Blackwater

Blackwater — a virtual extension of the CIA

by News Sources 03.15.2013

Eli Lake reports: Last month a three-year-long federal prosecution of Blackwater collapsed. The government’s 15-felony indictment — on such charges as conspiring to hide purchases of automatic rifles and other weapons from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives — could have led to years of jail time for Blackwater personnel. In the end, [...]

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Secret desert force set up by Blackwater’s founder

by News Sources 05.15.2011

The New York Times reports from Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates: Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military [...]

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Our diplomat in Pakistan

by News Sources 02.22.2011

Glenn Greenwald writes: On January 27, Raymond Davis, a former U.S. Special Forces soldier, shot and killed two Pakistani citizens in that nation’s second-largest city, Lahore, using a semi-automatic Glock pistol. Davis claims he acted in self-defense when they attacked his car to rob him — both of the dead were armed and had lengthy [...]

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Blackwater founder backs mercenary crusade in Somalia

by News Sources 01.21.2011

The New York Times reports: Erik Prince, the founder of the international security giant Blackwater Worldwide, is backing an effort by a controversial South African mercenary firm to insert itself into Somalia’s bloody civil war by protecting government leaders, training Somali troops, and battling pirates and Islamic militants there, according to American and Western officials. [...]

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The tyranny of the national security state

by News Sources 01.06.2011

Andrew Bacevich writes: American politics is typically a grimy business of horses traded and pork delivered. Political speech, for its part, tends to be formulaic and eminently forgettable. Yet on occasion, a politician will transcend circumstance and bear witness to some lasting truth: George Washington in his Farewell Address, for example, or Abraham Lincoln in [...]

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Did US Special Operations Forces want to ‘target’ refugee camps in Pakistan?

by News Sources 12.03.2010

Jeremy Scahill writes: In the fall of 2008, the US Special Operations Command asked top US diplomats in Pakistan and Afghanistan for detailed information on refugee camps along the Afghanistan Pakistan border and a list of humanitarian aid organizations working in those camps. On October 6, the US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, sent a [...]

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Policing Afghanistan

by Paul Woodward 03.23.2010

At TomDispatch, Pratap Chatterjee writes: The Pentagon faces a tough choice: Should it award a new contract to Xe (formerly Blackwater), a company made infamous when its employees killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in 2007, or to DynCorp, a company made infamous in Bosnia in 1999 when some of its employees were caught trafficking young [...]

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Marjah: Success for the military, hell for the residents

by Paul Woodward 02.27.2010

At GlobalPost, Jean MacKenzie and Mohammad Ilyas Dayee write: The dusty squares of Marjah are empty; there is no life, the soul of the place seems to have disappeared. Those residents who are left cower in their homes, afraid of bullets or mines if they venture out, even for food. “It is a small picture [...]

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Iraq orders former Blackwater security guards out

by Paul Woodward 02.12.2010

The Associated Press reported: Iraq has ordered hundreds of private security guards linked to Blackwater Worldwide to leave the country within seven days or face possible arrest on visa violations, the interior minister said Wednesday. The order comes in the wake of a U.S. judge’s dismissal of criminal charges against five Blackwater guards who were [...]

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What would Erik Prince advise?

by Paul Woodward 02.08.2010

The New York Times reports: An Iraqi militant group said it had abducted an American contractor, a day after the United States military reported that a contractor had been missing since Jan. 23. It would be the first reported kidnapping of an American in a year in Iraq. The militant group posted a video to [...]

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Biden says U.S. will appeal Blackwater case dismissal

by Paul Woodward 01.24.2010

Biden says U.S. will appeal Blackwater case dismissal By Anthony Shadid, New York Times, January 24, 2010 Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. promised Iraqi leaders on Saturday that the United States would appeal the dismissal of manslaughter charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security contractors involved in a deadly shooting here that has inflamed anti-American [...]

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Iraqis say they were forced to take Blackwater settlement

by Paul Woodward 01.11.2010

Iraqis say they were forced to take Blackwater settlement By Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times, January 11, 2010 Several victims of a 2007 shooting involving American private security guards employed by the firm formerly known as Blackwater alleged Sunday that they were coerced into reaching settlements, and they demanded that the Iraqi government intervene to [...]

