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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHOLY SHIT: Blackwater Head in Iraq Threatened to Kill State Dept. Investigator
Last edited Mon Jun 30, 2014, 03:06 AM - Edit history (2)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/us/before-shooting-in-iraq-warning-on-blackwater.htmlBefore Shooting in Iraq, Warning on Blackwater
By JAMES RISEN
JUNE 29, 2014
WASHINGTON Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdads Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractors operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwaters top manager there issued a threat: that he could kill the governments 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 embassys 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.
- snip -
The shooting was a watershed moment in the American occupation of Iraq, and was a factor in Iraqs refusal the next year to agree to a treaty allowing United States troops to stay in the country beyond 2011. Despite a series of investigations in the wake of Nisour Square, the back story of what happened with Blackwater and the embassy in Baghdad before the fateful shooting has never been fully told.
MORE
littlemissmartypants
(22,418 posts)Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/30/1310516/-Blackwater-Story-Is-Exactly-Why-NYT-s-James-Risen-Must-Be-Shielded-from-DOJ-Prosecution
James Risen of The New York Times, using recently disclosed State Department documents, has written a bombshell-of-a-story chronicling how Blackwater's top manager threatened to kill the U.S. government's chief investigator in 2007, thus thwarting an investigation into Blackwater's operations just weeks before the company's guards massacred 17 Iraqi civilians.
The story is characteristic Risen: unflinchingly and thoroughly reported. However, Risen may not be able to write such stories in a matter of months. Instead, he may be sitting in a jail cell as a result of a case being prosecuted against him by the Obama administration.
The case against Risen began in 2008. This is when his book, State of War, was published, which contained information on a secret, botched CIA operation in Iran. The Bush administration, furious at the revelations, subpoenaed Risen and demanded that he reveal his confidential source. Risen has steadfastly refused, and if the Obama administration proceeds this summer to prosecute Risen, the NYT journalist may soon be behind bars.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)elleng
(130,153 posts)GReedDiamond
(5,299 posts)...Recommended.
newfie11
(8,159 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/06/12/diplomats-pilots-and-hired-guns-here-are-the-americans-left-in-iraq/
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Except everything.
WHEN CRABS ROAR
(3,813 posts)are they doing it with your blessings?
So much blood on our hands.
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)Buffett/Soros/Kasier/Gates/Hollywood, etc....have nothing to do with Blackwater for their security.
delrem
(9,688 posts)raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)At home, as well as abroad. Every dollar in the markets a little extra weight behind that boot eternally stomping our heads into the ground.
Like slavery, those who live in it suffer beyond suffering, those who can see it are horrified, those who profit refuse to condemn and those who care refuse to partake.
demtenjeep
(31,997 posts)GReedDiamond
(5,299 posts)...from his wikipedia entry:
Baxter fell into his second profession almost by accident. In the mid-1980s, Baxter's interest in music recording technology led him to wonder about hardware and software that was originally developed for military use, i.e. data-compression algorithms and large-capacity storage devices. As it happened, his next-door neighbor was a retired engineer who had worked on the Sidewinder missile program. This neighbor bought Baxter a subscription to Aviation Week magazine, provoking his interest in additional military-oriented publications and missile defense systems in particular. He became self-taught in this area, and at one point he wrote a five-page paper that proposed converting the ship-based anti-aircraft Aegis missile into a rudimentary missile defense system. He gave the paper to California Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and his career as a defense consultant began.
and
Baxter was a member of an independent study group that produced the "Civil Applications Committee Blue Ribbon Study" recommending an increased domestic role for U.S. spy satellites in September 2005.[7] This study was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on August 15, 2007.[8]
---
Baxter is a Senior Fellow and Member of the Board of Regents at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.[10]
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Rod Beauvex
(564 posts)But I think it's more likely zilch and then zippo, but I do tend to be a bit of an optimist.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)ReRe
(10,597 posts)... but we don't. We don't know shit.
We definitely know more than John Q Public, but we still don't know shit.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.
― Frank Zappa
dotymed
(5,610 posts)No different from what my generation was taught that Russia was like.
We deserve real freedom and so much more.
"We" are like the sexually abused family documentary that I just watched, we keep coming back for more.
