Free Republic

US government officials requested that an American private security firm contact Syrian opposition figures in Turkey to see “how they can help in regime change,” the CEO of one of these firms told Stratfor in a company email obtained by WikiLeaks and Al-Akhbar. James F. Smith, former director of Blackwater, is currently the Chief Executive of SCG International, a private security firm with experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. In what appears to be his first email to Stratfor, Smith stated that his “background is CIA” and his company is comprised of “former DOD [Department of Defense], CIA and former...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Days after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, a federal appeals court ended a lawsuit over an episode that produced one of the more disturbing images of the war: the grisly killings of four Blackwater security contractors and the hanging of a pair of their bodies from a bridge in Fallujah. Families of the victims reached a confidential settlement with the company's corporate successor, Arlington, Va.-based Academi, and the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit last week. The settlement was first reported Friday by The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, Va. The deal ends the...

<p>"Blackwater" was developed by Zombie Studios and overseen by former Navy SEAL and Blackwater founder Erik Prince.</p> <p>More and more, today's video game business is driven by huge military shooters like Activision's "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" and Electronic Arts' "Battlefield 3."</p>

A jury has ruled in favor of the security firm once known as Blackwater and rejected two former employees' claims that the company overbilled the State Department for its work in Iraq and Afghanistan.

SNIPPET: "There are some good reasons for allowing at least a few jihadi forums to operate." SNIPPET: "However, there are limits to our ability to exploit all the intelligence opportunities a forum may present. To put it another way, jihadi forums contribute to future terrorism in ways that are unpredictable and/or beyond our ability to control. This would be the view held by those other government agencies who prefer to seek out and destroy forums and to take down forum activists. For my part, I can live with keeping online those forums we have sufficient access to monitor and resources...

Peshawar, June 1, 2011, Operational base of CIA and Black Water at warsak road Peshawar has been close and Pakistani official gives dead line of one week to the foreigner, whose run the Base for activities. According to sources the base was start three years back with the support of Pakistan government, where they train frontier constabulary and other officer. Source confirms that operational base was start for the search for terrorist groups; monitor the activities of Taliban in region. CIA and Black water run the base and local supporting staffs also work here. According to sources base closing is...

Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, has a new project. ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand. The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million...

From the team that brought you Blackwater and the pre-9/11 counterterrorism program Able Danger comes “Jellyfish Intelligence.” That’s the name a group of former US intelligence officials and executives from the controversial security firm have chosen for a new private outfit that offers “predictive intelligence” for Fortune 500 corporations and senior-level executives and that aims to “protect human lives and their business interests throughout the world. The company blends traditional models of a strategic consulting firm with what it claims is an extensive network of human sources—people who, in an official context, would be called spies. Jellyfish employs a network...

(Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge erred in dismissing all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007, an appeals court ruled on Friday. The unanimous three-judge panel reinstated the charges and sent the case back to the judge for more proceedings, handing a victory to the U.S. Justice Department in a high-profile prosecution dating to 2008. The five guards were charged with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempt to commit manslaughter and one weapons violation count over a Baghdad shooting that outraged Iraqis and strained ties between the two countries.

A retired admiral and short-lived nominee to head the Defense Department has been named the director of the nation's largest and most controversial private security force. Retired Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, 79, who's legendary intelligence career includes serving as the vice director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, director of the National Security Agency, and most recently as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, will lead the board of directors for Xe Services, formerly Blackwater USA. The North Carolina-based firm best known for providing security in Iraq and Afghanistan is trying to reshape its image since being acquired by USTC...

WASHINGTON — Erik Prince, the founder of the international security giant Blackwater Worldwide, is secretly backing an effort by a controversial South African mercenary firm to insert itself into Somalia’s bloody civil war by protecting government leaders, training Somali militias, and battling pirates and Islamic militants there, according to Western and African officials. ... His efforts to wade into the chaos of Somalia appears to be Mr. Prince’s latest endeavor to remain at the center of a campaign against Islamic radicalism in some of the world’s most war-ravaged corners. ... Saracen International has yet to formally announce its plans in...

As American commanders meet this week for the Afghanistan review, Obama is hiring military contractors at a rate that would make Bush blush.

Need some employment advice (vanity)

Afghanistan has banned eight private security firms, including the company formerly known as Blackwater, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai told reporters Sunday. Among the companies whose operations are being dissolved are Xe (formerly known as Blackwater), NCL, FHI, White Eagles and other small companies, spokesman Waheed Omer said. Both international and domestic companies were affected. Weapons and ammunition belonging to these companies has been seized, he said.