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Blackwater and the Khost bombing: Is the CIA deceiving Congress (yet again)?

by Paul Woodward 01.07.2010

Blackwater and the Khost bombing: Is the CIA deceiving Congress (yet again)? By Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, January 6, 2010 A leading member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has told The Nation that she will launch an investigation into why two Blackwater contractors were among the dead in the December 30 suicide [...]

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CIA reportedly ordered Blackwater to murder 9/11 suspect

by Paul Woodward 01.05.2010

CIA reportedly ordered Blackwater to murder 9/11 suspect By Diana Sweet, Raw Story, January 5, 2010 In 2004, the CIA sent a team from the private security firm Blackwater, now Xe, to Hamburg to kill an alleged al Qaeda financier who was investigated for years by German authorities on suspicion of links to al Qaeda, [...]

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Iraqis express dismay over Blackwater ruling

by Paul Woodward 01.02.2010

Iraqis express dismay over Blackwater ruling By Raheem Salman and Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times, January 2, 2010 Cars breezed by the trimmed green hedges and flowers of Baghdad’s Nisoor Square on Friday, while pedestrians strolled past billboards of smiling men and women promoting national elections. Little trace was left of the September 2007 day [...]

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Blackwater guards tied to secret CIA raids

by Paul Woodward 12.11.2009

Blackwater guards tied to secret CIA raids By James Risen and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, December 11, 2009 Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, [...]

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Erik Prince: tycoon, contractor, soldier, spy

by Paul Woodward 12.04.2009

Erik Prince: tycoon, contractor, soldier, spy By Adam Ciralsky, Vanity Fair, January, 2010 “I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.’s disposal for some very risky missions,” says Erik Prince as he surveys his heavily fortified, 7,000-acre compound in rural Moyock, North Carolina. “But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw [...]

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Blackwater’s secret war in Pakistan

by Paul Woodward 11.24.2009

Blackwater’s secret war in Pakistan By Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, November 23, 2009 At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted [...]

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Fine and inquiry possible for Blackwater successor

by Paul Woodward 11.19.2009

Fine and inquiry possible for Blackwater successor By Mark Mazzetti and James Risen, New York Times, November 19, 2009 The international security company formerly called Blackwater Worldwide is facing large government fines for unlicensed arms shipments to Iraq, as a key Congressional committee is asking for a separate investigation into whether the company bribed Iraqi [...]

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Blackwater said to approve Iraqi payoffs after shootings

by Paul Woodward 11.11.2009

Blackwater said to approve Iraqi payoffs after shootings By Mark Mazzetti and James Risen, New York Times, November 10, 2009 Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security [...]

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Blackwater tapped foreigners on secret CIA program

by Paul Woodward 08.31.2009

Blackwater tapped foreigners on secret CIA program By Adam Golman and Pamella Hess, AP, August 30, 2009 When the CIA revived a plan to kill or capture terrorists in 2004, the agency turned to the well-connected security company then known as Blackwater USA. With Blackwater’s lucrative government security work and contacts arrayed in hot spots [...]

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New CIA docs detail brutal “extraordinary rendition” process

by Paul Woodward 08.30.2009

New CIA docs detail brutal “extraordinary rendition” process By Scott Horton, Huffington Post, August 28, 2009 Deep among the documents released to the ACLU on Monday afternoon was a curious memo dated 30 December 2004 and directed to Dan Levin, then acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. The fax cover sheet [...]

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CIA said to use outsiders to put bombs on drones

by Paul Woodward 08.21.2009

CIA said to use outsiders to put bombs on drones By James Risen and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, August 21, 2009 From a secret division at its North Carolina headquarters, the company formerly known as Blackwater has assumed a role in Washington’s most important counterterrorism program: the use of remotely piloted drones to kill [...]

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CIA sought Blackwater’s help in plan to kill jihadists

by Paul Woodward 08.20.2009

CIA sought Blackwater’s help in plan to kill jihadists By Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, August 20, 2009 The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government [...]

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