Blackwater allegedly involved in smuggling weapons.
By on Sep 22nd, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Blackwater allegedly involved in smuggling weapons.
Federal investigations are now investigating whether Blackwater USA employees smuggled weapons into Iraq. The employees allegedly “sent over unlicensed weapons and equipment, that could have been used by a group labelled as terrorist by the US.” Iraqi officials are also probing “allegations about the security firm’s involvement in six other violent episodes this year that left at least 10 Iraqis dead.”
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I gues that’s not quite as bad as giving them an airplane load of cash and 190,000 weapons like General Betrayus did.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:40 pmI guess arming the terrorists keeps the war going and keeps Blackwater busy making money by protecting American dignitaries and CEOs from those same terrorists.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:46 pmOk Democrats, now’s your chance. Fund the troops and defund Bush’s private army. A perfect solution to the problem that is Iraq!
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:49 pmThe free market at work. Next they will privatize the Justice dept. and install prosecutors based on …..oh well never mind. This mess created by Busco and the GOP and the compliant media is a web of blind adherence to a failed ideology, the so called free market.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:51 pmI wonder how many troops Backwater has over there in Iraq, and how much of an additional strain it would be on our troops if they were forced out? Assuming the Iraqi government really is in a position to do that…
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:55 pmDo we really want these lawless, violent, christian extremists to re-enter the USA?
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:56 pmI agree with #2; they’re simply making a market for their product in the only way they know how. It’s just American business, doing what they do best, in the fine old tradition of Ronald Reagan’s arming Iranian terrorists while they were holding Americans hostage. The only thing missing is the half-hearted denials.
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:10 pmThere are so many issues related to our policies in Iraq, but this Blackwater story continues to top my list. Outsourcing war to a mercenary organization just boggles my mind. We all chuckle a little when people bring up black helicopters, but here are the helicopters buzzing around Iraq, and they are, indeed, black. Youtube is full of videos of the mercenaries “picking off” insurgents “like a turkey shoot.” Despite the media’s description of Blackwater’s duties as the protection of U.S. diplomats and other dignitaries and projects in Iraq, they are obviously heavily involved in combat.
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:25 pmDigDug -
180,000 Private Contractors Flood Iraq
By RICHARD LARDNER – 2 days ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has assembled an imposing industrial army in Iraq larger than its uniformed fighting force and responsible for a such a broad swath of responsibilities the military might not be able to operate without its private-sector partners.
More than 180,000 Americans, Iraqis, and nationals from other countries work under a slew of federal contracts to provide security, gather intelligence, build roads, forge a financial system, and transport needed supplies in a country the size of California.
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:26 pm[…]
http://ap.google.com/ article/ ALeqM5iDcTMPwEWvQzIhTYTWFwHzFDyZ1A
…
just found, on the googlenews:
Security Firm Faces Criminal Charges in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ and SABRINA TAVERNISE
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:27 pmPublished: September 23, 2007
BAGHDAD, Sept. 22 — The Iraqi government expects to refer criminal charges to the Iraqi courts within days in the killing of at least eight Iraqis by a private American security company, the state minister for national security affairs said Saturday, and he said that the government had received little information so far from the American side of the joint investigation.
[…]
http://www.nytimes.com/ 2007/ 09/ 23/ world/ middleeast/ 23blackwater.html?hp
The Bush gangsters have rigged the constitution for their puppet regime in Iraq, so that the Iraqi “government” has little or no control over the 180,000+ USA/foreign mercenaries that are occupying their country… This is what the Bush crime family smirkingly likes to call ” democracy” and “soverignerrity.”
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:38 pmSo, if true, does this mean this mean that the U.S. Government, with Blackwater acting as its agent, provided material support for an identified terrorist organization?
What are the implications of this?
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:52 pm“What are the implications of this?”
Comment by Dr. Grumpus
Fubar, Iraqi style.
What was Pogo’s now-famous saying, again?
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:58 pmOur new demand for action this week — Fund the troops, with plans for withdrawal — Defund Blackwater’s mercenary thugs.
Maybe Blackwater, so evil, corrupt, and damaging to our nation’s credibility will help us get out of Bush’s hellish quagmire in Iraq.
September 22nd, 2007 at 2:32 pmI wonder how many troops Backwater has over there in Iraq, and how much of an additional strain it would be on our troops if they were forced out? Assuming the Iraqi government really is in a position to do that…
Comment by DigDug
September 22nd, 2007 at 2:34 pmI have heard the number of Blackwater is as high as 160,000 to 180,000 in Iraq and are paid as much or more than $100,000 per month of our tax payer money. Unlike our military, they have no oversight and with that, I can just imagine the pack mentality these folks have. Rachael Maddow has commented that this Tuesday, Bush will make a decision to send Blackwater packing as the Iraqi people are demanding they go or refuse to let them go… If Bush keeps this privatized corporate Blackwater as we all know he will, then it will prove this invasion/massacre now occupation is for profiteering…. This fact must be put in Bush’s and Congress’s face big time.
