Colombia: Blackwater busted for "unauthorized" military training

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia: Blackwater busted for "unauthorized" military training

Submitted by WW4 Report on Mon, 08/30/2010 - 00:17. Private security firm Blackwater violated US arms trafficking regulations when training Colombian military personnel in 2005, a State Department report indicates. The controversial firm, renamed Xe Services LLC in 2009, is to pay $42 million for violating US law, including the unauthorized military training of Colombian soldiers—evidently for private service in Iraq and Afghanistan—in April and May 2005.

On Aug. 18, Xe Services entered into a civil settlement with the Department of State for alleged violations of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). The Department notes that "many of the alleged ITAR violations occurred while Xe was providing services in support of US Government programs and military operations abroad between 2003 and 2009."

Most of the 228 violations covered in the $24 million settlement concern on the company's business dealings in Iraq and Afghanistan, but within a 41-page document on the State Department's findings in the case are claims that Blackwater provided at least one unauthorized military training in Colombia in 2005. According to the findings, Blackwater provided "military training to foreign persons from Colombia" before "obtaining required authorizations" through the State Department.

The company failed to obtain a DSP-5 license, which specifies key details about trainings that are to be conducted abroad, the findings say. This fact was not confirmed by the State Department until the agency sent out "disclosure requests" to Blackwater in October 2008, according to the State Department document.

More:
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9000

[Judi Lynn]

1. Blackwater illegally trained Colombian military .

Blackwater illegally trained Colombian military .
Thursday, 26 August 2010 11:35 Adriaan Alsema

Private military firm Blackwater violated U.S. arms trafficking regulations when training the Colombian military in 2005, a leaked State Department report shows.

The controversial firm, renamed Xe Services LLC in 2009, was fined $42 million for violating US export and arms traffic laws on 228 occasions, mostly related to military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One of the violations committed by Blackwater was the unauthorized military training of Colombian soldiers in April and May 2005. According to the report, the unauthorized training of foreign military is a violation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations that control the export and import of defense-related articles and services.

Blackwater was renamed after receiving fierce criticism for the use of excessive force in Iraq. The company is now for sale.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/11530-blackwater-violated-us-regulations-in-colombia.html

[Judi Lynn]

2. The assassins next door: Blackwater in Colombia

The assassins next door: Blackwater in Colombia
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 22:52

By Eva Golinger

The disclosure in Ecuador about the role of Washington in the illegal invasion of Ecuadorean territory on March 1, 2008, comes as no surprise. From the start there had been suspicions about the participation of U.S. servicemen and intelligence agents, then deployed at the Manta military base, in the operation that wiped out a FARC camp.

Now, an official report issued by Ecuador confirms this fact. It also reaffirms that wherever there are military bases utilized by the United States there will be military action directed from Washington – regardless of the rules, laws and standards of the host country.

The controversial military accord between Colombia and the United States, signed on Oct. 30, represents the largest military expansion conducted by Washington in Latin America in all of history. The accord permits the presence of private contractors who can supply the needs of Washington agencies on Colombian territory while enjoying the same immunity granted to U.S. functionaries and servicemen.

This is not new. As part of Plan Colombia, for the past 10 years Washington has used more than 30 contracting firms to carry out military, intelligence and espionage tasks in Colombia. Some of the contractors are the most powerful companies in the military-industrial complex, such as DynCorp, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, the Rendon Group, and Raytheon.

According to the new military accord, the number of contractors – or war mercenaries – will increase. The privatization of war and the use of private enterprises to carry out security, defense and intelligence acts is Washington's modus operandi today. The most controversial company, without a doubt, is Blackwater, now known as Xe Services.

~snip~

Now this company – a front for the CIA and the Pentagon – is operating freely in Colombia. In the United States, dozens of lawsuits and legal cases have been filed against Blackwater for breaking laws, committing arbitrary assassinations and violating human rights. However, the government of Álvaro Uribe has opened the door to the presence of this dangerous enterprise in South America, an act that constitutes a major threat to the region's peace and security.

More:
http://progreso-weekly.com/2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1362:the-assassins-next-door-blackwater-in-colombia&catid=40:lastest-news&Itemid=59

[bherrera]

3. Blackwater merceanries are evil-doers

Those Blackwater mercenaries have a terrible reputation. but this Eva Golinger is evidently paid by President Chavez' propaganda machine. She has very little credibility because she defends those corrupt politicians in Caracas. I don't like her.

[Peace Patriot]

4. You "don't like her," dear, because she speaks the truth and evidently you have an interest in

spreading the anti-truth from the upside down, inside out, backwards "Alice in Wonderland" world of USAID-funded rightwing groups in Venezuela.

