Iraq bans Blackwater mercenaries
Iraq's Interior Ministry has banned Blackwater mercenary group. This is the organization "founded by ultra-right-wing Christian conservatives and hires Pinochet-era Chilean war-criminals, ex-law-enforcement types, and former military." (Aee Cory's post about Blackwater here.) According to Wikipedia, "at least 90% of its revenue comes from government contracts, two-thirds of which are no-bid contracts."
Link (Thanks, Justin!)Iraq's Interior Ministry has revoked the license of Blackwater USA, an American security firm whose contractors are blamed for a Sunday gunbattle in Baghdad that left eight civilians dead. The U.S. State Department said it plans to investigate what it calls a "terrible incident."
In addition to the fatalities, 14 people were wounded, most of them civilians, an Iraqi official said.
Previously on Boing Boing:
• Blackwater: superbly researched indictment of America's hired killers
• Katrina: Authorities bar Red Cross from NOLA; Blackwater gets carte blanche
the latest
latest episodes
Iraq bans Blackwater mercanaries
Vicious killer canaries-for-hire?
Anyway, good riddance to Blackwater...
ultra-right-wing Christian conservatives
I'm breathlessly awaiting the first BB post that uses the scare term "ultra-left-wing."
/crickets
Finally some accountability for the rampant privatization that's been going on.
Now we just need local governments to ban them as well.
These are not the guys you want "keeping the peace" during the next Katrina like event.
BTW, watched a great Bill Moyers on Blackwater a couple weeks ago - they want the US or UN to fund them to go into Darfur. Just makes me sick that we (American soldiers) can't or won't help there because we're bogged down in Iraq.
Good for them. The only thing that worries me is that now Blackwater will be recalling all of these experienced killers back here, and will no doubt start lobbying to use them in situations like Katrina where they're "needed".
Frowelishnu, the only elected official who I'm aware of who has pushed to send US troops into Darfur is Joe Biden:
http://securitydilemmas.blogspot.com/2007/05/us-troops-in-darfur.html
Both Democrats and Republicans should be ashamed of how little attention they've given Darfur.
But as that article points out, the UN is unlikely to support any non-trivial role for the US military, so we would get the same "occupying American force" / "Western invaders" criticism as in Iraq. Plus, the Darfur combatants are mainly Muslim, so we'd be called anti-Muslim, "Christian crusaders" etc etc.
It makes me sick that the UN doesn't have the balls to actually do anything in Darfur but wring their hands and issue strongly worded statements.
@ phasor3000
Agreed, both parties are ignoring the genocide.
But, I think if we didn't have the great Iraq misadventure on our hands we would be viewed differently by the majority of Muslims and others.
Had we not gone to Iraq, the will of the UN, the American people, and those in Sudan would likely be behind intervention to stop the violence there.
That's not to say that the Bush administration couldn't screw that up either.
Oh that's OK. They'll be back, they'll just call themselves something else. Stupid laws can't stop a company that rubs shoulders with numerous politicians.
Blackwater aside, why intervene anywhere else at all? Isn't that why we're in trouble in Iraq in the first place? I'm guessing if Barack or Hil-larry wanted to go to Darfur and get more americans killed it would be all right because its for a good cause. Misadventures aside, how about no adventures at all, bring our boys home and take care of our own before some janjaweed decides he's the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Was just made aware of this delightful side-project of Erik Prince (co-founderof Blackwater; he's on the board of this other group):
http://www.christianfreedom.org/
Is what it is...
For the record, most war time contracts are no-bid. It's been this way for years, long before Bush.
I'm curious to know if the ban has any teeth. That is, as the occupying force, will the US forces just keep using them and ignore the order? It doesn't seem that there's really anything to compell them to comply, nor Blackwater for that matter, as it seems quasi-independent.
It's so incredibly sad that it had to take a fledging, battered Iraqi govt. to finally ban these cretin commandos instead of the United States doing the right thing years ago.
Boingboing, I love you, and I often agree with you. Please stop using wikipedia for fact-checking.
Yours,
Joe.
crickets @ #2, that's because we have names for the very far left: socialists and communists. But the armageddon-now christianists and the rightwing-libertarian let's-restore-slavery folks just don't have nice short names. So, really, be glad people don't use anything more descriptive than ultra-rightwing.
> Kevitivity:For the record, most war time contracts are no-bid.
> It's been this way for years, long before Bush.
Kev, that sounds great except you are leaving out a mountain of facts about the overwhelming, unprecedented privatization of war that we see with Bush nowadays. I'm not sure of your goals with that post, but if it was to obfuscate the truth... then well done.
Sigh, I'm going to love the day when FOXnews style lying (by dodging the whole picture with issues) becomes a dead art.
If the truth hurts, then I'm sure the words of former President Dwight Eisenhower (5 star General & Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe who planned and supervised the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944 & 1945? ... you know, that guy?) ... I'm sure his words will hurt...
He coined the term "military industrial complex" (and its threat to the United States) in his sage farwell address here:
Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
Getting rid of Blackwater would be one of the best things to ever happen to this country and to elect a President who will finally rein in the M.I.C. would be absolutely revolutionary. "Revolutionary", as in, make America's forefather's proud "revolutionary".
Kev, faith-based facts are killing us off.
Over the top 'crazy-liberal' quotes? Blackwater is a private army of killers for money. That should be outlawed! War in fact should be outlawed! However we can start by making it un-profitable,. no prifits to private corporations to supply weapons or 'support' period!
Have you watched the videos of Blackwater 'securety' randomly spraying bullets into civilians?!? They have been unaccountable for all their actions and the actions are murderous.
video of random shootings;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BDByPfIavQ