Blackwater security

Blackwater has had a long history of being "Indescriminate" in their fire disipline ,most military forces in Iraq stay clear of Blackwater personell as theyv'e got a reputation of being Cowboys.

[fatty]

Originally Posted by darius359au

Blackwater has had a long history of being "Indescriminate" in their fire disipline ,most military forces in Iraq stay clear of Blackwater personell as theyv'e got a reputation of being Cowboys.

From the videos I've seen of Blackwater in action, that would seem to be accurate. One thing is for sure, these mercenaries have been controversial from day one.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by fatty

From the videos I've seen of Blackwater in action, that would seem to be accurate. One thing is for sure, these mercenaries have been controversial from day one.

I have no idea how common incidents like this have been. If they're sporadic, then this would seem to be an -pardon the term - overkill reaction.

[Fish]

Found this about Blackwater:

#7 Behind Blackwater Inc.
Source: Democracy Now! January 26, 2007
Title: “Our Mercenaries in Iraq: Blackwater Inc and Bush’s Undeclared Surge”
Author: Jeremy Scahill
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/26/1559232
Student Researcher: Sverre Tysl
Faculty Evaluator: Noel Byrne, Ph.D.
The company that most embodies the privatization of the military industrial complex—a primary part of the Project for a New American Century and the neoconservative revolution is the private security firm Blackwater. Blackwater is the most powerful mercenary firm in the world, with 20,000 soldiers, the world’s largest private military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, including helicopter gunships, and a private intelligence division. The firm is also manufacturing its own surveillance blimps and target systems.
Blackwater is headed by a very right-wing Christian-supremist and ex-Navy Seal named Erik Prince, whose family has had deep neo-conservative connections. Bush’s latest call for voluntary civilian military corps to accommodate the “surge” will add to over half a billion dollars in federal contracts with Blackwater, allowing Prince to create a private army to defend Christendom around the world against Muslims and others.
One of the last things Dick Cheney did before leaving office as Defense Secretary under George H. W. Bush was to commission a Halliburton study on how to privatize the military bureaucracy. That study effectively created the groundwork for a continuing war profiteer bonanza.
During the Clinton years, Erik Prince envisioned a project that would take advantage of anticipated military outsourcing. Blackwater began in 1996 as a private military training facility, with an executive board of former Navy Seals and Elite Special Forces, in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina. A decade later it is the most powerful mercenary firm in the world, embodying what the Bush administration views as “the necessary revolution in military affairs”—the outsourcing of armed forces.
In his 2007 State of the Union address Bush asked Congress to authorize an increase in the size of our active Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 in the next five years. He continued, “A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer civilian reserve corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them.”
This is, however, precisely what the administration has already done—largely, Jeremy Scahill points out, behind the backs of the American people. Private contractors currently constitute the second-largest “force” in Iraq. At last count, there were about 100,000 contractorsin Iraq, 48,000 of which work as private soldiers, according to a Government Accountability Office report. These soldiers have operated with almost no oversight or effective legal constraints and are politically expedient, as contractor deaths go uncounted in the official toll. With Prince calling for the creation of a “contractor brigade” before military audiences, the Bush administration has found a back door for engaging in an undeclared expansion of occupation.
Blackwater currently has about 2,300 personnel actively deployed in nine countries and is aggressively expanding its presence inside US borders. They provide the security for US diplomats in Iraq, guarding everyone from Paul Bremer and John Negroponte to the current US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad. They’re training troops in Afghanistan and have been active in the Caspian Sea, where they set up a Special Forces base miles from the Iranian border. According to reports they are currently negotiating directly with the Southern Sudanese regional government to start training the Christian forces of Sudan.
Blackwater’s connections are impressive. Joseph Schmitz, the former Pentagon Inspector General, whose job was to police the war contractor bonanza, has moved on to become the vice chairman of the Prince Group, Blackwater’s parent company, and the general counsel for Blackwater.
Bush recently hired Fred Fielding, Blackwater’s former lawyer, to replace Harriet Miers as his top lawyer; and Ken Starr, the former Whitewater prosecutor who led the impeachment charge against President Clinton, is now Blackwater’s counsel of record and has filed briefs with Supreme Court to fight wrongful death lawsuits brought against Blackwater.
Cofer Black, thirty-year CIA veteran and former head of CIA’s counterterrorism center, credited with spearheading the extraordinary rendition program after 9/11, is now senior executive at Blackwater and perhaps its most powerful operative.
Prince and other Blackwater executives have been major bankrollers of the President, of former House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, and of former Senator, Rick Santorum. Senator John Warner, the former head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Blackwater, “our silent partner in the global war on terror.”

[Skybird]

A nation should not leave it's national wars to mercenaries. War is no business that should be left to private enterprises. Becasue such enterprise do not have iunterest in acchieving peace, but in keeping wars alive (else they become short on incomes). Nations claiming sovereignity about controlling there own armed foces were a great acchievement in European history, that of course had to be acchieved against the bitter opposition of private war enterprises, and the unorgnaized, payed warbands that dominated the european battlefields before with uncountered brutality and arbitrariness against civil population (30-years-war being the prime example). Outsourcing of military capacity is no acchievement, but a huge step back in history.

It only makes sense if a nation wishes to wage wars for which it does not want to claim responsibility, saying the state does not interfere with private business. Nevertheless such a practice is questionable, at best.

