Posted on 10/11/2007 1:55:10 PM PDT by Ancient Drive
A US human rights group says it is suing private security firm Blackwater for unspecified damages for war crimes and wrongfully killing Iraqi civilians.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is acting on behalf of an injured survivor and three families of men killed by Blackwater guards on 16 September.
The Iraqi government said the incident in which 17 people died was unprovoked. Blackwater denies firing without cause.
The case has put a spotlight on private military contractors in Iraq.
BLACKWATER USA FACTS Founded in 1997 by a former US Navy Seal Headquarters in North Carolina One of at least 28 private security companies in Iraq Employs 744 US citizens, 231 third-country nationals, and 12 Iraqis to protect US state department in Iraq Provided protection for former CPA head Paul Bremer Four employees killed by mob in Falluja in March 2004
What happened Profile: Blackwater USA The action claims Blackwater "created and fostered a culture of lawlessness amongst its employees, encouraging them to act in the company's financial interests at the expense of innocent human life," the centre said in a statement.
It has been f
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
I would think these traitorous scum would have to use the iraqi courts. Those alleged victims don’t have any right, nor does this group, to use our court system paid for by the tax payer to explore fishing derbys.
MARCH 31, 2004 : (FALLUJAH, IRAQ : BLACKWATER CONTRACTORS ARE AMBUSHED, KILLED AND THEIR BODIES DESECRATED; ELSEWHERE A BOMB KILLS 5 US SOLDIERS ) Four American civilians working as security contractors were ambushed and killed in Fallujah last Wednesday [March 31, 2004]. Their bodies were burned, mutilated and dragged through the streets; two were hanged from a bridge. In a separate attack the same day, five U.S. soldiers died when a bomb exploded under their armored vehicle near Fallujah.---- "Fallujah leaders set defiant tone ," By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY , Posted 4/4/2004
CCR ping
1990 : (ABDUL RAHMAN ALAMOUDI FOUNDS THE AMC-— See NCPPF) The AMC (American Muslim Council) was founded in 1990 by Abdurahman Alamoudi, a veteran operative for Saudi-backed political-action organizations, including the SAAR Foundation, which was raided by federal agents for alleged terrorist financing.
According to national-security specialists, the AMC has a long and consistent history in the United States of promoting terrorist causes or linked groups – many of which are unrelated to Islam or to the Arab-Israeli conflict. An early president of the executive board of the AMC was Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, who was twice on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. As a 1960s radical, Brown threatened to assassinate Lady Bird Johnson when she was first lady of the United States. He now is serving a life sentence in a Georgia prison for the 2000 murder of Fulton County Sheriff’s Deputy Ricky Kinchen. -”Undermining war on terror : Muslim groups weakening fed laws under guise of protecting civil liberties,” World Net Daily, March 10, 2003
********
Sami al-Arian & Abdurahman al-Amoudi : [Sami] Al-Arian is also chairman of the National Coalition for the Protection of Political Freedom (NCPPF), a legal-aid group based in New York for U.S. and foreign terrorist causes (see “Domestic Front in the War on Terror,” December 17, 2001). [Abdurahman] Alamoudi’s AMC is a leading member of the NCPPF.
— “Supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah File Suit Against Bush,” by Michael Waller, Insight on the News, July 17, 2002
23 posted on 11/01/2004 9:52:04 PM PST by piasa
1991 : (ABDURAHMAN ALAMOUDI CREATES AMAF-VAC- See MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD) [Abdurahman ] Alamoudi created the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council (AMAFVAC). Its purpose: to “certify Muslim chaplains hired by the military.” Qaseem Uqdah, a former AMC official and ex-Marine gunnery sergeant, headed AMAFVAC. ———Statement of J. Michael Waller , Annenberg Professor of International Communication , Institute of World Politics , Before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, Senate Committee on the Judiciary , 14 October 2003 , via FR thread “TERRORIST RECRUITMENT AND INFILTRATION IN THE UNITED STATES: PRISONS AND MILITARY AS AN OPERATIONAL BASE. “
MARCH 1991 : (EXEC DIRECTOR OF THE US ARMED FORCES BOARD OF CHAPLAINS MEETS WITH DELEGATION FROM THE AMC - ABDURAHMAN ALAMOUDI URGED THE US MILITARY TO CREATE AN ISLAMIC CHAPLAINCY CORPS) In March 1991, Colonel Meredith Stanley, Executive Director of the US Armed Forces Board of Chaplains, met with a delegation from the American Muslim Council. The meeting was arranged to allow the AMC to air concerns of US soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia. At the meeting, AMC founder Abdurahman Alamoudi— a reputed Muslim Brotherhood member who held a Yemeni passport, and who would not (fraudulently, according to prosecutors) become a US citizen until 1996— urged the US military to create an Islamic Chaplaincy corps in response to the rapidly increasing numbers of Muslims in the US military ranks.