Police in Hamburg shut down the notorious al-Quds mosque, renamed the Taiba mosque in 2008, led by German-Syrian national and voluntary imam Mamoun Darkazanli. Darkazanli (a.k.a. Abu Ilyas al-Suri) has been a suspected al-Qaeda operative, primarily as a financier and logistician, in the European Union for close to two decades. Long active in al-Qaeda circles, Darkazanli first surfaced on the radar of Western intelligence agencies when he purportedly helped procure a cargo ship named “Jennifer” for Osama bin Laden as early as 1993 (Hamburger Abendblatt, October 16, 2004). Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA- Federal Criminal Police Office) admitted that it had been...

Susan “Medea” Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-American, pro-terrorist Obama and Jerry Brown-funding group Code Pink, has publicly threatened the wife of Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) founder Erik Prince for having her arrested for trespassing at the Prince family home in McLean, Virginia on Friday.In an article first published Monday at the leftist site Alternet, Benjamin wrote about the incident at the Prince home where she and other Code Pink activists went to protest Erik Prince for recently relocating to Abu Dhabi. Benjamin ends the article with a threat urging Mrs. Prince to drop the charges or face further harassment.Will her...

Medea Benjamin “call(s) for help” before she is arrested for trespassing at the McLean, Va., home of Erik Prince, August 20, 2010. Photo by Code Pink. Terrorist supporter and Code Pink co-founder Susan “Medea” Benjamin was arrested Friday evening at the McLean, Virginia home of Xe Services founder (formerly Blackwater) Erik Prince, according to a press release posted by Code Pink. Prince was not home, having left the United States for Abu Dhabi in the face of mounting legal problems. Inexplicably, Benjamin was let into the house, according to the press release. However, when Benjamin revealed the true nature of...

Terrorist support and Code Pink co-founder Susan "Medea" Benjamin was arrested tonight at the home of Xe founder (formerly Blackwater) Erik Prince, according to a press release posted by Code Pink.Erik Prince was not home, having left the United States for Abu Dhabi. Inexplicably, Benjamin was let in the house according to the press release. When Benjamin revealed the true nature of her visit Mrs. Prince threw her out of the house.CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin and other DC area activists were detained at the home of Blackwater Founder Erik Prince. The group dropped by to deliver a letter urging Prince...

As the last brigade of U.S. combat troops began to leave Iraq Thursday the Obama administration planned to double the number of private security guards it has in the country to fill the void. President Barack Obama had imposed an end-of-the-month deadline for the pullout -- and "The Last Patrol," which included members of the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, crossed the border into Kuwait in the early hours of Thursday local time. Obama called it a milestone in the war, but the widely-publicized exit of the Stryker soldiers Thursday does not entirely end the fighting mission as there are...

Afghan President Hamid Karzai failed to give the American Embassy in Kabul advance notice that he was about to issue an edict ordering private security companies operating in Afghanistan to fold up shop within four months. Two senior U.S. officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, tell Declassified that embassy officials had been talking for months with Karzai about what his government could do to clean up corruption problems involving such contractors, particularly contractors operating in the south of the country, whose important duties include providing security for official and private supply convoys. But the officials say that...

KABUL, Afghanistan – The U.S. military supports the Afghan government's plan to dissolve private security companies and is tightening oversight of its own armed contractors in the interim, an official said Monday. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called repeatedly for banning private security companies, saying they undermine government security forces. Contractors perform duties ranging from guarding supply convoys to personal security details for diplomats and businessmen. A presidential spokesman said last week a deadline to abolish private security contractors was imminent. In his inauguration speech in November, Karzai said he wanted to close down both foreign and domestic security contractors...

They’re still around. Being funded in Afghanistan by the State Department (that would be President Obama’s State Department), as a matter of fact. After private Blackwater contractors opened fire in Iraq and killed 14 civilians in September 2007, Obama jumped on it. He went so far as to say his fixes for Blackwater specifically were the the toughest reforms of any Presidential candidate.

..."abduction [of the] family [of] hero captive Faisal Shehzad accused of trying to blow up New York.."

Secret Blackwater tape might not be all it's hyped up to be about Erik Prince. A few media outlets claim they have a secret audio recording that contains 3,500 words made by Prince. It is a rare item because the Blackwater owner has always tried to ban journalists from his public speeches.Blackwater has dealt with a lot of controversy during the past five years. Erik Prince is the reclusive owner of the special operations company. He rarely gives public speeches and when he does he attempts to ban audio recording and videotaping. One media outlet claims they have obtained an...

In a story you won’t see on MSNBC, for the second time in 2 days, a Navy SEAL was acquitted of charges in the infamous terrorist-with-a-fat-lip case. After a day-long trial, a Navy judge took 2 hours to come back with a verdict of not guilty of dereliction of duty for Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe of Yorktown, Va. No word on what the judge did for the other hour and 58 minutes he spent in chambers after giving the evidence the consideration it deserved. The judge, a model of decorum, managed not to use the words “insane,” “bulls**t,”...

