Tag: Blackwater

Oct 02 2007

The Day that David did Betrayus

Not what I thought was going to pour from my fingertips yesterday but you know how those freaky muses are.  Besides, Sun Tsu never met a weakening of his enemies defenses he didn’t like.

Feels like such an odd diary to write since I don’t even want anybody I know to be involved in the Iraq War.  I don’t get a choice though in the matter and we have thrown in the towel on getting out any time in the near future so please allow me to focus constructively on something that can be done and affects all those on the ground in Iraq.

Oct 02 2007

Let Blackwater Stay Bring Home The Troops

subtitled: America, the militia with corporate sponsorship.

We all know that Blackwater is made up of American militia members, often addicted to crystal meth, known for their racial hatred and itchy trigger fingers.  We also know that Exxon and other oil firms have been using Blackwater for some time now.  So I say let a few guys from Exxon and all of Blackwater stay to guard their precious oil and let everyone else come home.  This is the Exxon War after all, so let’s let a few tweakers go down in flames in Iraq and bring back our honorable soldiers.

Now let’s take a look at a few other corporate sponsors of the Exxon War below the fold.

Oct 01 2007

BOOM! Waxman Fires a Shot Across Blackwater’s Bow!

Cross-posted on Daily Kos.

Today in the understated language that is his style, Rep. Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a memorandum of Additional Information about Blackwater USA. In actuality, the memo is a shot across the bow of Blackwater and the craven Republicans on the committee and the State Department who will rise to defend the firm and its CEO Erik Prince who is scheduled to appear before the committee Tuesday, October 2 at 10:00 AM.

The memorandum, prepared by the Majority Staff, reveals:

Incident reports compiled by Blackwater reveal that Blackwater has been involved in at least 195 “escalation of force” incidents in Iraq since 2005 that involved the firing of shots by Blackwater forces. This is an average of 1.4 shooting incidents per week. Blackwater’s contract to provide protective services to the State Department provides that Blackwater can engage in only defensive use of force. In over 80% of the shooting incidents, however, Blackwater reports that its forces fired the first shots.

195 “incidents” coming at an average of 1.4 per week since 2005 where Blackwater shot first over 80% of the time.

Sep 20 2007

Apparently [Not] Deleted LA Times Story on Blackwater [Update]

Update 7:37pm EST 9/20/07 by LithiumCola]: The article is available at LATimes, again, here.

[Update 7:36pm EST 9/19/07 by LithiumCola]: In the comments at Kos, silence says that according to Ned Parker the apparent deletion is a technical glitch.  The information in the article is important enough for an essay, in any event.


[Update 7:54pm EST 9/19/07 by LithiumCola]: I can confirm that the original story is still on Lexis Nexis.  This isn’t as big a deal as I thought.  However, the story is hard to find on the net anywhere, so it’s good to have reference to it here, so I’m keeping the diary up.  My apologies to readers, to Ned Parker, and to the LA Times about any mistakes or confusion on my part.

A search at the LA Times website for articles by staff writer Ned Parker shows that he filed two stories on September 19th (“Maliki insists U.S. replace Blackwater”, “U.S. limits diplomats’ travel in Iraq”), one on the 17th (“Suspect arrested in Iraqi sheik’s death”), and one on the 16th (“Iraq’s war makes intimate enemies”).

But Ned Parker also filed a story on September 18th; this story doesn’t appear on the search.  It appears not to be on the LA Times site at all.  It’s hard to find.  This September 18th story is about Blackwater, and contains some startling claims made by employees of other contract security companies.

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