Feds probe whether Blackwater smuggled weapons into Iraq

This one is going to go like the Iran Contral scandal, if it ever gets to congress. thanks Udio for bringing that up.

Originally posted by xpert11
reply to post by BitRaiser

 

I cant figure out why Blackwater isnt claiming that the weapons were intended for the Iraqi security forces and that they were diverted to the differnt insurgent groups because the enemy had infiltrated the security forces.

You know I had the same thought about that, eventually that is what they are going to say, and it will be the end of the investigation.

Originally posted by ClintK
reply to post by Throbber

 

No, it most certainly is treasonous. This was far more than just an illegal arms sale. The allegation is that these weapons were knowingly sold to militants and used against U.S. troops.

The circumstances contradict one another.

+ it's not as if these people don't know how to survive without exterior communication/financial backing - many of those in blackwater are ex-servicemen (or women, if you'd prefer.), if it turns out that they can indeed be brought to court then chances are they'll go into hiding, and the cost of tracking down hundreds of highly trained, skilled professionals alone would be astronomical, let alone the court fees.

The establishment may be more willing to 'sweep it under the rug' with this one - and can you honestly say that hiding information from the public isn't treasonous?


The people we're dealing with here are trained in misinformation and some are probably trained in counter-intelligence too - all of which was financed by the american tax payer, it's like being stabbed in the back with your own knife.

This seems to be the incestuous child of war and business, and so long as the employees of blackwater keep paying their taxes, i don't think it'll be changing anytime soon.

Or of course we might be looking at foreign operatives making the demises of the american establishment a certainty - i'm not too sure about that, however.

i apologise for disputing the treason, but my point was that it isn't something one could use as a platform from which to fight a legal battle from.

reply to post by St Udio


St Udio you have raised a good point I didn't consider an Iran/contra style deal. The idea has been put forward by others that the US is smuggling arms to the Kurds see this thread for more. At this stage all I know is that this stinks and I am not ruling anything out.

Hey can you blame people from profiting with this war, after US is number one in world profits from war.

Our war has become so privatized that now all the private companies wants a piece of the pie.

This no treason people is call capitalism.

Originally posted by marg6043
This one is going to go like the Iran Contral scandal, if it ever gets to congress. thanks Udio for bringing that up.

That's exactly what hit me... what if they were asked to help divert the weapons? It's certainly been done before by the US government.

I didn't like the idea of hiring mercenaries to help out in Iraq, and I still don't like the idea. Our troops may not be lilly white moral examples (remember Abu Ghraib), but they're a darn sight better than the paid-for-hire gunslingers!

reply to post by Indellkoffer


Actually the ones that were behind the abu-graib were the private groups that made our soldiers so confused about the chain of command after the invasion that they follow the orders even when they should never had done it.

The master minders are free, while our soldiers pay the prices.

Who is to say that these guys will not create scenarios within the US to bring about more need for their services.

It seems semi-logical that if these guys will do anything for the highest bidder, that they would willingly take money from terrorists and turn on the entire populus.

These guys need to be kept in check somehow. I remember seeing a video of Blackwater mercs opening fire on innocent civilain autos in Iraq and they were just laughing like kids about it.

Cant be good having a private army that was created by ex CIA and Pentagon officials.

Smuggled No but they do have Weapons of there own, Rifles, .50 CALS, M240'S, SAW's, And mounted weapons on helicopters and vehicle's. but selling weapons on the black market... I don't think so because those weapons could be used to kill them-selfs...Not to mention that they are all past US solders and they would not aid in the killing of US solders by selling weapons.

Blackwater has contacts within the militia rank structure over there, I guarantee it. Since Al-Sadrs militia runs the police force (backed by HUMAS and Hizbollah), any funding to the Iraqi police, is direct support to the militias.

I guess you could also claim Ford funds the Death Squads over there, since the the "squads" run around in Iraqi MoD vehicles contracted out by our Government to Ford. But on the other hand, I think Blackwater are some serious A**holes and must be baned from Iraq and anymore dealings with the U.S. forever. Period. The Iraqi people have suffered some harsh dealings from Blackwater running around firing on civilians since the start of the war. It's disgusting.

[edit on 23-9-2007 by tobiascore]

Originally posted by Danman
I don't think so because those weapons could be used to kill them-selfs...Not to mention that they are all past US solders and they would not aid in the killing of US solders by selling weapons.

Potentially not every one of them is ex-service, it's probable it was originally funded by private interest (most likely corporate such as arms manufacture or in an extreme scenario it may have been political funding), the idea is not to simply get money for exchanging arms, but to provide a reason to stay in iraq.

i imagine that blackwater will be paid for simply staying in iraq, otherwise how would they do it?

Kill(frag) count?

Or of course, in the dark recesses of imperialistic america, it's possibly just ensuring that when we pull out that the various factions tear each other up.

Why would Blackwater USA, which has received billions of dollars in lucrative no-bid contacts from the US gov't, operate a weapons smuggling operation in Iraq? The profits are negligible compared to its contract fees.

Also, how could they do it without being detected by US intelligence? Former intelligence officials work for Blackwater, and there is obviously collaboration between Blackwater and intelligence agencies.

