Obama Using Blackwater for Assassinations in Pakistan

Source: The Raw Story

The Obama administration is using mercenaries with the firm formerly known as Blackwater to kidnap and assassinate high value targets in Pakistan, according to a published report.

The program, operated out of the US Joint Special Operations Command, "is so 'compartmentalized' that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence," an unnamed source with direct knowledge of the program told The Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill.

Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, is also allegedly involved in intelligence collection for a drone bombing campaign in the country.

Scahill's report added: "A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. 'We don't have any contracts to do that work for us. We don't contract that kind of work out, period,' the official said. 'There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services.' The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency's director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. 'This is a parallel operation to the CIA,' said the source. 'They are two separate beasts.'"

A Blackwater spokesman told The Nation that none of its forces are operating in Pakistan. However, a "former senior executive at Blackwater" told Scahill that Xe's mercs are indeed working in Pakistan, sometimes employed by the country's government to operate alongside soldiers. The arrangement allows the Pakistani government to deny any U.S. military presence in the country, while allowing them to tap former U.S. special forces members for high-risk missions.

more: http://rawstory.com/2009/11/report-obama-admin-blackwater-assassinations-pakistan/

using blackwater for fucking anything is disgraceful.

The OP is still in the negatives, though.

Why isn't the whole lot of Blackwater, Xe, whatever they're calling themselves now, in Bagram, or better, The Hague? They're proven war criminals.

Is that the basic gist here?

Wonder if you will ever get any prof of this. It's to bad that "unnamed source" doesn't have the balls to put his or her name on this.

Sounds like they're "going rogue", if high level Obama admin and military officials are out of the loop.

These would be holdovers from the chimp's team?

I hate Xe, I think they should be disbanded, but for things that can be proven.

http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSN06444976

"WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday set a trial for early next year for five Blackwater security guards accused of killing 14 unarmed civilians in a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that strained U.S.-Iraqi relations.

The judge scheduled jury selection to begin on Jan. 29 of next year after the five defendants formally entered a not guilty plea to the charges over the shooting that also injured 20 Iraqis.

The five men are charged with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempt to commit manslaughter and one weapons violation count over the shooting that outraged Iraqis."

No need to go off on tangents that may lead nowhere but needless investigation.

Blackwater, (or fucking XE or whatever) and the chimp admin fall into that category.

I'm not a court of law, however. My burden of proof is less than that of the legal system.

There is not much about Xe "Blackwater" that I would not believe which is why solid prof is more important.

What kind of a wimp would fear mercenaries? Of course, America's scandal standard, Watergate, came to light from the words of America's unnamed source standard. Are you of the mind that Woodward and Bernstein should have waited until Deep Throat was willing to go on record? Really? Until he had 'balls' as you so quaintly phrase it?

Or just a shit sells man? And I don't give two shits about Deep Throat he was a coward to. Tricky Dick was going down anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers

"Flying Tigers was the popular name of the 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force in 1941-1942. Arguably, the group was a private military contractor, and for that reason the volunteers have sometimes been called mercenaries. They were mostly former United States Army (USAAF), Navy (USN), and Marine Corps (USMC) pilots and ground crew, recruited under Presidential sanction and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault. The group consisted of three fighter squadrons with about 20 aircraft each. It trained in Burma before the American entry into World War II with the mission of defending China against Japanese forces."

If memory serves we used some Native Americans as mercenaries in the revolution.

The use of mercenaries is not the same as the use of covert operatives that are outside the chain of command. Not the same thing at all, not even close. Nice try however.

Any person fighting for the US outside of military command for compensation is a mercenary.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mercenary

Main Entry: 1mer·ce·nary
Pronunciation: \ˈmər-sə-ˌner-ē, -ne-rē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural mer·ce·nar·ies
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin mercenarius, irregular from merced-, merces wages — more at mercy
Date: 14th century

: one that serves merely for wages; especially : a soldier hired into foreign service

Such stories reinforce their world view and they get pretty upset whenever something intrudes in on their comfort zone.

do folks here think we should be telling the Pakistan government who they can and cannot hire?

Just curious.

(I don't support Xe but I think if Pakistan is hiring mercenaries for their own purposes, then how is that different from what most other countries are doing? JSOC is a different matter, of course.)

. . . the part which asserted that 'top' Obama officials didn't know about this operation directed from the Joint Command. That doesn't ring true. Other than that, the CIA has been operating across the border with impunity. I wouldn't be surprised if they were advantaging their operations of Blackwater's mercenary force.

Delivering American style democracy via thugs.

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Columns/22-Nov-2009/USA-colonising-Pakistan

The other angle is the dubious activities of the private military contractors, Blackwater (renamed Xe Services LLC DynCorp), in recruiting and training anti-terror private security force ostensibly to guard American diplomats. This is causing alarm amongst the public and politicians alike in Pakistan. According to a report by Mark Mazzetti in the New York Times on August 20, 2009: "The CIA in 2004 hired operatives from the private security contractor Blackwater as part of a secret programme to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al-Qaeda." It is also reported that Musharraf had permitted Blackwater to carry out operations in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Quetta. In the light of this report, the arrival in Pakistan on November 04, 2009 of 202 Blackwater personnel from Heathrow Airport by PIA Flight PK 786 is significant. These Blackwater personnel who speak Urdu fluently are ostensibly hired to guard American diplomats, however, there is more to it.