Blackwater?

[Luissa]

I have been watching Real Time tonight and they have a guy on here who has written a book against Blackwater and all the contractors in the middle east. I have no clue how I feel about this, I see the side where they need these contract soldiers to help finish this and they are using mostly ex military personal. We also don't hear about how many of them are dying over there, we just hear the bad things. So I just want to hear some opinions on this.

 

[veritas]

It's a very scary book.

 

[Bootneck]

I have been watching Real Time tonight and they have a guy on here who has written a book against Blackwater and all the contractors in the middle east. I have no clue how I feel about this, I see the side where they need these contract soldiers to help finish this and they are using mostly ex military personal. We also don't hear about how many of them are dying over there, we just hear the bad things. So I just want to hear some opinions on this.

Luissa, I have experience of the Blackwater way. The men they employ in their private army are nothing more than thugs who enjoy killing anything that moves. Check them out. There's plenty of reports on the Internet of their disgusting exploits. Their willingness to shoot indiscrimenately into crowds and laugh while doing so.

They are a fucking disgrace. They shame America, but more importantly, they heap shame upon ordinary soldiers who attempt to execute their duty with honour and integrity.
If I ever run into one of these animals, I would be inclined to use my skills to rip out his windpipe. I spit on them and their kind. They're fucking criminals and if someone tells me they are dying, I rejoice.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Government is directed to give service, busines is directed to make profit.

Too much of the time when business performs government functions, the service goes by the way side in the maximization of profit. The government has woefully failed its charter to hold Blackwater accountable in its service on behalf of the American people. The quality of its people is low, and most importantly the U.S. neo-con policy wonks gave great power to a civilian and independent mercenary power.

Ravenwood is far a greater a threat than the ultraright far right who-want-to-extend-the-2nd-Amendment whackos or the ultral liberals. However, if Blackwater had been contemporary to the SDS and Weatherman, the latter would have simply kept bombing their businesses and homes.

 

[editec]

Privatizing milititary leads to PRIVATE ARMIES.

You know what history calls times when PRIVATE ARMIES exist?

Periods of Warlordism.

You know what kind of government you have when you have PRIVATE ARMIES?

You have a FEUDAL society

Yeah, just as I often point out...conditions seem to be leading us to something that is beginning to look remarkably like NEO-FEUDALISM.

What astounds me is how many people here seem to think they want to live in a land which is run by an elite class of people, people who own and control everything, people who have private armies, people who answer to no government.

What really astounds me about people who support all the policies which will lead us into some kind of government that is NOT democratic, but instead is entirely private, is that these same people all think that THEY are lovers of freedom.

No, no you cannot love freedom and hate democratic forms of government, folks.

It just doesn't work that way

You cannot love freedom and want to privatize government.

If you hate reresentational governments and want capital to control everything, the word for that government is not a DEMOCRACTIC REPUBLIC, the word for the government you want is called a FEUDAL KINGDOM.

In other words, a lot of you people who think you love freedom but hate goverment truly WANT to be peasants, not citizens.

Now if you truly DO love freedom, and don't realize that the people you support who are destroying government and NOT working on YOUR belhalf, then the word for you is DUPE.

 

[Bootneck]

This is typical of the Blackwater thugs:

The convoy of SUVs threading through Baghdad's busy streets came to an abrupt halt at Nisour Square.
Inside the vehicles were a team of black-clad security guards from the infamous Blackwater private military contractor - the American private army accused last week of embarking on a 'crusade to eliminate Muslims'.
This supposed 'crusade' has earned the company's mysterious founder, Erik Prince, over $1billion for government security contracts alone. But, as we shall see, this huge pay-cheque certainly wasn't gained without getting some hands dirty.
For the Blackwater guards who stopped at Nisour Square were bristling with guns. What happened next is now the subject of a court case.

