Blackwater Founder Trains Somalis

[LuvNewcastle]

NAIROBI, Kenya – Erik Prince, whose former company Blackwater Worldwide became synonymous with the use of private U.S. security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, has quietly taken on a new role in helping to train troops in lawless Somalia.
Prince is involved in a multimillion-dollar program financed by several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, to mobilize some 2,000 Somali recruits to fight pirates who are terrorizing the African coast, according to a person familiar with the project and an intelligence report seen by The Associated Press.
Prince's name has surfaced in the Somalia conflict amid the debate over how private security forces should be used in some of the world's most dangerous spots. Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, became a symbol in Washington of contractors run amok after a series of incidents, including one in 2007 in which its guards were charged with killing 14 civilians in the Iraqi capital.
A U.S. federal judge later threw out the charges on the grounds that the defendants' constitutional rights were violated. Last year, Iraq's Interior Ministry gave all contractors who had worked with Blackwater at the time of the shooting one week to get out of the country or face arrest for visa violations.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110120/ap_on_re_af/af_somalia_military_force

[social_critic]

1. Wow, they'll get better trained pirates

I worked in the region, my impression is they'll get much better trained pirates in a few years. Somalia is a pretty dangerous place, but the Somalis have been known to be terrible shots because they never sight their weapons. If these turkeys from Blackwater train them to do it, then we're going to have heavily armed Somalis who do know how to shoot running all over the countryside. This is going to get interesting.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. That is the real risk

Great point

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Erick Prince is a War Criminal.

War Criminal of the Week: Erik Prince, the Great Escape Artist

By Nancy Mancias

“I interned with the Bush administration for six months. I saw a lot of things I didn’t agree with — homosexual groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act, those kind of bills. I think the administration has been indifferent to a lot of conservative concerns.” -22-year old Erik Prince told Grand Rapids Press

Former Navy Seal Erik Prince founded Blackwater in 1997 with greedy money he inherited from his father and purchased land in North Carolina to house the company and its training facilities. Blackwater is a private military security firm who is currently the largest of the U.S. State Department’s three private security contractors.

Roughly a year after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the bodies of Blackwater employees were dragged through the streets of Iraq and hung upside down and burnt for the world to see. The horrid images and stories neglected to mention Blackwater’s killing role in the U.S. led occupation of Iraq with the security firm having a heavy involvement in torture and interrogations of Iraqi detainees to combat and covert operations against Iraqi “insurgents” with little to no oversight. In 2007, Blackwater security was involved in the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad.
As the occupation continued, Iraq became infested with rogue military contractors. Eventually the Iraqi government notified the U.S. that it would not renew Blackwater’s license to operate in the country.
Blackwater changed its company name to Xe. Eric Prince resigned as CEO and placed the company and training facility up for sale. Prince, Blackwater and former Blackwater employees have been the center of controversial lawsuits.



http://www.opposingviews.com/i/war-criminal-erik-prince-the-great-escape-artist



A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct. Susan Burke, a private attorney working in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, is suing Blackwater in five separate civil cases filed in the Washington, DC, area. They were recently consolidated before Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia for pretrial motions. Burke filed the August 3 motion in response to Blackwater's motion to dismiss the case. Blackwater asserts that Prince and the company are innocent of any wrongdoing and that they were professionally performing their duties on behalf of their employer, the US State Department.


http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=526983