Abed was the mastermind behind the killing, burning and mutilation of four American contractors working for Blackwater USA in Fallujah, Iraq, in March 2004. …

BAGHDAD (AP) — A U.S. military judge on Friday cleared a Navy SEAL of any wrongdoing in the alleged beating of an Iraqi prisoner suspected of masterminding the grisly 2004 killings of four American contractors. The Blackwater contractors' burned bodies were dragged through the streets and two were hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates river in the former insurgent hotbed of Fallujah in an attack that shocked Americans and galvanized U.S. support for the war. After a daylong trial and fewer than two hours considering the evidence, Navy Judge Cmdr. Tierny Carlos found Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe...

<p>Military Justice: The first of three Navy SEALs charged with abusing a captured jihadist has been cleared. Why has this administration taken the word of terrorists and let American heroes twist in the wind?</p> <p>The acquittal of Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas, 29, of Blue Island, Ill., by a six-member U.S. military jury in Baghdad on Thursday is good news and the correct verdict.</p>

RALEIGH, N.C.— The former president of Blackwater Worldwide was charged Friday with using straw purchases to stockpile automatic weapons at the security firm and filing false documents to cover up gifts given to the king of Jordan. Gary Jackson, 52, who left the company last year in a management shake-up, was charged along with four of his former colleagues, according to the federal indictment.

The former president of Blackwater Worldwide and four other former officials at the embattled security firm were indicted Friday on federal weapons charges, partially the result of a raid two years ago by agents that rounded up 22 weapons, including AK-47s. The indictment issued Friday charges Gary Jackson, who left the company last year in a management shakeup, along with four other former workers. The charges against Jackson include a conspiracy to violate firearms laws, false statements and possession of an unregistered firearm.

The former president of the US private security firm, Blackwater Worldwide, and four other former workers have been indicted on federal weapons charges.Gary Jackson, who resigned last year, denies conspiracy to violate firearms laws, making false statements and possession of an unregistered firearm. Also indicted were the former general counsel and executive vice-president. The charges are partially the result of a raid in 2008 by federal agents who seized 22 weapons, including 17 AK-47s. Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services in 2009, two years after its guards were involved in a shooting incident in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqi...

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors are considering filing weapons charges against former top officials of the Blackwater Worldwide private security company on allegations that they illegally stockpiled automatic rifles at its headquarters, The Associated Press has learned.

Military: Two U.S. congressmen take the lead in proclaiming the obvious — that those who attack this country should be punished and not those who risk their lives to defend it. The Navy SEALs are a special breed of patriot and warrior. This highly trained and select group — the best of the best — is a daily participant in the long twilight struggle against the enemies of freedom that President Kennedy warned us about. Kennedy formally created the SEAL (sea, air, land) outfit as an elite force capable of combat operations in any environment. It was a team of...

Florida Congressman and national embarrassment, Alan Grayson made a fortune as a plaintiffs' attorney specializing in whistleblower fraud cases aimed at Iraq war contractors. For example, employees of one contractor Custer Battles, were found guilty of making fraudulent statements and submitting fraudulent invoices on two contracts in 2003 Grayson disclosed his attorney fees and costs for the case exceeded $4 million, and that's just one case. In 2006, a Wall Street Journal reporter described Grayson as "waging a one-man war against contractor fraud in Iraq" and as a "fierce critic of the war in Iraq" whose car was "emblazoned" with...

<p>U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, was evacuated last week from the Central African nation of Niger, where he was stranded during a coup, by a military contractor the outspoken congressman has railed against in the past.</p> <p>Grayson was on a House Committee on Science and Technology tour last Thursday when a military coup closed the airport in Niger and then took over the government, violently entering buildings close to the U.S. Embassy compound where he was staying.</p>

Employees of the CIA-connected private security corporation Blackwater diverted hundreds of weapons, including more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles, from a U.S. weapons bunker in Afghanistan intended to equip Afghan policemen, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee. On at least one occasion, an individual claiming to work for the company evidently signed for a weapons shipment using the name of a “South Park” cartoon character. And Blackwater has yet to return hundreds of the guns to the military. A Blackwater subsidiary known as Paravant that until recently operated in Afghanistan acquired the weapons for its employees’...

February 12, 2010 Blackwater 'Defrauded US By Billing For Prostitute In Kabul' Tim Reid The controversial American security firm Blackwater is facing new allegations of gross misconduct after two former employees said the firm repeatedly defrauded the US Government, including billing it for the use of a Filipina prostitute in Afghanistan. In a federal lawsuit Melan Davis, one of the former employees, accused the security firm of employing the prostitute in Kabul, and billing the Government for her aircraft tickets and monthly salary under the “morale welfare recreation” expenses category. The lawsuit also accuses the firm, which has since been...

