No Blackwater firm in Pakistan, asserts US envoy

[sabra]

Source: GEO TV

ISLAMABAD: The US ambassador in Pakistan Anne W. Patterson Wednesday ruled out the presence of private US security firm Blackwater, adding the US officials and programs in Pakistan are solely aimed at serving people and Government of Pakistan.

According to a statement issued from the US embassy, she said there is no secret operating base in Karachi or anywhere in Pakistan nor are US troops of any command busy with any secret activity in the country.

An article in a US magazine alleging Washington's collusion with Blackwater or any other contracting firm were equally baseless and false, the embassy said.

"US government programs for Pakistan are open and transparent and function in partnership with the government of Pakistan," Ambassador Anne W. Patterson said in the statement.


Read more: http://www.geo.tv/11-25-2009/53613.htm

[EFerrari]

1. Cool, the official denial. nt

[glitch]

7. And from an "envoy" yet.

Jeremy Scahill did a great job explaining the sub-sub contracting hoops they setup to give them the ability to make their official denials kinda sorta "plausible" on Democracy Now yesterday, did you catch it?

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/24/blackwaters_secr...

edit because every time an envoy makes an official denial Warren Zevon smiles.

[EFerrari]

9. Oops -- I just duped your link down thread. Just watched it.

His point that whatever number of troops we send will probably be matched by contractors is also a good one.

[YOY]

2. Is there a Xe presence?

Because there is no more Blackwater...they changed the name to 'Xe'.

[bananas]

11. I was just going to say it was "Whitewash, Inc" a wholly-owned subsidiary of Blackwater

and then I saw your post and remembered they changed their name.

[lib2DaBone]

3. The CIA created Al Queida to fight against the Russians..

CIA money (our tax dollars) built the tunnels in Pakistan that Al Queida are using to ambush American soldiers. BIN LADEN CONSTRUCTION COMPANY was the contractor for the CIA.

Let's see.. connect a few more dots.. Ahmed Karzai (whose brother is on the CIA PAYROLL) is a former Unocal Oil Company employee.

At one time UNOCAL was going to build a pipeline from the Caspian Sea area across Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. Pakistan is right next to what country??? IRAN..... the next place in need of Democracy and nation building.


What am I trying to say? If I had to place a bet on this war being about "Terrorism" or "Oil"... I would have to put my money on oil. Also.. the world's largest Heroin crop may be lurking as a motive for this war.

The War on Terrorism and the War on Drugs.. a perfect match. The MSM will spoon-feed this fairy tale to the American public in the name of Democracy, and no one will even question it.

I could be wrong.. but I see 40,000 more troops on the way to the graveyard of empires.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/27/karzais-brothe...

[EFerrari]

4. We should just send those troops to Virginia. n/t

[bobthedrummer]

5. All the denials of "privatized" black ops are what is truly "baseless and false..."

[EFerrari]

8. This is a link to Scahill's report on Democracy Now! yesterday:

Blackwater’s Secret War in Pakistan: Jeremy Scahill Reveals Private Military Firm Operating in Pakistan Under Covert Assassination and Kidnapping Program

In an explosive new article in The Nation magazine, investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill reveals the private military firm Blackwater is part of a covert program in Pakistan that includes planning the assassination and kidnapping of Taliban and Al-Qaeda suspects. Blackwater is also said to be involved in a previously undisclosed U.S. military drone campaign that has killed scores of people inside Pakistan. The article says the program has become so secretive that top Obama administration and military officials have likely been unaware of its existence. In a Democracy Now! exclusive, Scahill joins us for his first interview since the story broke.



http://i4.democracynow.org/2009/11/24/blackwaters_secre...

[glitch]

10. Jinx! Get out of my brain ( or I'll get out of yours ;). nt

[boppers]

13. Scahill got it about 90% right.

The part he's apparently confused about is what different agencies, different organizations, have historically done. For example, it's not like JSOC is NOT a relatively new or just recently started clandestine work, it was established by Jimmy Carter after the 1980 Operation Eagle Claw fuckup (almost 30 years ago).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSOC

The CIA's SAD/SOG works with JSOC, gets informed by NSA, DIA (etc.), and utilizes military assets, civilian assets, contractors, (etc.) to conduct activities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Activities_Divisio...