Looks like we know what General Petraeus did with the 190,000 missing weapons nice move. No wonder he was given the top job he helped the White House make sure Blackwater got paid by selling the weapons taxpayers paid for. Things a General has to do to be part of the inter Bush/Cheney circle. No wonder Blackwater’s profit went up 688 per cent. Nice pay day for the White House crooks. I wonder if the hired Blackwater killers are counting how many innocent Iraq men/woman/children they’ve killed. At least when they kill US soldiers they know they wont be charge with murder. Looks like the Bush Administration will make PM Maliki let Blackwater get away with murder too.
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:08 pmgooglenews:
UPDATE 2-Blackwater denies making illegal weapons exports
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:41 pmReuters UK - 50 minutes ago
By James Vicini and Will Dunham WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Private US security contractor Blackwater USA denied on Saturday it was involved in illegally shipping automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq.
.
From the NY Times
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:15 pmReports of the number of Blackwater employees in Iraq ranged from at least 1,000 to 1,500, but the numbers were impossible to confirm.
Read Dina Rasor’s book, Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War, for some good insights into the bad things Blackwter has been allowed to do without restraint from the Bush Administration or DoD.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:23 pmIf you lie down with the dogs, you’re gonna get fleas! Our Iraq misadventure is awash in fleas, Blackwater fleas, Custer-Battles fleas, KBR fleas, just to scratch a few of the crony capitalist, war profiteering, neo-con supporting and supported fleas.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:27 pmSo, uhm, do we still have any doubts as to where the insurgency in Iraq get their weapons?
Between Blackwater smuggling them and the US military “losing” them, the Iraqi insurgents might just have enough for years to come.
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:06 pmNow wouldn’t that be poetic justice for Bush - smuggled weapons via Blackwater actually being used to kill our own! Isn’t that the height of ignorance. Bush has absolutely “no clue” what’s going on over there; for that matter neither does his lackey, David Betray-us.
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:11 pmSo let me get this straight….our own smuggled, unregistered weapons are fueling the insurgency and killing our military….so WTF is going on here? Is this another “false flag operation” we’re covertly doing? Making it appear that we have to remain there to fight the insurgency and “win” when we are the ones playing the “double agent gig” there?? Wow! This administration needs to all be put behind bars on this one.
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:12 pmAhhh….so as long as we remain fighting the insurgency which we are providing arms to, we will have to remain there ad infinitum; ergo, the war machine and the war profiteering lines the pockets of the scumbags in Washington. I finally get it!
IS THIS NOT THE DEFINITION OF “THE ENEMY WITHIN”. The ONLY answer is swift and immediate impeachment of Bush & Cheney or we will keep getting more of the same. You always get what you ask for!
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:14 pmKaty: If your figures are accurate, then the contractor hit men in Iraq outnumber even our own military. I wonder how many of our fallen heroes were felled by these hired contractor/killers?
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:16 pmI wonder how many of our fallen heroes were felled by these hired contractor/killers?
Comment by Veritas — September 22, 2007 @ 5:16 pm
Probably safe to start w/ Pat Tillman.
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:23 pmThere are about 180,000 private contractors in Iraq, but not all are “hit men”. Some are cooks, some are truck drivers, any many are poor non-Americans. As reported by the NY Times, Blackwater has 1000 to 1500 gunmen in Iraq. Probably they are Not the only hired guns in Iraq.
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:33 pmAs for these mercenaries killing our troops….every time they kill innocent Iraqi’s, they probably are creating outraged relatives and friends that want to kill Americans.
United States mercenaries smuggling weapons to terrorists?
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:41 pmCertainly this is rephrehensible…..giving aid and comfort to terrorist groups..
Exley? Jake? thoughts? let me guess..innocent until proven guilty, right?
btw, two to them already have plead guilty, thats whose information is providing the basis for the wider complaint?
Not all American soldiers in Iraq go out and do the fighting either. I thought the ratio was about 10-1, support v combat troops.
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:42 pmI don’t know where the figure 1500 blackwater employees came from because I have read numerous times that the total number of mercenaries and contracted help in Iraq is more than the 160,000 troops we have there, bringing the total to over 300,000.
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:54 pmConsidering the role that Blackwater plays, 1500 seems an inordinately low estimate. There are at least 5 or 6 companies in similar roles, however.
Thirty (30) posts, and no trolls. Hallelujah!
Maybe the new TP registration system is working!
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:48 pmSo Blackwater is smuggling weapons into Iraq and selling them on the black market. How long has this been going on? Is the Bush administration in on it? What was Valerie Plame working on? Wasn’t she tracking weapons in Iraq? Maybe she was too close to finding out about this - another reason to blow her cover?
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:55 pm>Maybe the new TP registration system is working!
