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

Blackwater Evacuates US Ambassador from Assassination Attempt

Blackwater guards evacuated US Ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood to safety after Sunday's assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

News reports cited “security guards” as protecting the envoy, but not a single news organization identified the guards. Blackwater has the sole contract to guard the American ambassador in Afghanistan.

Wood and other dignitaries joined Afghan leaders in celebrating the 16th anniversary of the Afghan victory over the Soviet Union when Taliban terrorists opened fire with automatic weapons, rockets and mortars. Several people were killed.

Blackwater CEO Erik Prince told Congress last fall that the company's State Department diplomatic security job under the Worldwide Personal Protective Services (WPPS) program is to get their protectees "off the X," meaning to rush them from an attack site to safety.

Rare video shows Blackwater supplying troops in Afghanistan

Here's a rare video of Blackwater in action on the warfront. This one is about how Blackwater teams with the US Army's elite 82nd Airborne to deliver supplies to the troops in remote parts of Afghanistan.

In the video, two Blackwater C-212 light cargo planes fly extremely close to the ground - about 35 feet up - to avoid Taliban gunfire. They fly up to about 150 feet to drop pallets of ammunition and water to American soldiers. US military crews are aboard.

Because the military lacks the type of planes needed to supply the area, the 782nd Brigade Support Battalion contracted Blackwater to fly the aircraft for remote deliveries. The 782nd is responsible for supplying 22 paratrooper bases across 19,000 square miles of some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world.

Kevin Maurer of the Fayetteville Observer, the hometown newspaper of the 82nd Airborne, is presently in Afghanistan. Soldiers from the 782nd produced the video and posted it on YouTube in July, 2007. This video and Maurer's report come to our attention courtesy of the blogger White Rabbit.