We must change this entire paradigm.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, I believe, could do this.
America and China have the largest prison populations in the world. Non violent drug offenders get more "time" than rapists or robbers....what is wrong with that picture?
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)It is such a mess.
Yup, Bernie and Elizabeth all the way.
47of74
(18,470 posts)glinda
(14,807 posts)Ash_F
(5,861 posts)Why weren't they arrested for terroristic threats?
JustAnotherGen
(31,683 posts)Remember John Doe 1 and 2 were threatened by their employer.
What I don't believe was followed up on were their detailed allegations in their statements a few years back.
And where is Mr. Prince now? Look up Frontier Resource Group. The web site is not very robust - but of course . . . It wouldn't be. It's a "Private Equity" firm looking to disembowel Africa for China.
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)The investigator worked for the US government. I think you are describing a different case.
JustAnotherGen
(31,683 posts)From John Doe 1 and 2 - google keith olbermann countdown. That will give a tip off of what I'm posting about.
ETA - Doe 2 was very specific that a higher up threatened his life directly.
The Magistrate
(95,237 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,112 posts)Thanks for the thread, Hissyspit.
TransitJohn
(6,932 posts)n/t
Uncle Joe
(58,112 posts)and changed the name again to Academi, they're headquartered in McLean, VA.
They have no useful purpose while siphoning defense dollars and personnel from the public's military, they also funnel money back to politicians supporting their existence and allow pubic officials to have an extra layer of non-accountability to the American People while engaging in hostile actions abroad.
I view them in the same light as "for profit prisons" both are a danger to our democratic republic.
JustAnotherGen
(31,683 posts)In early June. DBA has changed again.
Erik Prince now has a private equity firm called Frontier Resource Group.
The guy is made of Teflon. He's like a Teflon whack-a-mole.
dotymed
(5,610 posts)Does anyone know his present status? I don't think that the real truth would be known by us anyway..
Will we ever step off this horrible ride?
JustAnotherGen
(31,683 posts)He was outed - and I'm going to be truthful -
I do feel his outing was on the same level as Valerie Plame's.
Also - Pvt. Chelsea Manning was the one who tipped off Jeremy Scahill a few years ago that Prince would be moving to UAE. Which then sparked Madea Benjamin (of code pink fame) to go his home. And Prince has given kudos to Snowden.
^That's some really interesting googling for you^
But it makes me think - how much of ALL of it is a shell game?
heaven05
(18,124 posts)mercenaries. Pure and simple. Very highly paid mercenaries, but a mercenary none the less. Pretty scummy people. I know from experience. Some of the lowest of low psychopaths with NO accountability or conscience.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Not a pretty legacy.
MattBaggins
(7,894 posts)So many of us were screaming that years ago.
Privatize prison, education and war; and you will suffer the consequences.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)for a place in the oligarchy. Major bad ass mercenaries that don't give a shit about our country or it's citizens will be the new SS in the US as well as elsewhere anytime the highest bid calls for a coup d'état or a the downing of a president. That's the military of the future where corporations are persons and oligarchs trump all other life. The USSS.
pscot
(21,023 posts)paid with public dollars
heaven05
(18,124 posts)of new orleans after Katrina. I'll go back and research to confirm but I seem to remember reading that bush had deployed them and that they had killed some people alleged to be looters.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)better isn't it?
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)It will be paradise on earth.
malaise
(267,823 posts)Privatized and unaccountable - that's fascism on steroids.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Crowquette
(88 posts)JoeyT
(6,785 posts)so the lesson to be learned from this is that if you're a mercenary outfit, threatening people to cover up war crimes totally works.
merrily
(45,251 posts)mercenaries, even if they kill and rape.
American exceptionalism.
ETA: make that even if they murder civilians and rape. Killing, of course, is part of the job description of a mercenary.
Jasana
(490 posts)Hekate
(90,195 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.
― Frank Zappa
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Helen Borg
(3,963 posts)Bunch of criminals. But we knew that.
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)this group is part of the reason for having to leave.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Good god.
