John Nichols: Blackwater's Enablers at the State Department

[marmar]

from The Nation:


BLOG | Posted 10/02/2007 @ 1:16pm
Blackwater's Enablers at the State Department
John Nichols



House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair Henry Waxman finally got to the heart of the Blackwater contract-killing scandal when he reviewed emails detailing how the U.S. State Department worked with the private security firm to hide bloody trail of its mercenaries.

Noting that after an intoxicated Blackwater thug shot and killed an Iraqi guard last December, the State Department counseled the corporation on how much to pay the family of the Iraqi to keep silent and then arranged for the Blackwater employee to exit Iraq without facing any consequences for his actions, Waxman produced records of internet communications detailing the cover up.

"It's hard to read these e-mails and not come to the conclusion that the State Department is acting as Blackwater's enabler," Waxman told a hearing that saw Blackwater founder Erik Prince claim with a straight face that his company "acted appropriately at all times" during an incident last month that left 11 Iraqis dead and inspired an effort to force the country to withdraw its mercenaries from Baghdad.

Prince's brazen claim that his teams of paid killers "acted appropriately" begged the question: Who is defining the word "appropriately"?

Waxman pointed to the answer. Blackwater, which has collected more than $1 billion in U.S. government contracts since 2001 to do security work once assigned to Marines, may be indefensible operation. But the firm has not operated in a void.

Blackwater is an extension of the U.S. government.

Blackwater operates at the behest of the U.S. departments of defense and state.

And when the State Department helps the company pay off the families of its victims and helps to extract killers from circumstances in which they might be arrested and prosecuted, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her cronies become for more appropriate subjects of scrutiny than Erik Prince.

Every indication is that Prince is a very bad man. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=239181

[tekisui]

1. I am disappointed and disgusted by the State Dept. behavior.

They in the SD have shown themselves to be war-profiteering enablers and, now, war criminals.

They are as bad as the DoD. Chimpy has corrupted every nook and cranny of Our government.

Off to the Hague with the whole lot.