[bherrera]

6. I don't like her because she does propaganda

Most of the content of material written by Eva Golinger is false. She reminds me of Herr Goebbels. I see many comments about the terrible shape of the Venezuelan economy, the crime rate, the rotten food, and the corruption. Do you really think these are comments fomented by USAID-funded right wing groups from Venezuela? The truth is this regime in Venezuela, which is defended by this Golinger, is a failure, and gives socialism a bad reputation.

[Peace Patriot]

7. I have no reason to believe the assertions of a rightwinger who has compared Hugo Chavez to

Adolph Hitler and now compares Evo Golinger to Goebbels. Your assertions are not just absurd and laughable, they are ugly and slanderous in the extreme. And your opinions about Venezuela and the Chavez government--and about anything else, for that matter--are consequently worthless.

But you do provide an excellent example of what rightwing "know-nothingism" is--the denial of reality. Denial of reality makes it possible for you to believe--or apparently to believe--and to state, the opposite of the truth. The truth in this case is demonstrable with facts. Chavez is a very popular president--has enjoyed the public's approval in the 60% range throughout his tenure in office. He has been elected and re-elected, by big majorities, in honest, transparent, internationally certified elections. Venezuelan voters furthermore recently approved his running for a third term. His popularity is genuine and is based on significant achievements--including Venezuela's stunning economic growth between 2003 and 2008, leaving Venezuela with low debt, good credit, high cash reserves, low unemployment and other positive indicators with which the cushion Venezuela from the U.S./Bushwhack-induced worldwide depression; the halving of poverty, and the cutting of extreme poverty by 70%; the establishment of universal free medical care; the establishment free college educations for the poor, and other increases in access to education, and so on. These achievements are real and are recognized by outside and international entities, such as the UN and the Millennium Project. You deny this reality, and thus you can make the most absurd statements imaginable about Chavez and about investigative reporter Evo Golinger.

As to Golinger: To have a point of view, as an investigative reporter--and Golinger does have a leftist point of view--does not turn her into Goebbels, Hitler's propagandist for "the master race," complicit in all the horrors of Nazi Germany. I can see how she has done considerable damage to the USAID-funded rightwing in Latin America, because she does things like FOIA requests to expose the true purposes, for instance, of the U.S./Colombia military agreement. I can see why you hate her. She deals in facts, from a leftist (anti-war, pro-peace, pro-democracy, pro-social justice) perspective. And the rightwing in Latin America--increasingly here as well--is very attached to war, fascism, inequality, coups, assassination, torture and lying, to achieve their purposes. Someone who adheres to the opposite values--especially someone as smart as Eva Golinger--would be a thorn in the rightwing's side--as would Hugo Chavez, who has achieved power honestly and used his power for the common good.

So your venomous posts serve the useful purpose of our understanding of the rightwing mind--its denial of reality, its denial of plain facts, its contempt for the majority of people (who, for instance, in Venezuela, support the Chavez government), its use of vile lies (like comparing Chavez to Hitler) to force its unreal, non-fact-based opinions on others, and its use of short "hit and run" posts, appealing to low emotions of hatred and bogeyman stereotyping and scapegoating, to try to sabotage thoughtful discussion.

[Peace Patriot]

5. "...military training of Colombian soldiers—evidently for private service in Iraq and Afghanistan"!?

"Private security firm Blackwater violated US arms trafficking regulations when training Colombian military personnel in 2005, a State Department report indicates. The controversial firm, renamed Xe Services LLC in 2009, is to pay $42 million for violating US law, including the unauthorized military training of Colombian soldiers—evidently for private service in Iraq and Afghanistan—in April and May 2005." --from the OP

---

I think we're getting closer to the secrets being covered up about the La Macarena massacre--my guess that the 2,000 bodies found in a mass grave there, of local community activists and other community members, were the victims of U.S. "turkey shoot" practice for Afghanistan (and apparently Iraq). I have already noted the similarities between the Colombian military "pacification" program in the La Macarena region (designed by the Pentagon and the USAID) and the U.S. "pacification" program in Afghanistan. Follow the link "integrated Action framework," here: http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1303.

Now we find out that Blackwater was not just "training" Colombian death squads to kill Colombians, but were "training" them for use in ALLEGEDLY "private" ops in Iran and Afghanistan!

