Blackwater Firm Gets $120 Million U.S. Government Contract

[cory777]

Source: CBS News

CBS News has learned in an exclusive report that the State Department has awarded a part of what was formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide a contract worth more than $120 million for providing security services in Afghanistan.

Private security firm U.S. Training Center, a business unit of the Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater, now called Xe Services, was awarded the contract Friday, a State Department spokeswoman said Friday night.

Under the contract, U.S. Training Center will provide "protective security services" at the new U.S. consulates in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, the spokeswoman said. The firm can begin work "immediately" and has to start within two months. The contract lasts a year but can be extended twice for three months at a time to last a maximum of 18 months.

Should the firm fulfill all 18 months available in the contract, it will be paid a total of $120,123,293, the spokeswoman said.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20008238-10391695.html?tag=nl.e879

[Grinchie]

1. NEW!! Improved U.S. Consulates! Now with Deadly Force!

Atta Boy Hillary!

[SILVER__FOX52]

2. meet the new boss....

same as the old boss.

[aquart]

3. Is there a reason we cannot protect our own embassies?

This is an outrageous and unnecessary expense.

[Scuba]

4. +1

[western mass]

6. Your comment makes no sense

How would Blackwater make $$$ then???

[Uncle Joe]

9. The Marines have done it throughout our history but I believe the strengthening of mercenaries

by leeching resources away from the publics' defense force is part of the corporate supremacist agenda.

When everything under the sun becomes privatized, "We the People's" government has less accountability, by adding just another layer of plausible deni-ability, making the decision to wage war even easier than it was before, and opening another channel for corruption.

With all that, I see the ascendancy of mercenaries as a growing national security threat against the United States.

The awarding of the contract comes just more than four months after the government of Iraq ordered hundreds of Blackwater-linked security guards to leave the country within seven days or face possible arrest.

The Justice Department is also trying to prosecute a case against five Blackwater guards who had opened fire on a crowded Baghdad street in 2007. Last December, a federal judge dismissed the U.S. government's case against the guards in the deaths of unarmed Iraqi civilians killed in the shooting because prosecutors used sworn statements the guards gave under a promise of immunity. Federal prosecutors are continuing to appeal the dismissal.

Mangling the words of Flip Wilson "The Blackwater made us do it."

[fascisthunter]

13. yup

[Lagomorph]

10. Since it's a State Department contract....

...the military was not involved. Whether we could or not protect our embassies was never the question. The question is who gets the $120 million, the military or State?

One of the ways political prestige is measured (like the people give a fuck) is by budget size. The big budgets talk down to the little budgets, which translates into political power or "who is the puppeteer and who is the puppet?" Our government is very concerned with how many people they can make dance while Nero fiddles.

To the wall with them all...

[Hubert Flottz]

5. Yes We Can...

Change we can believe in?

[ixion]

7. not so much

unfortunately. :(

[lib2DaBone]

8. Not bad for a Company accused of murder and on-the-run.

They are still players. Where is Mr. Obama on this?

[joe black]

14. He's uh, well uh, he's

He's turning the ship around, you know, it takes time.

[mod mom]

11. we shouldn't be giving contracts to corporations that move to escape extradition:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/blackwaters-erik-prince-moving-united-arab-emirates

[tom_paine]

12. Gotta love our Hessians!

Actually, no, no we don't gotta.

The circle closes. The former United States of America is now EXACTLY what the Founding Fathers fought against.

Maybe worse. Which is worse? Parliamentary Monarchy or Corporate Oligarchy?

In the end, they are the same thing.

Ask any Hessian, past or present.