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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Sure if "loyal American" means using civilians for target practice
Posted by Jill | 6:40 AM
Blackwater's Christofascist Zombie CEO, Erik Prince, has one redeeming quality that sets him apart from most corporate executives: he's loyal to his own employees. But despite the facts that a) the company received a no-bid contract and overbilled the government; there were not one but two civilian shooting incidents involving Blackwater personnel on September 16, and the company's personnel have been involved in almost 200 civilian shootings since 2005, not only has the government given Blackwater a nice shiny new contract, Prince defends his employees, saying “People make mistakes; they do stupid things sometimes.”

This is like stabbing someone on the back and saying "Shit happens." "Shit happens" is when a tree falls on your house, and "People do stupid things sometimes" is drinking too much or using a chain saw on a ladder when you've never used one before, not a consistent pattern of using civilians for target practice.

Erik Prince is the Brownie of privatized Iraqi security: greedy, ignorant, connected, and completely out of touch with reality:

Mr. Prince, who comes from a wealthy and prominent Republican family in Michigan, said his company’s phenomenal rise came from competence, not connections. He said he had not personally lobbied the White House or Congress to get federal contracts.

Asked if his sister-in-law, Betsy DeVos, a major Bush fund-raiser, former Michigan Republican Party chairwoman and wife of the party’s 2006 nominee for governor, had interceded on Blackwater’s behalf, he smiled and shook his head. “No,” he said.

The company had less than $1 million of federal government contracts in 2001. Last year, the company took in nearly $600 million in federal money, most of it under contract with the State Department to provide bodyguards for diplomats and visiting dignitaries, including the dozens of members of Congress who travel to Iraq each year.

[snip]

Mr. Prince said he was proud of his employees, who have conducted thousands of escort missions in the most dangerous parts of central Iraq without death or serious injury to any of the people they are assigned to protect. Thirty Blackwater workers have been killed in Iraq, he said.

He said Blackwater guards strictly followed rules of engagement set by the State Department, which call for gradual escalation of force before any shots are fired.

The House committee staff found that Blackwater employees had fired their weapons 195 times since early 2005 and in a vast majority of incidents used their weapons before taking any hostile fire. The report also said that in most cases Blackwater guards fired from fast-moving vehicles and immediately fled the scene of any confrontation.


On Monday, Pam posted about the kind of shining Americans Blackwater hires. But if you think that this is the kind of person needed in a war zone, don't forget that Blackwater thugs were deployed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 -- presumably because the Louisiana National Guard was too busy being fed into a meat grinder in Iraq. And the company has opened "training centers" in Illinois (to the chagrin of local residents) and California (to the chagrin of local residents).

Does anyone actually think these guys will behave any differently as the neocons' Praetorian Guard than they do in Iraq?

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