U.S. Commandos' New Landlord in Afghanistan: Blackwater

U.S. Commandos' New Landlord in Afghanistan: Blackwater

www.wired.com

U.S. Special Operations Forces have a brand new home in Afghanistan. It’s owned and operated by the security company formerly known as Blackwater, thanks to a no-bid deal worth $22 million.

You might think that Blackwater, now called Academi, was banished into some bureaucratic exile after its operatives in Afghanistan stole guns from U.S. weapons depots and killed Afghan civilians. Wrong.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Blackwater - move HQ to Dubai, rename to XE.... now renamed to Academi... which sounds like a school.... go figure.

But let's not be distracted by the scenery....

We have a way of organizing our military... special operations commandos are consigned to quickly deploy-able, lethal force delivering tactical units... usually assigned with tasks that regular forces are operationally restricted from since an enemy could deduce preparations for military action in a permanently positioned force.

But now there are so many of these soldiers in one place.. they can't fit in a single place without sticking out like a sore thumb..... and the "no bid" contract for their 'services' is the icing on the cake.

What does this say about the situation in Afghanistan? .... you decide.

www.wired.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

The war machine is unstoppable until the people who participate in it decide they won't anymore.Sad thing is, most people are incapable of leading themselves so they look for someone to follow.

Absolutely shocking, I once watched a video of these mercenaries running through Iraq armed to the teeth running over women and kids in their convoys. Psychos with too many weapons and no conscience and I feel pretty bad for the people of Afghanistan.

reply to post by Maxmars

Imagine my shock! Not.

Camp Integrity.
With a name like that one would wonder if indeed this isn't where they do all the dirtiest business including interrogation.
Of course it's no-bid; that's the Cheney-Rumsfeld privatization of war philosophy in action. It's also how our military has been transformed in to the corporate protectorate they currently are.
Notice that a large part of their work their is counter-narcotics trafficking, i.e. whacking the upcoming druglords and protecting the ones we run our network with.
Same old same old, the public has no clue they just get to pay for it.

reply to post by Zcustosmorum


No matter how repugnant we may think (or know) these private-industry soldiers have behaved. We must recognize that there is a certain element of 'propaganda' at play here.

Needless to say, there is little doubt about the history of these mercenary units. I can't help but remember when it started - and how the DHS made them a high-profit operation.

But now my friends and TRUE representatives of the American people, our uniformed soldiers, are shacking up with the very people who are virtually guaranteed to inspire at least one anti-American hate crime (the magnitude of which we won't know, until after it's too late.)

The highly placed, and the hereditary weailthy are milking the whole damn goverment with these bull# no bid contracts...that will invariably lead to large payoffs and kickbacks.....
The whole American way of life is threatened by these no bid ripoffs yet the goverment persists.....
Time for a BIG change

reply to post by Maxmars


Nothing but killers for hired and because of secrecy most of their deeds are sugar coated and hidden behind bureaucracy.

Then people complain why the "Terrorist" wants to kill our soldiers, well to the people in Afghanistan they see all the foreigners as one and the same.

reply to post by Maxmars


Backwater has its tentacles in every facet of military operations. I don't trust them and when its time for me to go in country I have to worry over whether they did their job correctly or if my bird is gonna fall out of the sky.

I can't imagine how some of the infantry and SF guys feel about them.

reply to post by projectvxn


My husband told me the last time he was in country about some of their actions. I remember him telling me one of their men actually hit one of the Afghan mechanics with the butt of his rifle for absolutely nothing. Poor phil just said "What the hell are you doing", the man literally just shrugged and walked away.

And people wonder why the Afghans want to kill us.

Interesting. Afghanistan once housed training camps for islamic mercenaries, now it houses training camps for western mercenaries. I wonder what they're training for?

Edit: Ah:

Unsure how your private security firm makes money as the U.S. war in Afghanistan winds down? One option: Go into the drug trade — more specifically, the lucrative business of fighting narcotics. The State Department needs a business partner to keep its fleet of drug-hunting helicopters and planes flying worldwide. You could make up to $10 billion-with-a-B.

U.S. Ready to Offer Mercenaries $10 Billion for a Drug-War Air Force

Looking over the comments.
Seeing a lot of blame game going on.
A lot of bucket seat mid-week quarterbacking of last weekends games, so to speak.

If you dare, ponder what is active in keeping world balance in the world of Mankind (humanity)

Now a question for you bandwagon jumpers. Were the Union soldiers at Wounded Knee BlackWater?
Were the Moors that sacked Europe BlackWater?
Was Genghis Khan and his merry men BlackWater?

My point here is perspective of EVIL. Once a Partisan label is placed on something only Politicians win. They get to keep their Jobs.

I hear a lot of distraction about keeping Church and State separate. What nobody dares to talk about is keeping Business and State Separate. Now there is your Huckleberry!

I dare you in your judgement to defy U.S.GOV. Partisan job security and now Quid Pro Que bureaucracy.

Now back to Judgement of American Commandos....What do you do with an army that is made up of civilian population? Where women and children hide their men behind them. Those that see the convoy coming for miles and miles and offer their lives to stop it by standing in front of it with their body to be a Martyr.

OH! Just don't go there is the answer....ok...dont go and dont go to Syria either. I get you. I gotcha crystal!

What is a Patriot? Remember the Patriot Spirit? The Spirit that also says I wont let you Take my Brothers Life without a FIGHT!

PFFFFT! "Dont send Soldiers.... I dont want to be guilty" Yeah, Right?

reply to post by Maxmars


Just this past June, when I announced my plans to retire from the Corps I met a recruiter from Academi at the O club.

We didnt have a formal talk but I did say something like "I hear stories about some of the insane sign on bonuses you guys offer? He just sipped his beer and said he's seen them go as high as 25k for pilots.