Crowquette
(88 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)drynberg
(1,648 posts)'Cause y'all know this ain't right at all. Take a whack at the Teflon Prince, maybe two. We gotta get this guy.
malaise
(267,823 posts)Avoid mercenaries at all costs. This is why the neo-cons want non-stop war - private armies are very profitable.
lostincalifornia
(3,639 posts)sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)is calling itself these days and what kind of sweetheart deals it has to suck on the public teat?
JustAnotherGen
(31,683 posts)I think the four guys on trial - that's one thing.
But Blackwater has changed hands so many times - it' s mind bending.
Note who the current CEO is:
http://academi.com/news_room/press_releases/42
Former Bridgadier General Craig Nixon
Moving forward, Nixon will spearhead ACADEMIs dedicated support of our government clients, the company's continued growth into commercial and foreign markets as well as overseeing ACADEMI's world-class training facilities.
Before joining the McChrystal Group, Nixon served as the Deputy Director of Operations in U.S. Central Command. He also previously served as the Director of Operations for U.S. Special Operations Command and commanded the 75th Ranger regiment during combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Nixon graduated from Auburn University with a degree in business and holds two Masters Degrees in Military History and Strategic Studies.
More changes -
http://academi.com/news_room/press_releases/95
Its' a press release from a business - so it's fair game for full disclosure;
June 06, 2014
Constellis Holdings, Inc. has agreed to acquire Constellis Group, Inc., a leading provider of security, support and advisory services to government, multinational corporations and international organizations operating in challenging environments around the world. Constellis Holdings was formed by the founders of Triple Canopy and the private equity investors who formed ACADEMI.
The transaction brings together a global team of industry leaders, including: Triple Canopy, Constellis Ltd., Strategic Social, Tidewater Global Services, National Strategic Protective Services, ACADEMI Training Center and International Development Solutions.
Operating under the oversight of a distinguished Board and an experienced management team, the combination of these companies will enable a significant expansion of services within the global security market, delivering mission support, integrated security solutions, training and advisory services at home and abroad.
This move allows us to create a suite of services to better provide critical support capabilities for government and commercial clients and will utilize ACADEMIs world-class training facility, the largest and most comprehensive private training center in the U.S. said Jason DeYonker, Managing Director of Constellis Holdings, Inc.
Constellis Holdings Board of Directors includes: Red McCombs (Chairman), former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, former White House Chief Counsel Jack Quinn, Admiral Bobby Inman (Ret.), Russ Robinson, Jason DeYonker, Dean Bosacki and Triple Canopy co-founder Tom Katis.
This combination of companies shares our core values of integrity and transparency, ensuring our clients of our ongoing dedication to oversight and good governance through our award-winning compliance practices, said former U.S. Attorney General and current Board member John Ashcroft.
Board member and Triple Canopy founder Tom Katis reinforces, This combination will provide our customers with the best possible service at the most competitive price. We share a commitment to flawless delivery of mission critical services. We share a bond with our employees, who are mostly decorated veterans who continue to serve their country in the private sector. We share a willingness to do the toughest jobs in support of the efforts to make our world a better place.
The combined ownership group will employ more than 6,000 of the industrys most experienced and best-trained employees and will be led by CEO Craig Nixon.
Contact
Callie Wang
7033048940
Where is Erik Prince now?
http://www.businessinsider.com/erik-prince-frontier-resource-group-2012-11
Private Equity Firm my aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaassssssssssssssss!
Hoping to assuage those concerns comes Erik Prince, whose new private equity investment firm is an attempt to corner this new(ish) market. His firm hopes to render services to governments or companies that work in "Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea and South Sudan," among other areas or the continent.
It's no mistake that China's the nation with the most leverage in those three, and has the most to lose, it makes sense that they'll become Prince's biggest, newest client.
It'll be interesting to see exactly what kind of services Prince and his new firm will provide.
hatrack
(59,442 posts)"Running government like a business", v. 2.0.
avebury
(10,946 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021777389
7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)Octafish, you are one amazing guy!!
Mercenaries legitimized in front of us, and we the people are left believing we are powerless to stop it. SO Incredibly sad.
