Showing posts with label al Qaeda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label al Qaeda. Show all posts

Monday, December 8, 2008

Is Justice Department Advising Iraqis How to Sue Blackwater?

Is a Justice Department bureaucrat in Iraq right now advising Iraqis how they can sue Blackwater?

That's what the New York Times is reporting. In a December 7 story headlined, "US Prosecutor Goes to Iraq to Work on Blackwater Case," the Times says that the Justice Department official will meet with families of those shot in the September 16, 2007 Nisoor Square incident and help them "make claims."

The source is an anonymous Iraqi official. The Times does not identify the US prosecutor.

The place of the meeting looks like someone purposely planned to inflame sentiments. According to the Times, the Justice Department bureaucrat will meet with families at "a large dining center in Iraq’s National Police Headquarters, just a stone’s throw from Nisour Square."

"'The prosecutor is coming on Saturday to tell people what is going to happen, and especially how to make claims,' said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak about the investigation. “He will speak in front of all of them. The families of the victims deserve to know what comes next.”

If the report is true, the unnamed bureaucrat will put the Justice Department in the awkward position of helping professional terrorist defense lawyers and lawyers for cop-killers, including a lawyer for an identified al Qaeda front group. The lawyers have banded together to sue Blackwater on behalf of Nisoor families.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

On the Ground Training Afghan Counternarcotics Police



Blackwater is training Afghanistan's new counternarcotics police - the men and women on the front lines to combat both the illegal drug business and to take away a big source of funds for the Taliban and, presumably, al Qaeda.

I haven't seen anything else like it in the above video. This stuff is new. Some of the highlights are what appears to be a main lobby of Afghanistan's new Counter-Narcotics Training Academy. On the wall are painted the flags of the "nations and organizations" that made the academy possible. Look at the emblems, one by one: Afghanistan, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, United Nations, Blackwater . . .

The Blackwater logo among those flags: The Afghans and Coalition members on the ground appear to have quite a different opinion of the company, working with its people up-close, than does most of the American public.

The video shows how Blackwater is helping Afghan women integrate into the counternarcotics police; how it trains new police recruits in law and safety as well as paramilitary CN tactics; how it mentors the new police out in the field; and how it conducts live-fire exercises. These guys and women are heavily armed: they're training to go out against not only heavily armed drug gangs, but against the Taliban.

The video ends with images of some of the results of the training and mentoring: world's biggest drug bust that took place last month at Spin Bolduk, a haul so big that British warplanes had to be called in to incinerate it from the air.

Congressman Henry Waxman and others want to put a stop to such activity by putting Blackwater out of the federal contracting business.

Here's a direct link to the YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YLSYosNcM8

Monday, October 22, 2007

Location, location, location

Just like real estate, the location of facts in a press report matters. The better the location, the more it's worth. The following item appeared in a 27-paragraph Associated Press story filed from Baghdad on October 21:
"U.S. troops backed by attack aircraft killed 19 suspected insurgents and 15 civilians, including nine children, in an operation Oct. 11 targeting al-Qaida in Iraq leaders northwest of Baghdad.

"Al-Maliki's government said those killings were a 'sorrowful matter,' but emphasized that civilian deaths are unavoidable in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq."

Quiz: Where in the story did this information appear? In the lead, just like the coverage of civilian deaths in the September 16 incident, in which Blackwater guards said they thought their convoy was under terrorist attack? No, the above passages are buried at the end of the AP story: Paragraphs 26 and 27.

Iraqi government and press show understanding about wartime civilian deaths

With all the uproar about Blackwater and the September 16 deaths at the Nisoor traffic circle, one would think that civilians are seldom casualties of American gunfire in Iraq.

The sad thing, of course, is that this is not the case at all. One of the reasons we try to avoid wars is because innocent civilians always pay with their lives. When our leaders determine that we must go in and fight, we go to extremes to protect innocent life with our precision weapons, our special operations forces, and our military's general approach to warfare.

Now we have news that Iraqi families, including small children, were the victims of a US helicopter attack on Iranian-backed Shi'ite extremists in a Baghdad slum. Initial reports say that helicopter fire wounded and killed people who were sleeping on their roofs at night to say cool because of the continued lack of electrical services. Others reportedly died when projectiles pierced their houses.

But where the Maliki government was quick to denounce Blackwater as committing "deliberate murder" in the September 16 incident, is shows great understanding, bordering on dismissiveness, that the Sadr City deaths were an unfortunate byproduct of war.

AP, reporting on the images of dead toddlers and wounded family members, reports: "An Iraqi military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, said the government would ask the Americans for an explanation of today's raid and stressed the need to avoid civilian deaths.

"The government has issued mixed reactions to the raids and airstrikes, particularly those that have targeted Sunni extremists.

"US troops backed by attack aircraft killed 19 suspected insurgents and 15 civilians, including nine children, in an operation Oct. 11 targeting al Qaeda in Iraq leaders northwest of Baghdad.

"Al-Maliki's government said those killings were a 'sorrowful matter,' but emphasized that civilian deaths are unavoidable in the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq."

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Waxman abusing his power to help trial lawyers value Blackwater suits?

Congressman Waxman appears to be abusing his authority as chairman of House oversight committee, demanding to know the profits of a private company as part of his "accountability" crusade.

Congress has no legitimate reason to know the profits of a private company. Yet, at the behest of a trial lawyer who stands to make millions by suing Blackwater, Waxman is using his committee to try to do just that.

Using data furnished by the State Department, Waxman has already shown that Blackwater saves the taxpayer an estimated $100,000,000 a year or more as a private sector alternative to diplomatic security in Iraq.

The only reason why Waxman would need to know Blackwater's total
profits is if he was colluding with the trial lawyer who is suing the company. If he can get Blackwater to divulge its profits in dollar terms, he will will help the trial lawyers establish exactly how much they can hope to steal from Blackwater in a litigation maneuver.

The trial lawyers currently suing Blackwater include Daniel Callahan of Callahan & Blaine, terrorist attorney Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and al Qaeda fundraising attorney Shereef Hadi Akeel of Akeel & Valentine.