CIA Hires BLACKWATER (Xe) to Guard Its Facilities in Afghanistan and elsewhere

[RainDog]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/23/AR2010062305255.html

"The previously undisclosed CIA contract is worth about $100 million, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deal, which is classified.

The revelation comes only a day after members of a federal commission investigating war-zone contractors blasted the State Department for granting Xe a new $120 million contract to guard U.S. consulates under construction in Afghanistan.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano stopped short of confirming the contract, saying only that Xe personnel would not be involved in operations.

"While this agency does not, as a rule, comment on contractual relationships we may or may not have, we follow all applicable federal laws and regulations," Gimigliano said."

[RainDog]

1. link to Jeremy Scahill's site on Blackwater

http://blackwaterbook.com/

Scahill is the most authoritative journalist on Blackwater's criminal activities.

[Starry Messenger]

2. Fucking spiffy.

Maybe we should privatize the entire military like they'd like to do for education. Recent history has shown us how great this works out. :sarcasm: (tag not needed for your benefit Rain, but those in the home audience.)

[RainDog]

3. From The Nation magazine - Blackwater founder accused of murder in 2000

of course, now he's taken himself out of the picture... (big eye roll)

http://www.thenation.com/article/blackwater-founder-implicated-murder

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men 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. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct. Susan Burke, a private attorney working in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, is suing Blackwater in five separate civil cases filed in the Washington, DC, area. They were recently consolidated before Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia for pretrial motions. Burke filed the August 3 motion in response to Blackwater's motion to dismiss the case. Blackwater asserts that Prince and the company are innocent of any wrongdoing and that they were professionally performing their duties on behalf of their employer, the US State Department.

The former employee, identified in the court documents as "John Doe #2," is a former member of Blackwater's management team, according to a source close to the case. Doe #2 alleges in a sworn declaration that, based on information provided to him by former colleagues, "it appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct." John Doe #2 says he worked at Blackwater for four years; his identity is concealed in the sworn declaration because he "fear(s) violence against me in retaliation for submitting this Declaration." He also alleges, "On several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince's employ, Mr. Prince's management has personally threatened me with death and violence."

[Starry Messenger]

6. They are a dirty outfit.

The Prince family are Dominionists. Honestly one of the scarier things to come out of the Bush regime, fundamentalist mercenaries. I can't stand the fact that they are still getting government jobs. It's a cult army. Those two things together usually spell bad idea. They should be looking at war crime tribunals, not millions in tax-payer money. Sick.

[RainDog]

4. I'm so glad Cheney stay-behind Gates is still in govt.

:sarcasm:

[sandnsea]

8. It's the State Dept

Gates doesn't run that.

[RainDog]

11. gates used to run the cia

and his footprints are all over the use of Blackwater.

[sandnsea]

15. I'm sure that's true

But in this case it's the State Dept that needs targeting.

[sakabatou]

5. *facepalm*

[HCE SuiGeneris]

7. Job creation! Woohoo, we're making headway now!

:(

[Cleita]

9. I'm very upset about this. This is what the Marines do or used to do. They guard

embassies, consulates and other government overseas offices. Please, if we are going to hire mercenaries, I would prefer the French Foreign Legion.

[RainDog]

12. privatization of the military is the route of dictators

Blackwater is one of the most dangerous groups that has ever existed in my lifetime here in the U.S.

To me, they are the equivalent of Hitler's private SS.

[Overseas]

14. Yes. And I was hoping we would return the Marines to those duties.

And continue to de-privatize our military.

Privatization has added so much waste into the system. Skimming corporate quarterly profits off our national security goods and services.

Doing military support services in-house had the added benefit of providing useful job training to our troops, to give them marketable skills after leaving the service-- cooking for 300 people, doing the plumbing on the base, fixing electrical wiring. Instead we paid much much more to private contractors who gave us moldy food and electrocuted soldiers in their showers.

And Blackwater Xe has a shameful record of service that has weakened our national security, whatever their Prince may brazenly declare.

[Rex]

10. 'we follow all applicable federal laws and regulations'

:rofl:

Nothing ever changes, the same murdering scum is hired by the same institutions that love war, drugs and death. We will never be rid of corporate crime nor corporate assassins.

[RainDog]

13. a private army that can easily morph into the army of the corporate state

that's what they are.

they are antithetical to democracy.