According to one observer, the American mercenaries began shooting at random into the Iraqi crowd. 'The shooting was so heavy it was like rain,' says Farid Walid, who was shot in the attack two years ago, a massacre which left 17 Iraqis dead.
'I saw lots of people getting shot. The driver who had been in front of me died and his wife fell out of the car. Her child was killed as well. The shooting went on for about ten minutes.'
Umm Tahsin, widow of one of the men killed, says: 'They [Blackwater] are a group of criminals. [It] was a massacre. They destroyed our family.'

Blackwater, the world's biggest private army, faces a terrible charge - that they were on a crusade to wipe out Muslims | Mail Online

I know many who wouldn't think twice about double tapping a blackwater scumbag on sight.

 

[wvpeach]

Good responses so far in this thread. Well done everybody.

I will add only that if we are going to be paying soldiers six figure salaries lets give that money as retention bonuses for our own actual military.

Aside from that the danger of these private armies is obvious . They work for the man that signs their checks. That is obviously not cool.

And I agree with Skahill , It goes against the grain of the constitution.
I am sure the founders would have frowned on private armies.

They been around for decades working for third world dictators and oil companies.

Bush and Chaney made them mainstream. Another aberration those two should be punished for.

 

[Luissa]

what about the agruement congress can't get more soldiers approved to go over there, so Blackwater is filling in the gap?

 

[Bootneck]

what about the agruement congress can't get more soldiers approved to go over there, so Blackwater is filling in the gap?

The day you have to employ private armies full of swaggering thugs and knuckle dragging bullies to fill in for regular armies is the day your government places itself on the same level as a third world dictator. The ridiculous thing is, that sending more troops is probably far less expensive than emloying Blackwater's thugs. But then, backhanders talk louder I guess.

 

[Luissa]

very true!

 

[mightypeon]

While there is a fair bit of overaccountability in the operations of lets say Germany (you shoot a Taliban -> you are the subject of a manslaughter investigation from German authorities, although these tend to end with aquital, on a more humourus note, the German army in Afghanistan is required to sort their garbage), Blackwaters totally rampant disregard of nearly every law of war invented since Tamerlane turns them into a force that causes terrorism, not fights it.

Given the quite big families in Moslem nations, each innocent killed has a significant chance of spawning additional armed antagonists in the form of relatives out for vengeance.
And while a dead Blackwater "operative" is different from a dead US soldier for the US public, the Iraki/Afghan public does not make a distinction between an Iraki/Afghan innocent killed by Blackwater or killed by regular troops.

 

[Luissa]

I thought about it and changed my mind. Blackwater is a good thing and it goes right along with history.
During the Revolution we had the militia aka goriallia war fare and that is how we won, the British fought an organized war and we fought a dirty war and won. These people in the middle east are fighting dirty. These Blackwater guys are just our modern day militia, plus they are ex military and are finally getting paid what they deserve. I say we fight the war they are fighting because we found out in nam that playing by the rules screws us in the end.

 

[cunclusion]

But there are issues with a private military having that much leeway. The only thing that gets me is the use of ammo that the U.S. military is not approve to use on enemy combatants.

 

[L.K.Eder]

I thought about it and changed my mind. Blackwater is a good thing and it goes right along with history.
During the Revolution we had the militia aka goriallia war fare and that is how we won, the British fought an organized war and we fought a dirty war and won. These people in the middle east are fighting dirty. These Blackwater guys are just our modern day militia, plus they are ex military and are finally getting paid what they deserve. I say we fight the war they are fighting because we found out in nam that playing by the rules screws us in the end.

what rules? might makes right?

 

[Barb]

I have been watching Real Time tonight and they have a guy on here who has written a book against Blackwater and all the contractors in the middle east. I have no clue how I feel about this, I see the side where they need these contract soldiers to help finish this and they are using mostly ex military personal. We also don't hear about how many of them are dying over there, we just hear the bad things. So I just want to hear some opinions on this.

Luissa, I have experience of the Blackwater way. The men they employ in their private army are nothing more than thugs who enjoy killing anything that moves. Check them out. There's plenty of reports on the Internet of their disgusting exploits. Their willingness to shoot indiscrimenately into crowds and laugh while doing so.

