Colombian mercenaries active in United Arab Emirates: NYT .

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Colombian mercenaries active in United Arab Emirates: NYT
Sunday, 15 May 2011 10:05
Adriaan Alsema

Dozens fo Colombian mercenaries, led by controversial Blackwater founder Erik Prince, have been transferred to the United Arab Emirates to assist the oil-rich state's security forces, the New York Times reported Sunday.

According to the report, the Colombians take part in an 800-men strong, American-led private army

The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents in hands of the paper show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest or were challenged by pro-democracy demonstrations in its crowded labor camps or democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.

Hiring Colombians and others from halfway around the world falls within the policies of not hiring Muslims, who could not be counted to kill fellow Muslims, former employees of Prince's firm said.

Read more: http://www.colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/16267-colombian-mercenaries-active-in-united-arab-emirates-nyt.html

[tabatha]

1. Yep, just like Gaddafi hired outside mercenaries.

All right-wing minded authoritarians think the same.

Prince is a total hypocrite - was he not hired as part of Bush's co-called democratization of Iraq? and now his hired hands would be fighting against it?

[Proletariatprincess]

3. Yes.

And just like the British hired Hussein mercenaries to put down the American revolution....same reason, I suspect.

[coalition_unwilling]

10. I think you mean "Hessian" (from the Hesse principality in pre-Bismarck

Germany). "Hussein mercenaires" were not yet available to King George III, but may have been available to King George (H.W.) pre-1990 :)

[Enrique]

2. how many years before we find out this is a U.S. govt. operation?

I'm guessing 6 yrs. :shrug:

[Uncle Joe]

4. Private for profit mercenaries should be outlawed.

If any government can't defend it self by the will of its' citizens, that government is corrupted and not representative of its' own people.

Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.

[bvar22]

5. Those would be the Right wing death squad Colombians,

...trained at The School of Americas, and financed by YOUR Tax Dollars.
The Right Wing Puppet Government in Colombia is the 3rd LARGEST recipient of US Foreign Aid.

Erik Prince built, trained, and equipped his "private" army courtesy of YOUR Tax Dollars.

As the World Economy declines, the RICH will resort more and more to "private" armies to protect their interests.

[Tiggeroshii]

6. Why is that man not in prison?

[Citizen Worker]

7. Because he's rich and powerful.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Halliburton also absconded to the Emirates, back in '07.

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/dubai.html

Halliburton bails out of Iraq, KBR and now America
12 March 2007
WASHINGTON, March 12 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- “With various ongoing investigations, Halliburton's sale of KBR and the move to UAE are tantamount to fleeing the scene of a crime,” said Jim Donahue, co-director of Halliburton Watch, in response to the company’s announcement today that it will move its headquarters to Dubai, UAE.

(MORE)

[Peace Patriot]

9. Early this yr, the State Dept. fined Blackwater for "unauthorized trainings" of "foreign persons"

...IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan."

I've been wondering about it ever since. It was just a little blip in the 'news.' But I noticed it in the context of the La Macarena mass grave--500 to 2,000 bodies discovered because local kids got sick drinking the water. (The bodies were polluting their water supply.) Graves with dates but no names (2005-2009) in a area of Colombia of active interest to the U.S. military and the USAID (which had designed an Afghanistan-like "pacification" program for the region), and the "false postives" scandal was starting to break as well (U.S. funded Colombian military was murdering innocent people, and dressing their bodies up like FARC guerrillas, to earn bonuses and perks). Also, the context of the secretly negotiated and secretly signed U.S./Colombia military agreement which granted total diplomatic immunity to all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. 'contractors' in Colombia, circa 2009. Though the agreement was subsequently declared unconstitutional by the Colombian supreme court, I wondered why, after a decade in Colombia, the U.S. needed signed "total diplomatic immunity" for whatever the Bushwhacks and their 'contractors had been doing in Colombia.

Could these Colombians now in the U.A.E. with Blackwater's successor be the "foreign persons" that were getting "unauthorized" training in Colombia? I frankly don't believe the word "unauthorized." I think it was possibly a Bush Junta war crime that the Obama administration (H. Clinton) was covering up with this "fine." There is other evidence that Obama/Clinton/Panetta are cleaning Junior's trail in Colombia--for instance, removal of witnesses against Junior's pal, Alvaro Uribe, from Colombia, out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections. This (Prince in his new guise) may be another piece of the jigsaw puzzle--he got his "trainees" out of Colombia and into a country that is not being so scrutinized as Colombia is. (Colombia has a lot of human rights groups looking at it cuz Obama/Clinton and the scumbag, Diebold/ES&S Congress want "free trade for the rich" in Colombia and because Latin America has gone mostly leftist in the meantime, with countries like Argentina and Brazil investigating the crimes of U.S.-supported fascist regimes in prior eras.)

The sheiks of Araby won't have any human rights concerns about Prince's mercenaries, I would guess. They don't need U.S. "free trade for the rich." They have other scams. And there are no leftist countries in the Middle East to embarrass the sheiks. Prince and his mercenaries can engage in whatever "trainings" they want for whatever role they intend to play as private soldiers.