Thus, covert activities are only officially authorized to the CIA, *BUT* the CIA can then "farm" (badum-bump) out the work to covert military (drones, assault teams, air drops), private entities (data collection, private security), and so on.

It's not like the CIA is being replaced in covert operations, they're using the other agencies they work with as part of their operations. In theaters like Af-Pak, where it certainly is no "secret" that there's a military operation going on, the agencies work together more often, so a given drone strike may be "clandestine" or simply a support strike for a combat team.

[Downwinder]

6. Join the Campaign to End Blindness

Just a thought, but I don't think it will work in this case.


To: The International Community

Sponsored by: Sight Savers USA

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Many cures for blindness are tragically simple. Trachoma infection causes horrible pain, scarring and eventually blindness… and it affects millions of children around the world. But a simple $8 operation can fix these problems, sparing a child years of infections resulting in a lifetime time in the dark. Cataract surgery, to replace the eye’s cloudy lens and restore sight, costs $28 for an adult, $121 for a child.

We have the power to stop the tragedy of needless blindness by urging the international community to increase assistance for medicine and medical care that can cure or prevent blindness, and by creating opportunities for blind people who can’t be enabled to see.

Join the call now to help put an end to preventable blindness.

http://www.change.org/sightsavers/actions/view/join_the...

[KoKo]

12. Jeremy Scahill Reveals Private Military Firm Operating in Pakistan/Obama May Not Know!

Edited on Wed Nov-25-09 07:05 PM by KoKo
Blackwater’s Secret War in Pakistan: Jeremy Scahill Reveals Private Military Firm Operating in Pakistan Under Covert Assassination and Kidnapping Program
Scahill-web

In an explosive new article in The Nation magazine, investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill reveals the private military firm Blackwater is part of a covert program in Pakistan that includes planning the assassination and kidnapping of Taliban and Al-Qaeda suspects. Blackwater is also said to be involved in a previously undisclosed U.S. military drone campaign that has killed scores of people inside Pakistan. The article says the program has become so secretive that top Obama administration and military officials have likely been unaware of its existence. In a Democracy Now! exclusive, Scahill joins us for his first interview since the story broke.

Much More and a TRANSCRIPT for Dial-Ups, Here:'

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/24/blackwaters_secr ...

[sattahipdeep]

14. Servicing the war in Afghanistan as well.

JEREMY SCAHILL: My sources said when they are working, when Blackwater guys are working for an elite division of the company that is been known as Blackwater Select, that they’re not doing the actual killing in these operations, but rather they are doing the planning of these operations. And Amy, what this really is, is an outgrowth of a trend that we saw very early on in the Bush administration following September 11th, where the Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld circumvented the military chain of command, went directly into JSOC, and essentially separated JSOC from the military and started using JSOC to commit what my source said were some of the “darkest acts.” They also set up a parallel agency to the CIA was called the Strategic Support Branch, the SSB. The SSB called information resources from the CIA and the DIA, but for the first time, took the realm of covert operations out of the exclusive hands of the CIA, and essentially created a parallel, clandestine force that would report directly to Rumsfeld, and directly to Dick Cheney.

And this Blackwater program is an outgrowth of that separating of JSOC from the broader military chain of command, and that is why my sources say there are senior figures within the military and the a administration right now that may be unaware of it because as he said, “They are not in the circle of love.”

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill what has been the response of Blackwater? What has been the response of U.S. military, the White House, to your investigation?
....
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, explain who is behind the drone attacks in Pakistan, who has been killed, and talk about legality here.
....
JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. The CIA of course has been running a drone campaign in Pakistan going back years into the Bush administration. When President Obama took office on January 23, he ordered his first drone strike inside of Pakistan. There were two strikes in North and South Waziristan, and has bombed Pakistan regularly ever since. In fact, Vice-President Joe Biden, part of his strategy reportedly is calling for escalation of these drone strikes. This has caused some controversy because there of a large numbers of civilian deaths as a result of these bombings.

[bemildred]

15. "I'm a diplomat, I would never lie to you." nt

[Solly Mack]

16. Yeah, OK.

I'm here to help

[cowcommander]

17. Plausible Deniability