They are a fucking disgrace. They shame America, but more importantly, they heap shame upon ordinary soldiers who attempt to execute their duty with honour and integrity.
If I ever run into one of these animals, I would be inclined to use my skills to rip out his windpipe. I spit on them and their kind. They're fucking criminals and if someone tells me they are dying, I rejoice.

I can't go so far as happiness at anyone's death, but they do stain the reputation of our military, and make their job much harder. They're also paid an obscene amount of money compared to what our military is paid, and that is spitting in the faces of all of our Veterans, and their families.

 

[Truthmatters]

Blackwater was started by a young man who thought all Muslims should die.

He intended to kill as many Muslims as he could.

Bush and team Hired him.

 

[Bootneck]

I thought about it and changed my mind. Blackwater is a good thing and it goes right along with history.
During the Revolution we had the militia aka goriallia war fare and that is how we won, the British fought an organized war and we fought a dirty war and won. These people in the middle east are fighting dirty. These Blackwater guys are just our modern day militia, plus they are ex military and are finally getting paid what they deserve. I say we fight the war they are fighting because we found out in nam that playing by the rules screws us in the end.

You're wrong Luissa. These scumbags - and that is really too nice a description - are not only a stain on your country, but they cause more trouble and pain for ALL coalition troops
than it's worth. They make our job harder, not easier. Hearts and mind will not be won while these trigger-happy morons are around.

 

[mightypeon]

"You must spread some reputation before giving it to Bootneck again" Damn

The US actually fought in a fairly irregular way concerning both the states Casus Belli (which was more dubious than the blow up of the Maine prior to the Spanish US war), concerning the weapons used (One can make a very fair point for Agent Orange beeing a chemical weapon) and concerning the threatment of PoW (well, the fact that the Vietnamese werent much better is not that significant here).

The US had military thinkers which implemented more intelligent strategies with a lot, although local, success, also, the US did, in the Phillipines, succesfully defeat an communist insurgency using the intelligent and adaptive strategies they failed to use in Vietnam.

Apart from that, there were a number of other confounding factors which turned Vietnam into a much harder target than Afghanistan is today:

1: North Vietnam had, over the entire war and nonwithstanding that most major engagements with US forces ended in tactical defeats, a capable conventional army (which, just after the Vietnam War, crushed the Red Khmer Regime and send the Khmer-supporting "Chinese Punishment expedition" running for the hills). The Vietcong in comparison largely ceased to exist after the Tet offensive.
2: While Afghanistan is good territory to wage a Guerillia war, Vietnam is an excellent one. Its only guerillia disadvantadge compared to Afghanistan is the long coast line, which the Americans did not exploit very well.
3: Vietnam was activly supported by a Superpower. This was also the main reason for the Russian defeat in Afghanistan, without the US support to the Taliban at that point, the Soviets would have obliberated them.
4: The technological difference between the Soviet backed Vietnamese and the US forces was MUCH smaller than the one between Coalition forces in Afghanistan and the remaining "Taliban".

There are also other points, I for example believe that the North Vietnamese leadership was significantly more competent and unified than whoever is in charge of the Taliban.

 

[Luissa]

I thought about it and changed my mind. Blackwater is a good thing and it goes right along with history.
During the Revolution we had the militia aka goriallia war fare and that is how we won, the British fought an organized war and we fought a dirty war and won. These people in the middle east are fighting dirty. These Blackwater guys are just our modern day militia, plus they are ex military and are finally getting paid what they deserve. I say we fight the war they are fighting because we found out in nam that playing by the rules screws us in the end.

You're wrong Luissa. These scumbags - and that is really too nice a description - are not only a stain on your country, but they cause more trouble and pain for ALL coalition troops
than it's worth. They make our job harder, not easier. Hearts and mind will not be won while these trigger-happy morons are around.

I was in a really pissed off mood last night after drinking.

 

[mightypeon]

Or see it like that, if not following the rules of war, shooting innocents and killing prisoners would be a guarantee for victory, you would speak German, Russian or Mongolian