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"The administration then awarded Blackwater (which is now called Academi) a $250 million contract to perform unspecified services for the CIA." Your tax dollars at work.
I thought they had changed their name to Xe services. What sort of name is Academi for a private mercenary company?
"The administration then awarded Blackwater (which is now called Academi) a $250 million contract to perform unspecified services for the CIA." Your tax dollars at work.
I thought they had changed their name to Xe services. What sort of name is Academi for a private mercenary company?
Well, to be fair, every government uses or at least has plans for these kind of tactics. KGB/FSB, Mossad, MI6, DGSE, otehr variations of a DSS agency - you've got to be very naive to believe they don't conduct covert operations and planned assassinations themselves or through third parties. It's only shocking when it comes to light (or maybe because it comes to light, when it shouldn't?)...
One particular way in which this is different, is that the CIA can't go out and decide that it (as an organization) wants to freelance for other nations or organizations.
Blackwater, once set up as a paramilitary organization who specializes in covert assassinations... who's to say they're not moonlighting for Zetas or the Russian mob? What's the ethical block stopping them? They're already secretly killing people for money.
Having NGOs conduct killing on behalf of the government is a tried-and-true method of counterinsurgence (South American paramilitary death squads for example). The plausible deniability introduced by working through a proxy allows the government to conduct more politically risky operations (including false flag attacks if public support is waning). Criticizing the government becomes riskier. And, if not held in check…
"The administration then awarded Blackwater (which is now called Academi) a $250 million contract to perform unspecified services for the CIA." Your tax dollars at work.
How's that for your tax dollars at work?
The book on Blackwater written by the journalist Jeremy Scahill has a lot of interesting background on Prado. Also, "American Desperado" ( great book , also by Evan Wright) talks about some of Prado's interesting involvement in drug importation into Florida in the 1980s. Sounds like an interesting guy, but probably not someone you want to meet in a dark alley. Edit: The Scahill book is http://www.amazon.com/Blackwate…
That's an interesting expression. What kind of people would you LIKE to meet in a dark alley?
Well, to be fair, every government uses or at least has plans for these kind of tactics. KGB/FSB, Mossad, MI6, DGSE, otehr variations of a DSS agency - you've got to be very naive to believe they don't conduct covert operations and planned assassinations themselves or through third parties. It's only shocking when it comes to light (or maybe because it comes to light, when it shouldn't?)...
The point is that when you move from dirty intelligence work to hiring mercenaries to perform large scale purges and intentionally make them unaccountable in order to shield yourself from war crime prosecution ... that's a level normally reserved for totalitarian states or exceptionally corrupt states.
Since the 70's and 80's these types of organizations have normally been called "death squads", most people have heard that term in connection to the violence in central and south america during that time.
You would have to be exceptionally cynical about the state of US democracy to not be a little shocked by the scale of this.
There's a paragraph about the "terrifying background", in absolutely no detail whatsoever.
This sort of thing has become a subgenre of its own, one where the documentation almost always falls well short of the promise.
People should think about what the cries of "Wolf!" are doing to our ability to spot truly documented and disturbing problems.
The book on Blackwater written by the journalist Jeremy Scahill has a lot of interesting background on Prado. Also, "American Desperado" ( great book , also by Evan Wright) talks about some of Prado's interesting involvement in drug importation into Florida in the 1980s. Sounds like an interesting guy, but probably not someone you want to meet in a dark alley. Edit: The Scahill book is http://www.amazon.com/Blackwate…
That's an interesting expression. What kind of people would you LIKE to meet in a dark alley?