My theory is that it was part of a US clandestine operation -- not necessarily run by the CIA, which the Bush administration doesn't fully trust -- intended to destabilize Iraq. It was reported that the smuggling operation was uncovered by Turkish intelligence, which reported it to the US. To protect the operation, the US was forced to commence a federal investigation, which I suspect will go nowhere fast.

Let's connect a few dots.

As was widely seen on Youtube, in a 1994 interview about the first Pres. Bush' decision to leave Saddam in power, Cheney said Bush was "absolutely" correct. He followed up with an articulate explanation of how unseating Saddam would create a power vacuum, and sectarian violence would result among the Kurds, #es and Sunnis, which would spread to neighboring countries. I don't think his about-face in 2003 reflected his view that anything had changed -- I think he intentionally lied because he wanted Iraq's infrastructure destroyed, and sectarian violence to emerge, to destabilize the region for another agenda. And that would be for US companies to control Iraqi, and potentially Iranian, oil, and own at least a portion of it. (Note the PSAs in the oil agreement the Bush team is trying to railroad through the Iraqi gov't, which would give control and partial ownership of Iraqi oil to US companies.)

This theory explains two other major screw-ups that made no sense. First, we allowed every weapons depot and cache throughout Iraq to be looted. Iraqis and some US people in Iraq pleaded with US officials in specific cases to post guards on specific sites, but those pleas were ignored. Second, despite consensus by US officials in Iraq, and against the common sense of just about everyone, Bremer secretly decides to dismantle the Iraqi army, leaving half a million soldiers unemployed.

We have unemployed, angry soldiers and a plethora of weapons floating around -- a recipe for civil war (and the insurgency). We also have billions of dollars in reconstruction aid allocated but not spent, for reasons we don't know. Between unfettered looting of banks, libraries, museums, schools and businesses, and the lack of reconstruction to provide electricity, water and sewage treatment, we have a lot of angry Iraqis.

I believe the plan has been all along to create chaos and destabilization, calculated to increase the chances of forcing these PSAs on the Iraqis. We knew there were no WMDs -- it was a pretext.

Phase II of this plan -- according to my theory -- is to have the violence spread to Iran, so we could move in, ensure its infrastructure would collapse, and take control of and partial ownership of Iranian oil. I believe the Bush-Cheney plan was to repeat Vietnam in their quest for oil.

I suspect the British support for the Iraq War was a quid pro quo for including BP or other UK oil companies in the deal, just like the CIA and MI-5 collaborated in the coup d'etat in Iran in the early 50s to oust a democratically elected President who ran on a platform of nationalizing its oil, and terminating lucrative deals that US and British oil companies had in Iran. The coup was successful, and the Shah of Iran returned to power, continuing his despotic reign.

If this is true, the American public won't accept or acknowledge it. As Hitler said, the masses are far more likely to believe a big lie than a small one.

Originally posted by inconspicuous
Why would Blackwater USA, which has received billions of dollars in lucrative no-bid contacts from the US gov't, operate a weapons smuggling operation in Iraq? The profits are negligible compared to its contract fees.

Easy, they're getting those no-bid contracts to do exactly this kind of stuff. Who really knows where the profits are going? I'm sure Blackwater is runnin' guns in Iraq and runnin' poppies in Afghanistan.

Peace

If anything, they need to make the people that are in the CIA, FBI, etc. sign non-compete agreements, if you will, so they don't just up and quit to go to work for some private company with fresh national intelligence information in their hands, or in their heads.

If you think about it, they most likely have highly classified information that they are taking with them to these companies...information that, if it were disseminated publicly, would land one in prison...yet they are using it to their advantage.

reply to post by elderban


Good point and they can get away with the whistle blowers at will, plus the Blackwater ranks are not all American soldiers they also hire foreign personnel that not necessarily have any sense of American patriotism at all.

Originally posted by inconspicuous
Why would Blackwater USA, which has received billions of dollars in lucrative no-bid contacts from the US gov't, operate a weapons smuggling operation in Iraq? The profits are negligible compared to its contract fees.

Also, how could they do it without being detected by US intelligence? Former intelligence officials work for Blackwater, and there is obviously collaboration between Blackwater and intelligence agencies.

Because A: They can continue to receive billions of dollars by doing so.

and B: It would be possible if blackwater was on the political payrole - which may attribute to the establishment's silence over the issue.

Blackwater wouldn't hire some one from like isreal.. only US, UK, and a select few others... every Blackwater opp has to pass a 10 year FBI background check for a TS clearance which means you have to now be a US Citizen. so who ever is working for Blackwater is Patriotic.

Originally posted by Danman
so who ever is working for Blackwater is Patriotic.

This is clearly untrue.

At least under the conventional definition of "Patriotic".
I guess under the Neo-con understand of the word (owe all allegiance to the almighty dollar), one could make that statement...

reply to post by marg6043


With the loss of over 160,00 individual weapons in iraq by the US military,
I would say Blackwater is runniung a poor second in regard to treasonous arms dealing.....
Plus the army now funds and arms the Sunni insurgents in hopes theyll take on al Queda...
Seems the whole thing is shot with corruption....
bergle

Anyone know what happened with this?

I had forgotten about this thread, so when I found it, I did some searches and came up with nothing.

DocMoreau