The surge in American Muslim soldiers to which Alamoudi was referring occurred during the first Gulf War, and came largely at the hands of radical Wahhabi agents operating at US army bases in Saudi Arabia with the permission of US Military officers. In an interview with the Saudi-owned London weekly al-Majallah, Canadian Communist-turned-Wahhabi Bilal Philips revealed that he was employed by the Saudi military and put in charge of setting up a “Saudi Camp for Cultural Information” at the US army barracks in Al-Khubar, Saudi Arabia and at least two other US camps. Philips claims that in the five months after Iraqi forces withdrew from Kuwait, his operatives converted 3000 American soldiers to Islam, and that “a considerable number of US officers and men asked us to deliver such lectures...the US Army welcomed our work.” Demonstrating the typical Wahhabi worldview, Philips told al-Majallah that, “Western culture, led by the United States, is the enemy of Islam.”
-——— “Pentagon Madrassas,” By Evan McCormick, FrontPageMagazine.com, December 2, 2003, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11063
1993 : (ABDULRAHMAN ALAMOUDI’S AMC SPINS OFF THE AMAF&VAC, AND ALSO THE NIPF - THE EFFORT TO INSTALL RADICAL MUSLIM CHAPLAINS INSIDE THE US ARMED FORCES AND THE US PRISON SYSTEM BEGINS - See MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD) Journalist Mary Jacoby, who reports on domestic Islamist networks for the [liberal rag] St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, tells Insight that Alamoudi spearheaded efforts to install radical Muslim chaplains inside the U.S. Armed Forces and the prison system. In 1993, through his American Muslim Council (AMC), he spun off the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, one of three Islamic organizations to certify chaplains for the military. That same year, according to a pro-Alamoudi briefing published by aljazeerah.info, “AMC supported the launching of ... the National Islamic Prison Foundation.” The purpose, counterterrorism experts say, was to take over Islamic chaplain programs and install more militant Muslims to indoctrinate inmates inside the U.S. prison system and network them after their release back into society. Sources close to the federal investigations tell Insight that more arrests are expected. ———— “Alamoudi Received Cash From Libyan ‘Jihad Fund’,” J. Michael Waller , Insight Magazine, Oct. 13, 2003
1993 : (WTC BOMBING INVESTIGATION - ALAMOUDI SUSPECTED OF FUNNELING CASH FROM BIN LADEN TO THE “BLIND SHEIKH” OMAR ABDEL RAHMAN)
The American Muslim leader charged with smuggling $340,000 out of Libya was suspected of funneling cash from Osama bin Laden to blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman in the failed 1993 attempt to blow up New York City landmarks, The Post has learned. ——— EXCLUSIVE-$MUGGLER LINKED TO BIN LADEN
Vanity: Bin Laden Money Helped Pay for Anti-War Marches, Cynthia McKinney, Hillary Clinton Campaigns
9 posted on 10/29/2003 2:56:48 AM PST by seamole
FEBRUARY 8, 1996 : (HILLARY CLINTON WRITES A NEWSPAPER COLUMN BASED ON TALKING POINTS PROVIDED BY ABDULRAHMAN ALAMOUDI) “On February 8, 1996, Mrs. Clinton wrote a newspaper column based on talking points provided by Alamoudi.” — Mr. Emerson, 1996 Wall Street Journal op-ed
We’ve been using mercs & privateers since this country was started.
The British did the same even at the height of the British empire. Believe me, it does not give anyone the impression that you’re weak.
JULY 2002 : (SAMI AL ARIAN IS CHAIRMAN OF THE NY-BASED NCPPF aka NATIONAL COALITION TO PROTECT POLITICAL FREEDOM; ABDURAHMAN AL-AMOUDI’S AMC aka AMERICAN MUSLIM COUNCIL IS A LEADING MEMBER OF THE NCPPF) [Sami] Al-Arian is [as of July 2002] also chairman of the National Coalition for the Protection of Political Freedom (NCPPF), a legal-aid group based in New York for U.S. and foreign terrorist causes (see “Domestic Front in the War on Terror,” December 17, 2001). Alamoudi’s AMC is a leading member of the NCPPF.