I stress allegedly because I think that this was a U.S. authorized death squad training program. This would explain why Bushwhack ambassador William Brownfield was so anxious to get "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. soldiers and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia IN WRITING before Bushwhack tool Alvaro Uribe left office (was ousted by the CIA, which didn't support his scheme to extend his term?). The U.S./Colombia military agreement signed last year by Brownfield was negotiated and signed in secret--kept secret from the Colombian legislature, the Colombian courts, the Colombian people, all the other leaders of Latin America (who weren't even given a courtesy call when it was finally made public), and, of course, from the American people. The secrecy of these negotiations--and the need for this agreement IN WRITING--raised my alarm bells some time ago, when the promoters of this agreement, in Colombia and Washington, said that the agreement merely ratified "existing arrangements." Why did they need to get this SIGNED by an official personage last year, and WHY all the secrecy? (What took place in those secret negotiations?) Then I learned of the La Macarena massacre, in an area of Colombia of special interest and activity by the U.S. military and the USAID.

This U.S. State Department fining of Blackwater (Xe) in my opinion is a coverup. It is very similar to what AG Eric Holder did, as a private attorney for Chiquita International, when he got Chiquita execs off with a handslap fine, for their admitted hiring of death squads in Colombia who murdered trade unionists on Chiquita farms. (Victims' families sued Chiquita. Holder took it to the Bushwhacks who arranged a fine and made the lawsuit go away.)

I also think that one of CIA Director Leon Panetta's jobs is to cleanse Bush Jr's bloody trail. Panetta was a member of Daddy Bush's "Iraq Study Group"--an entity that I think arranged the ousting of Donald Rumsfeld, back in late 2006, to save Bush Jr's ass from retribution by the CIA (over the outing of its entire WMD counter-proliferation project, which may well have gotten CIA agents/contacts around the world killed). Panetta visited Bogota amidst rumors of a Uribe coup to stay in power. I think he was there assessing potential Bush Junta liability within Colombia and at the Hague, and decided to dump Uribe and clean up the Bushwhacks' bloody, criminally liable mess. The Colombia/U.S. military agreement has now been declared unconstitutional by the Colombia Supreme Court, because it was not discussed and voted on by the legislature. That SIGNED immunity for U.S. soldiers and U.S. military 'contractors' is now in jeopardy. So the U.S. needs to look like it is doing something about Blackwater's activities in Colombia, but, beneath this, may be something yet worse--as I mentioned above--an OFFICIAL U.S. government program to train assassins in Colombia by KILLING INNOCENT COLOMBIANS.

Think about this FINE, is what I'm saying. Think why the U.S. would FINE its private assassination 'contractor' for a bureaucratic violation that, for one thing, puts distance between the State Department and other agencies, including the Pentagon, and the many deaths of innocent people in Colombia (and elsewhere). This bureaucratic violation was more than likely deliberately committed in order to create this "distance." Blackwater has looted U.S. taxpayers of so much money (using that capital to become a huge, private, worldwide "security"/assassination firm) that the fine is likely meaningless to them--a handslap, a drop in the bucket. The real point of the fine is to protect Bush Jr. and brethren from liability.

Evo Golinger mentions the U.S./Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador's territory in March 2008 (which blew away the FARC's hostage negotiator, Raul Reyes, and 24 other sleeping people, and furthermore set up the "miracle laptop" psyops) as a likely Blackwater operation. I'm thinking La Macarena. I don't disagree with Golinger. But I think U.S. involvement is a possibility in both events, and that La Macarena puts U.S. operatives in much more jeopardy, because there was not any kind of excuse, like the FARC guerrilla war, to shoot some 2,000 civilians and dump their bodies into a mass grave, over a period of several years. (La Macarena has more resemblance to a "turkey shoot"--an opportunity to "train" people in cold-blooded killing--than to a military operation.) The Ecuador op had to have involved Dynacorp, at least, and probably the USAF (pilot and plane to drop the ten 500 lb U.S. "smart bombs" on Reyes' camp). Blackwater might have done the raid part, shot fleeing survivors in the back (--Ecuadoran military findings) and grabbed the laptop (later, laptopS) for 'processing.' (The laptopS were then used to slander Venezuela's and Ecuador's presidents with all sorts of wild charges, like helping the FARC to obtain a 'dirty bomb.')

I think there may be one helluva "Pandora's box" in Colombia, that would put people like Bush Jr, Rumsfeld and Cheney (and Brownfield) is serious legal jeopardy in Latin American courts, in Spain's courts, and at the Hague, and would also be extremely damaging to Clinton's efforts to bolster and re-impose "free trade for the rich" upon Latin America (much of which is in serious revolt against U.S. economic domination). And I think that, in this "fine" of Blackwater, we are seeing a tiny tip of an otherwise very hidden "deal" to keep the Bush Junta principles immune from prosecution (and, before they exited, immune from impeachment).