Now that's just to sign on the dotted line--- word is they have big salaries too. If I was a single man I would have been mighty tempted

While my story doesnt fit with yours it just goes to prove they got lots of cash and are willing to pay big bucks for people with experience

reply to post by MajorMayhem


They do have cash to spare. They actually offered my husband 75K a year a few years ago when he thought he might get out.

I understand that we are also using them in parts of Central Africa as well.

They are used by a variety of govt. agencies in a wide variety of ways.

December 3, 2012 – Arlington, Va. – ACADEMI, a leading, privately held training and security solutions provider serving government and commercial customers worldwide, today announced that it has been selected by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to compete for the agency’s Individual Protective Measures Training (IPMT) requirements, valued at up to $20 million over five years.

The purpose of the IPMT program is to prepare DIA civilian employees for deployment outside the United States. The training sought will focus on tactics that will enable survival during dangerous situations as well as general precautions to be taken while deployed, including defensive driving, shooting, soft tactics, convoy operations, and combat medical skills.

ACADEMI is one of only six companies that will compete for the agency’s IPMT task orders through a multiple award indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract agreement. The initial agreement covers one base year, with four one-year renewals possible.

20 bucks says that they get the contract!!!

Interesting part of this contract bid

This is a pre-solicitation request for information from small businesses, under NAICS code 611430, that hold an active SECRET facility clearance. Please provide up to 5 pages regarding ability to deliver pre-deployment training (Individual Protective Measures Training) to a largely civilian student population. DIA is looking for specific information about facilities including driving ranges (off-road included), small arms shooting ranges (pistol and carbine), classroom locations for conducting soft-tactics courses such as facilities observation and reporting, convoy operations including checkpoint scenarios, and combat medical tactics scenarios.

A largely civilian student population. Students? State Dept?

www.fbo.gov...

Inspired by Plato’s Akademia.

Originally posted by Maxmars
reply to post by Zcustosmorum

 

No matter how repugnant we may think (or know) these private-industry soldiers have behaved. We must recognize that there is a certain element of 'propaganda' at play here.

Needless to say, there is little doubt about the history of these mercenary units. I can't help but remember when it started - and how the DHS made them a high-profit operation.

But now my friends and TRUE representatives of the American people, our uniformed soldiers, are shacking up with the very people who are virtually guaranteed to inspire at least one anti-American hate crime (the magnitude of which we won't know, until after it's too late.)

I wouldn't want to "shack up" with blackwater. Pretty sure I remember reading something about blackwater covering up repeated rape perpetrated by their mercenaries.

reply to post by Maxmars


This no bid nonsense started under Clinton, and has become the status quo with companies like KBR and Halliburton.

The arguement that slick willie used was that nobody else could do the job in the time alloted, and Bush and Obama have used the same faulty logic.


If we restructured our military we would have more than enough personel to do what the private contractors are being paid to do.

We aren't going to have any more large scale conventional wars, at least not the way the world is structured now. The only potential foe who could even put up a decent fight is China, and while they have the numbers they do not have the infrastructure to fight a large scale war.

We have more transportation equipment in mothballs than the entire Chinese army has in total. They have one tiny carrier, and it's a diesel. By most estimates it won't be fully operational for a couple more years. They do press junkets to show a pilot taking off and landing, but one plane and pilot are a far cry from an operation carrier wing. So even if they wanted to invade us they couldn't get their troops over here.

Russia isn't a threat either. A large portion of the Russian militaries trucks are still lend lease trucks we gave them during WWII. I've been to Russia few times, and my driver was former military so we had many talks soldier to soldier. Before that I bought into the whole "Russia is a threat" nonsense. And it's just that, nonsense. He was in for 10 years and said that at any given time only about 10% of the equipment was servicable. It was a numbers game so they cranked out buttloads of military gear that was defective. As long as it was lined up neatly for the spy sattelites they didn't care that it was junk.

It's time to start spending our defense budget much more efficiently. That new jet will end up costing a cool trillion dollars when all is said and done. That's almost 7% of the countries total debt.


It's a mess, and Obams is going down the same road the rest of them have.

Oh I see they're not profiting off of drugs, they're profiting off of the war on drugs.

Pentagon’s War on Drugs Goes Mercenary

According to CNTPO, oversight for its contracts are themselves outsourced to an Army Contracting Command outfit in Hunstville, Alabama. CNTPO “provides all contracting support for this effort, with 10 contracting officers/contracting specialists and legal/policy review of all contracts and task orders,” CNTPO’s statement reads, with “program management and customer support requirements” provided by CNTPO itself. That’s 10 bureaucrats to review billions of dollars in private security contracts, spent all over the world. A member of the Wartime Contracting Commission, created by Congress to stop war profiteering, came away from an interaction with CNTPO concerned about that level of oversight.

So tell me, how is it that a commission created by congress to stop war profiteering cares about the level of oversight when the whole deal is war profiteering. Mercenaries do it for the money, they're in it for profit and if mercenaries are being hired then how is that not war profiteering?

Originally posted by antonia
reply to post by MajorMayhem

 

They do have cash to spare. They actually offered my husband 75K a year a few years ago when he thought he might get out.

edit on 5-12-2012 by antonia because: argh

I was offered 75k in 2003 for a 9 month tour in Iraq. And that included a 2 week paid vacation home in the middle with all my transportation cost included.

And I wasn't spec ops or anything fancy, just a combat medic/wardmaster.

A friends son went over last year as an IT guy working on computers in the green zone. He was there for a year and was able to build a new house when he got back.


They obviously have plenty of cash to spare.

I'm glad I have a level headed wife, she flat out refused to stay with me if I went. But for that kind of money it was very tempting. The first year is also U.S. income tax free according to the recruiter that talked to me.