Today the Vancouver Province is reporting that Training Canadians costly for Blackwater. Guess what. Blackwater is still training Canadian soldiers. In 2011 $2.4 million Canadian tax dollars were spent on mercenary training at the privatized military institution with a very bad reputation. So bad they had to change their name. Three times.
First it was Blackwater. They acquired a very bad reputation in Iraq and Afghanistan for killing civilians as well as arms dealing. They claimed that because they were military the civil or criminal courts couldn’t touch them for war crimes. At the same time they argued that since they were civilians, the military could not discipline them either. After the founder, Eric Prince was accused of murdering whistleblowers he changed the name of the company to Xe and moved to the United Arab Emirates. Now he's still operating under another name and still sucking up Canadian tax dollars. That is criminal.
"They claimed that because they were military the civil or criminal courts couldn’t touch them for war crimes. At the same time they argued that since they were civilians, the military could not discipline them either."
ReplyDeleteNot exactly. NO contracting company ever claimed to be military. And civilians are not subject to the UCMJ, (Uniform Code of Military Justice) only people who have been sworn in as members of the armed forces are, because they have specifically AGREED to give up certain constitutional protections and be subject to UCMJ when they enlist.
They correctly pointed out that they operated under the auspices of the Coalition Provisional Authority. What civil or criminal court do you imagine had jurisdiction? Up until the Coalition Provisional Authority restored sovereign authority to the Iraqi government, the Coalition Provisional Authority could do (or not do) pretty much whatever it wanted.
Now AFTER that point, this is a different story, and this is why the Nisour Square shootings were investigated by the FBI and various contractors charged under American law with manslaughter. There are other incidents you are not aware of where the exact same thing happened, not only in Iraq but Afghanistan as well.
If I understand article correctly, it appears BW was training the Canadian guys not on "how to be a mercenary and kill civilians", but on how to run personal protection/security details, VIP motorcade operations, etc..
You can say what you want about BW, but one thing that is not disputed about their record is that no one they were protecting was ever successfully targeted by the opposition, not that they didn't try. You might (or not) want to educate yourself about the level of threat being faced by PSD's in Iraq in the early/mid years of the war. Motorcades were constantly being shadowed and targeted for attack by VBIED's, and to successfully defeat those attacks over and over says quite a bit about the level of professional capability of these men about whom you are so ready to believe the very worst in any and all circumstances. Somehow former Marines, Soldiers and Special Forces personnel who were highly respected in uniform automatically become worthless mercenary dirt bags the moment they accept employment to use their skill set to safeguard someone's life other than their own.
That is what happened. They argued they were above the law. The argued they couldn’t be touched by civilian law because they were part of the total force at the same time arguing they couldn’t be touched by military law because they were civilians. That is the argument they used. It was inherently evil claiming they were allowed to commit war crimes and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Yes, they have been charged many times, yet that is the argument they used. Now the not so fresh prince of Bel-Air just keeps changing his company’s name to avoid legal liability. That is fraud.
ReplyDeleteCanada should not be giving money to a criminal organization to train it’s soldiers. That is being an accessory to the crime. Arms dealing, murdering of civilians, murder of whistleblowers, the list goes on. Iraq should not have been invaded. It was invaded on a lie. It was the unlawful occupation of a sovereign state. They become dirt bag mercenaries when they abandon moral principle and work for the almighty dollar.
You're not getting it, THERE WAS NO CIVILIAN LAW here at that time. There was no government of Iraq, no courts, nothing. The Coalition Provisional Authority WAS THE LAW. That doesn't change until the CPA relinquishes authority (granted by the UN) on 28 June 2004. And the military DID NOT AND DOES NOT have any authority over US civilians. No one had to "claim" anything, those are the facts, whether you like them or not.
DeleteNo one EVER said "We're allowed to commit war crimes". Those are YOUR words. What WAS said would be more along the lines of "When there is a sign in English and Arabic on the rear most vehicle in a convoy that says "Stay back 100m or you will be shot" and a vehicle that may have a half dozen 155mm artillery shells in the trunk all wired up to go approaches at speed and disregards that, they will be fired up by a belt-fed machine gun." Oh, it turns out to be just another hajji dumbfuck who somehow didn't get the word not to be running up on Americans when they're driving around? Yeah, that's too bad, but it's also just the way it is. You might care to remember that the CPA paid someone like that's family compensation (perfectly acceptable under Islamic law)when that happened. Most often there was no mistake at all about it, because that's exactly how VBIED attacks on convoys go down.
No one abandons any moral principles here dude. You have no fucking idea what you're talking about. I'll remind you that while I don't work for BW/Xe/Academi, I do work for a PMC that does the same kind of work, and that many of my peers(and myself)are the people you are talking out your ass about. And none of us has shot anyone lately, or committed any war crimes, or any of the other stuff you dream about in your fantasy world of conspiracy and evil mercenaries.
You seem to think soldiers in uniform are volunteers who work for free. LOL....
“Here?” I’m really sorry but going into Iraq was an abandonment of principle. It was based on a premeditated lie that MI6 were caught trying to perpetuate to the media. I’m not saying a private military organization can’t be well trained. I’m saying Blackwater and Eric Prince is bad. Very bad. No offense but not only should we not have invaded Iraq and toppled that government, but we most certainly shouldn’t still be there. That is defined as occupying a sovereign state. That’s not what the constitution is about.
DeleteYeah, "here", because that's where I am right now. Check your emails.
DeleteOh, by the way, "Big Army" went home last year end of December, remember? We don't occupy shit here anymore. The Iraqi's run the show now.
DeleteI realize you are in Iraq but wasn’t sure you wanted to make that “public” so to speak. So if the big army went home, what are “we” still doing there? Especially when we shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I realize the decision to go was made and soldiers simply do their job and fulfill their assignments. Yet some missions are good while other missions are not. Hitler had soldiers. Sure he conned the people into believing terrorists had burned down the German parliament building and conned them into believing Poland attacked a German radio station, yet the mission to kill Jews was a bad one. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that one out.
ReplyDeleteWe still have numerous NGO represented here just like anywhere else in the world. The wartime mission is over, the peacetime mission carries on.
ReplyDeletePeace keeping mission, wow, that’s retro. I remember back in the day we used to be involved in those. Now it seems we’re just involved in invading and occupying oil rich nations for big corporations like Unocal. I recognize that after the government in Iraq was toppled, policing that mess became very dangerous and very problematic.
ReplyDeleteDude, "Peace time mission", not "peacekeeping mission". They're not the same thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd there''s no keeping the peace around here anyway. It doesn't want to be kept....