US Embassy Blamed State Dept Investigator For Upsetting Its Relationship With Blackwater After Investigator Complained About Death Threat
from the above-the-law dept
The "private security" contractor formerly known as Blackwater has often been accused of being engaged in what might normally be seen as a level of evil and depravity normally reserved for over-the-top movie villains. And yet, every time new news comes out about the company, it only seems to either live up to that reputation or take it even further. Blackwater is today known as Constellis Holdings as of a few weeks ago. Before that it was Academi. And before that it was also known as Xe Services for a while, as the company keeps trying to get further and further from its Blackwater reputation. NY Times reporter James Risen -- who the DOJ is currently trying to put in jail -- has an astounding report about how a Blackwater exec threatened to kill a State Department investigator, telling that investigator that nothing would be done if he were killed, because it happened in Iraq. Believe it or not, this was over the State Department investigator merely investigating claims of unsanitary conditions in a dining facility, rather than anything more serious: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.As chilling as that is, what may be even more ridiculous was the reaction of US embassy officials in Iraq, when they were told of this threat. Rather than siding with the State Department investigator, they sided with Blackwater, and whined about the investigator "disrupting" their relationship with Blackwater:
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.A few weeks after the State Department investigators were kicked out of the country by the US embassy, the infamous incident with Blackwater employees shooting up civilians happened. Following that, the State Department finally "took statements" from the investigators about what happened, "but took no further action." As Risen's report notes, when an investigation happened of the shootings, it appears that the warnings about Blackwater's out of control and "above the law" nature that the investigators had sent just weeks earlier were entirely suppressed.
Patrick Kennedy, the State Department official who led the special panel, told reporters on Oct. 23, 2007, that the panel had not found any communications from the embassy in Baghdad before the Nisour Square shooting that raised concerns about contractor conduct.
“We interviewed a large number of individuals,” Mr. Kennedy said. “We did not find any, I think, significant pattern of incidents that had not — that the embassy had suppressed in any way.”
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Filed Under: iraq, james risen, military contractors, private contractors, private security forces, state department, threats
Companies: academi, blackwater, constellis holdings, xe services
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Just another terrorist threat
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Re: Just another terrorist threat
A cynic may suggest their aim is to keep getting paid, and as they are getting paid to stop terrorists...
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Forgotten lessons of history
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Threats of Death...
Just look at post 9/11 American, now the most screwed up Nation in the World.
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We need these people doing horrible things to keep us safe from those who might do horrible things to us, and if you dare get in the way you might just be another casualty on the field. Pity no one considered that condoning the actions of the greater of 2 evils, merely got the other side to step up their game... pushing each side further and further to win at any cost.
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It's a Corportion
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Re: Forgotten lessons of history
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Look weasel words
So what he is saying is that there wasn't a pattern of Blackwater threatening to kill US officials... well that is ok then.
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It should come as no surprise that a Blackwater exec would believe he can get away with murder, given that Blackwater employees have gotten away with murder on numerous occasions. But the fact that said exec would come right out and directly threaten a State Department investigator (and in front of a witness) underscores how utterly unaccountable this company is to any law or external authority. Blackwater has become a corporate pseudo-state, whose security is guaranteed by its own very well-armed military and by the constant flow of dollars guaranteed by its cronies in the U.S. government.
Over 50 years ago, President Eisenhower warned:
I fear we've gone beyond even his most dire predictions.
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Re:
No we don’t need people to do horrible things on our behalf. When we sink to the level of our enemies, we become our enemies. We need to find better ways to solve our problems after all not all of problems are nails.
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After all, Iraq was built in a image that American leaders wanted it to be built in. Private Blackwater Mercs and all. Now we see that image being reflected back home in the form of private law enforcement councils (LEC).
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Re: Threats of Death...
The sad thing is that 9/11 was a large pushover win for those forces turning the U.S.A. into the axis of evil, the administrative/industrial/military complex.
You cannot fight darkness with darkness. It is light that defeats darkness.
There are hardly any significant international terrorist leaders or similarly perceived threats which have not been trained and/or installed by the CIA.
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Blackwater's security personnel have always sounded like a bunch of wash-out soldier wannabes, but apparently they had one helluva badass Lunch Lady.
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