RALEIGH, N.C.- Two former Blackwater Worldwide employees say in a federal lawsuit that the security company repeatedly billed the U.S. government for excessive or inappropriate expenses. Brad and Melan Davis, a married couple, claim Blackwater officials deceived the government by double-billing for travel costs and creating false invoices.

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "An Iranian-backed Shia terror group that claims it seeks reconciliation with the Iraqi government has kidnapped a US civilian in Baghdad. The US recently released the top leader of the group under the guise of a reconciliation program, but the release actually was related to a hostage exchange. The Asaib al Haq, or the League of the Righteous, kidnapped Issa T. Salomi, a US civilian contractor, in Baghdad in late January. Salomi went missing in Baghdad sometime after Jan. 23, the US Department of Defense noted in a press release on Friday. The League of the...

On January 22, Vice President Joe Biden told the president of Iraq that the United States would appeal the dismissal of the case against the Blackwater guards. The VP also apologized personally for their misconduct. The case had political overtones from the beginning, and now it's getting worse.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department is investigating whether security contractor Blackwater Worldwide tried to bribe Iraqi officials to allow the company to keep working there after a fatal shooting involving Blackwater guards, according to a person close to the investigation. The investigation in Raleigh, N.C., follows a November report by The New York Times that said executives at the North Carolina-based company authorized about $1 million in payments to Iraqi officials in 2007. Blackwater had been the source of tremendous anti-American sentiment in Iraq following the deadly shooting of 17 Iraqis in a crowded intersection.

Every time I see Joe Biden, I laugh. If there ever was a poster boy for the dangers of cosmetic surgery, it’s him. His eyelift didn’t work any better than his presidential campaign. And every time I seen him, I laugh. Which helps balance the rage and contempt. And there was plenty of that this weekend. In another demonstration of the Obama Administration’s patently anti-American agenda, he threw five U.S. citizens under the Iraqi bus. I’m talking about the Blackwater guards, the men who had charges of manslaughter dropped by a federal judge who are now, Biden proudly announced in...

Once again Obama and Co. are turning the screws on what is supposed to be their own people. It seems that our government will do just about anything to please the Islamic world, but they turn on Blackwater, and sit silently as the Christians in Iraq are being driven out in droves. Whatever happened to taking a stand for your own people?

Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday that the U.S. government would appeal a court decision that dismissed charges against five Blackwater employees stemming from a fatal shooting in Baghdad in 2007. The shooting emerged as a political flashpoint in Iraq, where many saw it as evidence that Americans operated outside of the law. Blackwater, since renamed Xe, later had its license to operate in Iraq pulled. Biden said that he felt ''personal regret'' for the shooting, AP reports. ''A dismissal is not an acquittal,'' he said. The case against the members of the Blackwater convoy, who were charged with manslaughter...

BAGHDAD (AP) -- The U.S. will appeal a court decision dismissing manslaughter charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security contractors involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday. Biden's announcement after a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani shows just how diplomatically sensitive the incident remains nearly three years later.

Buried three paragraphs from the end of the report in today's Washington Post comes what ought to be the lede: Abdulmutallab remains in a Detroit area prison and, after initial debriefings by the FBI, has restricted his cooperation since securing a defense attorney, according to federal officials. It sounds like he was singing when they first got him, and of course we now know that the government already had enough information on him to justify sending a Blackwater hit team after him, but now that the people with all that information are finally in a position to ask the questions...

Is the decision by a U.S. federal court to drop charges against five former guards of the private security firm Blackwater a way for Washington to remind Nouri al-Maliki of the 'absoluteness of U.S. control in Iraq'? That is the thesis of this latest article from Iran's state-controlled Kayhan newspaper. In both the United States and Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says Baghdad will sue private security firm Blackwater, amid a complete furor over an American court decision to drop charges against five Blackwater guards. The men are accused of shooting to death - in the middle of the Iraqi...

Both Cannon, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Drotleff, of Virginia Beach, Va., have said in recent interviews with the AP that they were justified when they opened fire on a threatening vehicle last year. Blackwater, now known as Xe, fired both men after the shooting for failing to comply with the terms of their contract.

The dismissed case against five American security contractors charged with committing manslaughter in Iraq illustrates the complexities of fighting an enemy that chooses to wage war among civilians. Worse, it exposes the equally dirty battles conducted by government agencies against our own warriors when bureaucrats respond to political pressure.

Driven by pressure from the Left, including the editors of the Virginian Pilot – a New York Times wanna be in Tidewater Virginia – the prosecutors of the Blackwater guards set their victims up for prosecution despite evidence that was exculpatory. To get an idea of the kind of editorial pressure that was put on the prosecutors, go to the Virginian Pilot Online website and search for “Blackwater.” The headlines that pop up cover eight pages and virtually demand that this “evil” “private army” and “conservative Republican” organization be stamped out with the utmost prejudice. Blackwater: Inside America's Private Army...