Oh by the way, you are one of the DU community we would love to meet up with.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)From 2007:
Know your BFEE: They kill good soldiers like Col. Ted Westhusing for profit...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x126094
PS: Same goes for you, 7wo7rees.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)and nothing was done to this mercenary of the bush-cheney debacle in Iraq? Nothing!!!!!10,000 of these guns for hire ran around Iraq at that time. A whole division of cowboy, trigger happy mercenaries, creating a quagmire that only Obama could finally get us out of. SFA was signed by the dimson in 2008, this is one big reason it had to be signed. Iraq didn't want these highly paid cowboys doing any more damage that they already had. So much we don't know about that "environment full of liability and negligence" created by bush jr and his mentor, darth cheney. And these same 'creators of war' went on television in the last couple of weeks screaming for us to put boots on the ground there, again!!!???? What a lie the american people were fed. Even worse that I thought. PNAC manifesto at it's finest, Iraq.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)mcar
(42,210 posts)spanone
(135,635 posts)[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)I looked for "Blackwater" under "News" just now and see MSNBC, Fox, Daily Mail, Time, and some lesser knowns.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)spanone
(135,635 posts)malaise
(267,823 posts)That's how this must be dealt with - heads must roll. All contracts with these mercenaries must be terminated.
By the way they have changed their name and even have offices in Barbados Gray something or the other. I read recently they they were recruiting mercenaries for Ukraine.
spanone
(135,635 posts)malaise
(267,823 posts)hearings on this madness
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Babel_17
(5,400 posts)I'm passing this along. Thanks for spreading the word.
The Second Stone
(2,900 posts)and this has been known about mercenaries for thousands of years.
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)LiberalLovinLug
(14,154 posts)How the MSM ignores that it was because of the private contractor mercenaries that BushCo. employed, making former Generals in the MIC rich, that led to Bush feeling he was forced to leave and slinking out of Iraq. It was Bush that signed the agreement to leave. How the MSM continues to allow GOP reps to accuse Obama of "retreating" and not keeping troops in there (not that it would have done any good) is beyond maddening.
NealK
(1,791 posts)Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)When it does I hope it swings far.
countryjake
(8,554 posts)nikto
(3,284 posts)If you are GOP, or a large corporation.
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)I've been warning people how dangerous these "organized" syndicates are becoming.
Romney = Bain = Clear Channel Communications = Red McCombs = Blackwater
and former USAG John Ashcroft
http://academi.com/pages/about-us/board-of-directors/red-mccombs-chairman
It ain't easy - taking down big sleazies (who rename themselves an hopeful innocuous "Academi"
bluesbassman
(19,310 posts)In fact, there have only been two by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and those were under Henry Waxman in 2007. Below is the conclusion reach in the hearing on the Fullujah incident.
On March 31, 2004, four Blackwater personnel were killed by insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq, and their bodies desecrated. Since then, there have been many unanswered questions about Blackwaters role in triggering a major incident in the Iraq War with multiple adverse consequences for U.S. interests.
The documents reviewed by the Committee indicate that Blackwater embarked on this mission without sufficient preparation, resources, and support for its personnel. According to these documents, Blackwater took on the Fallujah mission before its contract officially began, and after being warned by its predecessor that it was too dangerous. It sent its team on the mission without properly armored vehicles and machine guns. And it cut the standard mission team by two members, thus depriving them of rear gunners. Blackwater took all of these actions before sending the team into an area known to be an insurgent stronghold. These actions raise serious questions about the consequences of engaging private, for-profit entities to engage in essentially military operations in a war zone.
http://psm.du.edu/national_regulation/united_states/congressional_hearings/house_oversight.html (Under "Reports"
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)That's GOP playbook 101
Diffuse one's sins by hunting (even if you have to make stuff up) for sins of your opponent.
Like the Robin Williams movie and Louis Black saying
Accuse the other side of having sex with sheep;
I know he didn't - but it will be fun watching him deny it....
ancianita
(35,813 posts)said State Dept, who appear to defer to ways that our civilian run government's foreign policy is compromised by the Pentagon's defense contractors.
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)I'm doing my part to help...
Octafish
(55,745 posts)By Ben Van Heuvelen
Global Research, October 03, 2007
Salon.com 3 October 2007
Blamed in the deaths of Iraqi civilians, the private security firm has long ties to the White House and prominent Republicans, including Ken Starr.