— “Supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah File Suit Against Bush,” by Michael Waller, Insight on the News, July 17, 2002
* NCPPF : IFCO does not limit its activity to pro-Castro factions, though. Its management maintains relationships with extremist Islamist groups as well. [IFCO’s Exec Director Lucius] Walker travels frequently to Iraq, usually alongside Ramsey Clark. IFCO is a member of ANSWER Steering Committee.) Bernstein is a member of the American Muslim Council’s campaign against the use of secret evidence. [co-organizer of WILPF’s Sister-to-Sister Cuba project Marilyn]Clement met with Palestinians during a WILPF “solidarity” conference in May 2002. IFCO is also a fiscal sponsor of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF). The co-founder of NCPPF was the recently indicted terrorist financier Sami Al-Arian. ——— “Not In Our Name and the World Wide Terrorism Web: The “Peace” Movement’s Trojan Horse.,” By Michael Tremoglie, FrontPageMagazine.com, Wednesday, March 19, 2003
[Times, tells Insight that Alamoudi spearheaded efforts to install radical Muslim chaplains inside the U.S. Armed Forces and the prison system]
Lovely.
Ping
Thanks for the links folks. Much appreciated.
As I understand it, the Iraqi gov’t is very corrupt, so I should not be suprised when a member of that gov’t is picked up in an AQ meeting.
The Flying Tigers are considered by some to be a mercenary force- they were paid per kill though the manner of payment was hazy. They were paid per month too though it's hard to be sure if it was nationalist China doing the paying or if it was simply through China they were being paid. What they were doing was in China's interest, it's true, but also in ours. Were they Chinese-employed American mercs or American agents working in China, or both? Hard to say, but either way they were led by a guy who wasn't in it for money.
Unlike the coldhearted merc image though there was no chance these same guys would have been available for the Japanese to hire, just as there's no chance today that Blackwater is going to seek employment from Zawahiri or Tehran if they lose their job with us. Hardly what we could call mercenary.
I should add that American citizens engaged in privateering from earlier eras don't fit the def of mercenaries, either, because they are not foreign disinterested parties willing to fight for anyone willing to pay. I shouldn't have lumped them in with mercs.
Blackwater is not a mercenary organization, any more than were the seabees of WW2, who were early on skilled civilians in the construction industry, etc, hastily "made official military" on paper when hostilities broke out so they could bear arms in a legit way under the rules of war and not be shot as "unlawful" combatants. Of course they became genuine trained though often "overaged, less than fit" military -over some objections from existing military officials - because it was a necessity. We had to have their skills.
Like Blackwater, the modern US Navy, Coast Guard, Army, Air Force, Peace Corps, diplomats, congressmen, etc, are paid volunteers fighting in their respective ways for their country - or are at least expected to do so. Blackwater employees are US citizens, not armed foreigners with no dog in the fight other than an interest in a paycheck for each engagement. Blackwater won't work for al Qaeda or Iran or Syria or N Korea or just for any highest bidder... never against us.
I wish I could say that about our liberal politicians and the UN officials who were bought off by Saddam Hussein and paid to lobby for the interests of Baathist Iraq.
If we are truly concerned about looking weak to our enemies we should turn our attention to the pathetic collection of Congressional surrender-monkies and appeasement-whores who practice their crude, pandering rogue diplomacy abroad. Lastly, at no point did I say or imply we are the British.
As I recall at least one of the Alamoudi planted clerics was working in the NY prison system and was arrested.
Like Blackwater? Is Blackwater held accountable by the UCMJ?
Big difference.
Exactly — they’re suing guys who have absolutely no problem putting a bullet between anyone’s eyes, and several more if that person actually deserved it.
[Blackwater] Employs 744 US citizens, 231 third-country nationals, and 12 Iraqis to protect US state department in Iraq
You think any of those 231 third-country nationals are involved in security missions in country? I'm guessing yes.
Unlike nearly everyone else who enters the Green Zone, said an American soldier who guards a gate, Blackwater gunmen refuse to stop and clear their weapons of live ammunition once inside. One military contractor, who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution in his industry, recounted the story of a Blackwater operative who answered a Marine officer's order to put his pistol on safety when entering a base post office by saying, "This is my safety," and wiggling his trigger finger in the air. "Their attitude was, 'We're f---ing security; we don't have to answer to anybody'."
--Source
Aren’t the majority of BW ppl with military background?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.