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, started his first day on the job with this revelation: “The fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan will one day end.” That’s a relief, coming from the newest member of Team Bush, but don’t get too excited, there’s more: “We must be ready for who and what comes after.” Oh dear.
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According to a devastating new report from the House Oversight Committee, Blackwater USA employees engaged in at least 195 “escalation of force” incidents since 2005, with the private security firm firing 80 percent of the first shots (despite its purely defensive mandate). What’s worse, the State Department has provided little if any oversight, instead assisting the company as it carried out damage control.
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AP photo / Susan Walsh
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Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, claims his panel’s attempts to look into Blackwater USA’s recent controversial actions in Iraq were derailed by the State Department. The State Department, on the other hand, denies blocking the investigation and says Waxman’s charge is the result of a “misunderstanding.”
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unitedcats.wordpress.com
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Any lingering question as to whether Blackwater USA security contractors were to blame in the Sept. 16 shootout in Baghdad that left 11 Iraqis dead and 12 wounded may be cleared up by a videotape of the incident, which was reportedly filmed from a nearby police station.
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For his part, Stephen Colbert doesn’t see Naomi Wolf’s point about Blackwater USA’s recent shameful shenanigans in Iraq somehow heralding a fast-approaching era of fascism in America. Instead, the faux-pundit believes the trend is more toward “a bull market for shooting people” these days.
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Too Soon to Tell: The Case for Hope, Continued
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