Is it, but also, this subject is completely indefensible. So instead of discussing it and how it effects the overall situation in Iraq, they scamper away. The best thing they could come up with is “innocent until proven guilty”.. but come to think of it, this involves someone giving assistance to a terrorist group.. SOOOOOO
to the bush cultists, these Blackwater people (who MIGHT be selling guns to terror groups, POSSIBLY knowingly), dont even deserve due process…..because if the united states thinks your aiding terrorists, you are.
As per the cool aid cultists dogma, “we’re at war” so no need to get judges involved in waging war against terror…
LOCK EM UP!
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:15 pmChrist I wish I was already a lawyer…..Apparently the latest Blackwater massacre in iraq was at least partially caught on videotape….I’m not sure about how much access foreign nationals have to american courts, but I think theres a good chance the relatives of the killed or injured iraqis could sue Blackwater in an american civil court…
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:25 pm1000 to 1500 seems very low to me but maybe it’s not too far off the mark. I found this article on Democracy Now.
Well, here we are a decade later, and it’s the most powerful mercenary firm in the world. It has 20,000 soldiers on the ready, the world’s largest private military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, including helicopter gunships. It’s become nothing short of the Praetorian Guard for the Bush administration’s so-called global war on terror. And it’s headed by a very rightwing Christian activist, ex-Navy Seal named Erik Prince, whose family was one of the major bankrollers of the Republican Revolution of the 1990s. He, himself, is a significant funder of President Bush and his allies.
And what they’ve done is they have built a very frightening empire near the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina. They’ve got about 2,300 men actively deployed around the world.
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:38 pmDoes TP not allow posting links to other blog sites?
It seems to have removed my link to the Democracy Now article.
I’ll try it again
Here’s the link again:
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:40 pmhttp://www.democracynow.org/ article.pl?sid=07/ 01/ 26/ 1559232
#29 — Last I heard that is a roughly accurate estimate of support troops for each combat troop. I just met a young Army sergeant the other day at Best Buy and talked to him for a few minutes. He’s been to Iraq (Fallujah), come back, and re-deploying next month. Told me he’s in QM Corps (Quartermaster/Supply), but that the entire country is a “battle zone.”
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:42 pmI live
#29 — System locked up there for a few minutes. I live near both an Army Fort and Air Force Base and run into a lot of active duty military. Most of the Army folk I talk with have been over there at least once, if not more times.
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:44 pmFound another article on this in the LA Times.
This article talks about the over-all number of mercenary soldiers in Iraq counting all the companies involved, not just blackwater.
http://www.latimes.com/ news/ opinion/ commentary/ la-oe-scahill25jan25,0,4485578.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Already, private contractors constitute the second-largest “force” in Iraq. At last count, there were about 100,000 contractors in Iraq, of which 48,000 work as private soldiers, according to a Government Accountability Office report. These soldiers have operated with almost no oversight or effective legal constraints and are an undeclared expansion of the scope of the occupation. Many of these contractors make up to $1,000 a day, far more than active-duty soldiers. What’s more, these forces are politically expedient, as contractor deaths go uncounted in the official toll.
48,000!
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:44 pmThese Blackwater guys dont meet two of the five requirements our government says you have to have to be afforded the legal status of a lawful combatant.
1) They dont wear uniforms
2) They arent regulated by any form of military justice.
Ergo, by the united states own logic, they are unlawful combatants. They have no more rights than any insurgent or terrorist who doesnt wear a uniform.
September 22nd, 2007 at 10:47 pm#40 Comment by Chocolate Jesus
The hypocracy of our current government is just stunning to me.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:33 pmI wonder how many of our fallen heroes were felled by these hired contractor/killers?
Comment by Veritas
Pat Tillman for one. No one has ever answered the question as to whose gun was responsible for Pat Tillman’s death. I wonder why.
September 23rd, 2007 at 1:12 amWhere is the media on the Blackwater Scandal? Tim Russert on MTP is obsessed with the MoveOn ad, but no mention of the Slaughter at Nissor Square last Sunday.
When will Americans realize that we maintain a huge force of mercenary thugs — Blackwater “security agents” — who terrorize and kill Iraqi civilians without fear of legal action? Nice work if you can get it. Not so great for the rest of us.
Media??? Where are you????
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:18 amAnyone wonder how much heroin is being brought home from Afghanistan by our troops?
With Army management/oversight spread thin, and TONS of money to be made from a commodity that that country is now fairly awash in, can anyone doubt that many k’s of the shit are being packed into cannon barrels, boots, gascans, and every other commonplace item that’s being ferried back and forth daily between here and there?
Maybe it’s not such a bad thing, for those shocked and wounded soldiers who won’t receive any care from the de-budgeted VA - at least they’ll have something to fight the pain with.
I’d also be interested to know who among the neocons has hefty investments in the Pharma that produces methadone - a fair number of the addicts produced will no doubt end up on maintenance, and that’s got to be good news for those companies and their shareholders. Remember Rummy and his flu vaccine stocks??? Is the principle really any different?
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:28 pmBlackwater is using Iraq as a training ground for when the takeover starts here.
September 24th, 2007 at 3:06 pm