As usual, the wrong people are in jail (namely, Iraq War whistle-blower Chelsea Manning). And ironically enough, the reporter who broke this blockbuster Blackwater death threat story is himself now facing jail time for the crime of committing journalism and refusing to divulge a source. From James Risen of the New York Times:
Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor’s operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater’s top manager there issued a threat: “that he could kill” the government’s chief investigator and “no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” according to department reports.
American Embassy officials in Baghdad sided with Blackwater rather than the State Department investigators as a dispute over the probe escalated in August 2007, the previously undisclosed documents show. The officials told the investigators that they had disrupted the embassy’s relationship with the security contractor and ordered them to leave the country, according to the reports.
After returning to Washington, the chief investigator wrote a scathing report to State Department officials documenting misconduct by Blackwater employees and warning that lax oversight of the company, which had a contract worth more than $1 billion to protect American diplomats, had created “an environment full of liability and negligence.”Blackwater has since changed its name a couple of times, but it's still very much in business. At least the Nisour Square shooters are finally on trial in Washington. It was because the massacre had gone unprosecuted by the US Government that Iraq had refused to allow American military forces to remain in the country after the "official" war ended. So, do you suppose that this belated prosecution could represent the US Government's too-little, too-late attempt to get back into the hell of its own creation for more mayhem?
Meanwhile, the Bushies have a lot of explaining to do. Namely, former Secretary of State Condi Rice, who was at the helm when the death threat against one of her own investigators was swept under the rug.
And also, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who continued to use the services of Blackwater under one of its creepy new names, "Reflex Responses." (This does kind of admit that they shoot first and ask questions later -- if, that is, their brains actually harbor a rudimentary moral compass) There was that little matter of Hillary looking the other way as former Blackwater owner Erik Prince had recruited mercenaries from the jungles of Colombia to start a private army for a potentate in the United Arab Emirates. Ironically enough (again!) it was Chelsea Manning who'd tipped off "Dirty Wars" journalist Jeremy Scahill about Prince's latest independent military antics in the Middle East.
Hillary and Erik at one time even shared the same P.R. rep: Mark Penn.
Manning is in jail. Risen may be going to jail. The Bush war criminals roam free. And Hillary is inevitable.
Blackwater, aka Reflex Responses, hired Christian mercenaries to protect Muslim leaders against their own people on Islamic soil???!!!
ReplyDelete“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” - Voltaire
I recall a South Park episode, where Eric Cartmen asked for and received 500 AK-47s, that was based on a real thing that Blackwater did in Afghanistan. Blackwater contractors were barred from carrying weapons in Afghanistan, having shot two civilians and another Blackwater contractor. Operating under another alias to escape detection, they stole 200 AK-47s intended for the Afghan National Police at an armory in Kabul, signing for them under the name “Eric Cartman.”
Hell is empty and all the mercenaries are here as we approach our nation’s spiritual death.
Martin Luther King was the prophet we ignored at our own peril.
That Obama fails to realize this is not only ironic but inexplicable.
Here are two more interesting and related tidbits.
ReplyDeleteThis from someone called ArizonaBubblebee who frequently comments on Empty Wheel's post titled 'Bengh- Blackwater!
"The State Department had previously entered into a multi-billion dollar contract with a security company called Aegis LLC to provide security at various State Department properties around the world, including the consulate at Benghazi. The CEO of this company at the time of the incident was Kristi Clemens Rogers, the wife of Congressman Mike Rogers, the principal defender of the NSA in the House of Representatives. Supposedly, this inconvenient relationship is behind his decision not to seek reelection."
(Btw, Congressman Rogers is also a former FBI agent)
And this from the Washington Post titled 'Massachusetts SWAT Teams Claim They’re Private Corporations, Immune From Open Records Laws'.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/26/massachusetts-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-corporations-immune-from-open-records-laws/
Apparently the highly militarized local police force SWAT teams, heavily armed with free combat gear and weapons of war from the Pentagon, are operating under Law Enforcement Councils (LECs) which hide behind corporate identifies to escape public records requests. What a great idea! I don't suppose Eric Holder gave them that advice. After subverting our democracy by converting our local police to act as federal militias, they also help prevent the people from knowing about this newly created local army that the people had no democratic decision in funding or creating. It's all highly classified secret information anyway by the terms of their grants, I'm sure.
Help! I'm so confused! Do we have Fascism? A national security police state? Has a stealthy military coup d'etat taken place? Our democracy is certainly history.
Oh, and the coup d'grace? The 100-mile Constitution-Free zone around our entire country where the Obama regime claims the right to stop and search without suspicion of any wrongdoing. So it all makes sense now that the Feds weren't seriously securing our borders (they keep a closer eye by satellite and drones on foreign countries and effectively close off territory) but preferred a policy of distant monitoring, typically from a quarter mile stretch of a single highway, 50-100 miles from the border, but roaming cities within this area at will.
That 100 mile zone is not arbitrary. It encompasses fully 90% of our population!
When the government does something seemingly nonsensical or plain stupid, it's actually for a very important reason - usually very bad for people and very good for them and the profits of their private partners.
As you say at the end, the criminals roam free. There is no accountability. And these people are being recycled into other jobs. For the more high profile ones we know which universities and think tanks. But what about the hundreds, probably thousands, who committed torture and murder -- where are they now?
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