[Huskalar]

Originally Posted by Skybird

A nation should not leave it's national wars to mercenaries. War is no business that should be left to private enterprises. Becasue such enterprise do not have iunterest in acchieving peace, but in keeping wars alive (else they become short on incomes). Nations claiming sovereignity about controlling there own armed foces were a great acchievement in European history, that of course had to be acchieved against the bitter opposition of private war enterprises, and the unorgnaized, payed warbands that dominated the european battlefields before with uncountered brutality and arbitrariness against civil population (30-years-war being the prime example). Outsourcing of military capacity is no acchievement, but a huge step back in history.

It only makes sense if a nation wishes to wage wars for which it does not want to claim responsibility, saying the state does not interfere with private business. Nevertheless such a practice is questionable, at best.

I totally agree with you.

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by Skybird

A nation should not leave it's national wars to mercenaries. War is no business that should be left to private enterprises. Becasue such enterprise do not have iunterest in acchieving peace, but in keeping wars alive (else they become short on incomes). Nations claiming sovereignity about controlling there own armed foces were a great acchievement in European history, that of course had to be acchieved against the bitter opposition of private war enterprises, and the unorgnaized, payed warbands that dominated the european battlefields before with uncountered brutality and arbitrariness against civil population (30-years-war being the prime example). Outsourcing of military capacity is no acchievement, but a huge step back in history.

It only makes sense if a nation wishes to wage wars for which it does not want to claim responsibility, saying the state does not interfere with private business. Nevertheless such a practice is questionable, at best.

Blackwater is used for security of sites and personnel. They don't take on tactical missions so I wouldn't call it a step back to the middle ages. I'm not defending Blackwater but don't say what they aren't unless you are talking out of scope for the thread title. I'd be willing to bet a virtual hundred dollar bill that Blackwater and that British outfit don't do any 'jobs' without clearance from their respective State Departments so don't look for them to conquer any countries at least in the near future. Those days are over at least as far as government sanctioned groups go. Non sanctioned groups are squeezed and forced out by governments. Today they free up government resources to perform the primary mission and not be part of the primary mission. Rent an army is here and won't be leaving and they will be security focused and not tactical combat focused. Your reasoning is too politically unstable for todays wars.

[The Avon Lady]

Further analysis: The Blackwater affair: Licenses? Who needs licenses?

Besides discussing the corruption involved in getting such license issued, the article also goes into the recent event which triggered BW's dismissal.

[Skybird]

Blackwater is used for security of sites and personnel. They don't take on tactical missions so I wouldn't call it a step back to the middle ages. I'm not defending Blackwater but don't say what they aren't unless you are talking out of scope for the thread title. I'd be willing to bet a virtual hundred dollar bill that Blackwater and that British outfit don't do any 'jobs' without clearance from their respective State Departments so don't look for them to conquer any countries at least in the near future. Those days are over at least as far as government sanctioned groups go. Non sanctioned groups are squeezed and forced out by governments. Today they free up government resources to perform the primary mission and not be part of the primary mission. Rent an army is here and won't be leaving and they will be security focused and not tactical combat focused. Your reasoning is too politically unstable for todays wars.

I know that merc companies operate not only in Iraq, but in South America, SE Asia as well, and also can be hired bo non-US governments and organizations. I do not know their current focus of action in Iraq, but when they were brought in their cenrtred on patrolling oil fields and oil-related sites and installations. But I know that in Columbia they are very well conducting tactical operations, and are often are supported by regular army or air force when requesting for example transportation capabilities. you said they do not become active without order from state department. That is not true - they are a private business company that become actiove by order of it's customers. and that can be everyone having the money. Also, if hired by the US goivernment, their activities escape congressional control, and are not part of the regular mechanisms of political counter-countral which is part of the system of checks and balances. They do not report to the public/the people. And the secrecy of their operations is protected by American laws that say that the state does not need to take responsebility for actions and consequences of private enterprises.

In other words: such companies are operating in a legal no-man's land, and nobody really holds them responsible for anything. The deep entanglement of merc organizations in drug smuggling in Columbia - where they officially are staying to protect company properties and give support in the war on drugs, but in reality are fighting against those guerillas that are in the way of US biotech companies that wish to secure the ground with the ressouces they mean to harvest in the future, is a result. Locals complain heavily about their presence, and two years ago their have been several allegations of drug-related murder commited by mercs. You may say those figures are single exmaple only, and the company is not to be hold respoinsible for the failing s of their emploey. But that is wrong. The company IS responsible for what it's employees are doing, and are doing in a systematical, routine way. The miserable record of merc operations in Columbia - well rejected in the US, I know - is one of the more prominent reasons for the massive detoriation of US reputation in South America over the the last couple of years. It's just that here in the West not many people take note of this hidden, criminal war in Columbia that so misleading is called war on drugs, where in reality it is a war against resiotance about raising Us cpomany presence in areas of economical interest - drugs have little to do with it, and Americans seem to be satisfied anyway as long as it is labelleld "war on drugs" nevertheless - and then all is good.

You see merc companies, their legal status, and the freedom of action, and their support by the regular army, too rosy and too harmless.

[bradclark1]

I've read a couple of articles where "Rent an Army" is going to become common place.

[Etienne]

Wow, I actually agree wholeheartedly with Skybird. I'll mark the calendar.

And Fish, that article is obviously very biased, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt. Or, you know, the whole shaker.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Etienne

Wow, I actually agree wholeheartedly with Skybird. I'll mark the calendar.

And Fish, that article is obviously very biased, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt. Or, you know, the whole shaker.

This one is from The New York Times:

BAGHDAD, Sept. 18 — A preliminary Iraqi report on a shooting involving an American diplomatic motorcade said Tuesday that Blackwater security guards were not ambushed, as the company reported, but instead fired at a car when it did not heed a policeman’s call to stop, killing a couple and their infant.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com:80/2007/09/19...html?th&emc=th