Oct. 02, 2007 | When Blackwater contractors guarding a U.S. State Department convoy allegedly killed 11 unarmed Iraqi civilians on Sept. 16, it was only the latest in a series of controversial shooting incidents associated with the private security firm. Blackwater has a reputation for being quick on the draw. Since 2005, the North Carolina-based company, which has about 1,000 contractors in Iraq, has reported 195 escalation of force incidents; in 163 of those cases Blackwater guns fired first. According to the New York Times, Blackwater guards were twice as likely as employees of two other firms protecting State Department personnel in Iraq to be involved in shooting incidents.
SNIP...
The former Betsy Prince Edgar and Elsas daughter, Eriks sister married into the DeVos family, one of the countrys biggest donors to Republican and conservative causes. (I know a little something about soft money, as my family is the largest single contributor of soft money to the national Republican Party, Betsy DeVos wrote in a 1997 Op-Ed in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.) She chaired the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000 and again from 2003 to 2005, and her husband, Dick, ran as the Republican candidate for Michigan governor in 2006.
Erik Prince himself is no slouch when it comes to giving to Republicans and cultivating relationships with important conservatives. He and his first and second wives have donated roughly $300,000 to Republican candidates and political action committees. Through his Freiheit Foundation, he also gave $500,000 to Prison Fellowship Ministries, run by former Nixon official Charles Colson, in 2000. In the same year, he contributed $30,000 to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. During college, he interned in George H.W. Bushs White House, and also interned for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. Rohrabacher and fellow California Republican Rep. John Doolittle have visited Blackwaters Moyock, N.C., compound, on a trip arranged by the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm founded by former aides of then House Majority Leader Tom Delay. ASG partner Paul Behrends is a longtime associate of Princes.
Princes connections seem to have paid off for Blackwater. Robert Young Pelton, author of Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror, has reported that one of Blackwaters earliest contracts in the national arena was a no-bid $5.4 million deal to provide security guards in Afghanistan, which came after Prince made a call to then CIA executive director Buzzy Krongard. Whats more, Harpers Ken Silverstein has reported that Prince has a security pass for CIA headquarters and meets with senior people inside the CIA. But Princes most important benefactor was fellow conservative Roman Catholic convert L. Paul Bremer, former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American occupation government in Iraq. In August 2003, Blackwater won a $27.7 million contract to provide personal security for Bremer. In charge of the Blackwater team guarding Bremer was Frank Gallagher, who had provided personal security for former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger when Bremer was managing director of Kissingers consulting firm, Kissinger and Associates, in the 1990s.
By 2005, Blackwater was earning $353 million annually from federal contracts. Blackwaters benefits from government largess havent ended with Iraq. The company was recently one of five awarded a Department of Defense counter-narcoterrorism contract that could reportedly be worth as much as $15 billion. Blackwater also became involved in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and profited handsomely. According to Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the Worlds Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Blackwater had made roughly $73 million for Katrina-related government work by June 2006, less than a year after the hurricane hit.
Joseph Schmitz, chief operating officer and general counsel: In 2002, President Bush nominated Schmitz to oversee and police the Pentagons military contracts as the Defense Departments inspector general. Schmitz presided over the largest increase of military-contracting spending in history: As of 2005, 77 companies were awarded 149 prime contracts worth $42.1 billion, with hundreds of millions going to Blackwater. Unlike previous I.G.s, Schmitz reported directly to the secretary of defense a setup that both Democratic and Republican lawmakers objected to, given Schmitzs oversight responsibility. Schmitz even carried Rumsfelds 12 principles for the Pentagon in his lapel pocket. The first principle read, Do nothing that could raise questions about the credibility of DoD.
Schmitz has many ties to the Republican Party establishment. His father, John G. Schmitz, was a two-term Republican congressman, and his brother, Patrick Schmitz, served as George H.W. Bushs deputy counsel from 1985 to 1993. Joseph himself worked as a special assistant to Reagan-era Attorney General Edwin Meese.
CONTINUED...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-bush-administration-s-ties-to-blackwater/6974