Blackwater founder implicated in murder

[Doktor Howl]

A former senior CIA official said the benefit of using Blackwater's foreign operatives in CIA operations was that "you wouldn't want to have American fingerprints on it."



That one sentence. Gah!

please don't interpret this as a defense of blackwater, but strictly in terms of that one sentence, I don't see what's wrong with that.

It implies that something badwrong/illegal is being done and seperation is required.

*cough* IDF *cough cough*

Of course.  Teh jooz.

[East Coast Hustle]

A former senior CIA official said the benefit of using Blackwater's foreign operatives in CIA operations was that "you wouldn't want to have American fingerprints on it."



That one sentence. Gah!

please don't interpret this as a defense of blackwater, but strictly in terms of that one sentence, I don't see what's wrong with that.

It implies that something badwrong/illegal is being done and seperation is required.

still don't see what's wrong with that. In my admittedly "realpolitik" view of how the world works, that's often necessary.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

A former senior CIA official said the benefit of using Blackwater's foreign operatives in CIA operations was that "you wouldn't want to have American fingerprints on it."



That one sentence. Gah!

please don't interpret this as a defense of blackwater, but strictly in terms of that one sentence, I don't see what's wrong with that.

It implies that something badwrong/illegal is being done and seperation is required.

still don't see what's wrong with that. In my admittedly "realpolitik" view of how the world works, that's often necessary.

Agreed. Its not like its a new line of thought, governments have operated this way for thousands of years.

[Cain]

It would be more worrying if Blackwater wasn't an admitted covert arm of the CIA, with Erik Prince a paid agent of influence.  In such a position, it'd be very easy for the tail to end up wagging the dog, especially when pitted against the "geniuses" at Langley. 

As things are, the CIA has used cut-out companies like Prince's since the 50s, and especially since the late 70s, when Jimmy Carter, in an unusual act of clarity and self-preservation for a modern president, axed a large number of the CIA operations and covert operations divisions, before they could axe him.  Those ex-agents went on to found shipping companies, work on the boards of major banks and went into private intelligence and security firms.  And of course, their friends who survived the purges would then go to them for "advice".

It's well worth asking how many ex-intelligence agents and high ranking Pentagon officials/former military men are on the boards of those companies which keep on hiring Blackwater.  Banks, as previously mentioned, tend to have a high number of these sort of people on their payroll, and it is entirely possible that there is a private sector-mercenary-intelligence sector alliance, funding intelligence operations from it's own pockets.

[Jasper]

It's well worth asking how many ex-intelligence agents and high ranking Pentagon officials/former military men are on the boards of those companies which keep on hiring Blackwater.

THAT is the most interesting thing I've heard all day.

[Triple Zero]

I think it's hilarious that according to that article, Disney has been hiring mercenaries

Another one of those weird wonders of the 21st century ...

[the last yatto]

Not that odd considering they have cruise ships

[Cain]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/154977/us-businessman-blackwater-paid-me-buy-steroids-and-weapons-black-market-its-shooters

A Texas businessman who has worked extensively in Iraq claims that Blackwater paid him to purchase steroids and other drugs for its operatives in Baghdad, as well as more than 100 AK47s and massive amounts of ammunition on Baghdad's black market. Howard Lowry, who worked in Iraq from 2003-2009, also claims that he personally attended Blackwater parties where company personnel had large amounts of cocaine and blocks of hashish and would run around naked. At some of these parties, Lowry alleges, Blackwater operatives would randomly fire automatic weapons from their balconies into buildings full of Iraqi civilians. Lowry described the events as a "frat party gone wild" where "drug use was rampant." Lowry says he was told by Blackwater personnel that some of the men using the steroids he purchased were on the security detail of L. Paul Bremer, the original head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Lowry also claims that Blackwater's owner Erik Prince tried to enlist his help to win contracts for Blackwater with the Iraqi government using an off-shore security company, Greystone, which Prince owns. The purpose, Lowry says, was to conceal Greystone's relationship to Blackwater.

I've known about the Greystone/Blackwater connection since...2007? since I considered using their address to continue to fake out HIMEOBS' profile as an international mercenary organization, but I decided, after learning of said relationship, I was quite happy with all my limbs attached to my body.  So I don't know when that story originally got out.

[Adios]

I say you made a good call not using them.

[Jasper]

Figures that the places I'm least likely to ever go have all the best parties.

[Adios]

Figures that the places I'm least likely to ever go have all the best parties.

You don't want to go.

[Jasper]

I'd probably show up for a party like that, but I wouldn't want to work for them. 

[Jenne]

I dunno, it would take a certain kind of degenerate (or I'll allow impossibly desperate merc) to continue to work for Blackwater once you knew what they're all about and how many dirty fingers their pies are in.  ...but maybe that's just me.

[Cain]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/blackwaters-34th-front-company-wins-big-diplo-jackpot/

If International Development Solutions, a mysterious firm partially owned by Blackwater, has its own independent office, it's hard to find. A business records search co-locates one of the jackpot winners of a State Department contract worth up to $10 million with Kaseman LLC, the well-connected private security security firm that partnered with Blackwater arm U.S. Training Center to win the contract.

That would suggest International Development Solutions — a company few industry experts have heard of, sporting a generic, Google-resistant name — is yet another front group the company set up to win government contracts while concealing its tainted brand. More of a mystery is why the State Department let the company get away with it. Again.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Blackwater - Helping Nations Achieve Dystopia since 1997