Blackwater was CIA's extension, founder Erik Prince admits

[dixiegrrrrl]

( but we knew it, didn't we?)

Last month, federal prosecutors dropped felony charges against Blackwater personnel
after it was revealed that the employees had been acting under the orders of the US government.
After a three-year-long prosecution, most of the company’s executives walked free and two men received nothing more than probation, house arrest and $5,000 fines.

Because.....
Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater - now known as Academi - claims his firm “became a virtual extension of the CIA,” taking orders from the agency.

“Blackwater’s work with the CIA began when we provided specialized instructors and facilities that the Agency lacked,” Prince told the Daily Beast.“In the years that followed, the company became a virtual extension of the CIA because we were asked time and again to carry out dangerous missions, which the agency either could not or would not do in-house.”

Initially, lawmakers believed the CIA was “looking for skills and capabilities, and they had to go to outside contractors like Blackwater to make sure they could accomplish their mission,” said retired Congressman Pete Hoekstra. But the relationship was in fact much closer than believed.

http://rt.com/usa/blackwater-cia-extension-prince-273/

[Coyotl]

1. Still short of the full admission, CIA created the FRONT!

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. And not only Blackwater/Xe/Advanti but there are other "Blakcwaters"

still and now
PLUS
they apparently have license to kill and get away with it.

[Coyotl]

4. The advantage of a CIA Front is that they are not subject to the same rules.

Just like the bases on Indian Reservations skirt federal rules.

[Skidmore]

27. The CIA created the enemy and has been doing so for decades.

[Berlum]

42. We have always been at war with Goldstein & The Brotherhood

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. "One court document even lists “Erik P” as a CIA officer himself."

says the article.....

[Demeter]

5. Now I feel sick

It was bad enough when they appeared to be the BFEE front...but I suppose the CIA qualifies for that, too.

Time for Bush-whacking.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Does explain why they got all those no bid contracts for DOD

Oh, and they, plus other big contracting firms, are being paid huge amounts of our tax money to carry out
:The War on Drugs" in various places around the globe.

[AikidoSoul]

53. Maybe B*shCo is involved with importing and selling illegal drugs.

You'd be surprised how much evidence there is for this... but they are untouchable, and have many layers of operatives between those activities and themselves.

[xtraxritical]

7. And this is a newsy surprise? Yawn...

[Marr]

8. Sort of a free market SS then.

To borrow a phrase from GW Bush, that is uniquely American.

[idwiyo]

41. +1 excellent point.

[JDPriestly]

9. We are not living in a democracy.

Our government does not answer to us, the people. That is something that I think we can all agree on at this time, whether we think of ourselves as Democrats or Republicans.

Where in the Constitution does it say that our president can hire mercenaries to carry out aggressive acts on our behalf? Where in fact does it say in our Constitution that our president or any members of our government can hire mercenaries to do anything?

Where in the Constitution do we give our president and Congress the right to keep vital secrets from us?

We have gradually gotten used to the idea that we have to wage war and, in order to do that, have to give our executive branch including the president who is the commander in chief of our military, the authority to make decisions about what to tell us and what not to tell us. But how far does that authority reach?

Do we actually live under a military dictatorship?

In recent years since the Iraq War, I have followed these things fairly closely although I never really thought them that important before that time, and even now, I really don't have that much knowledge or information about these things. Nevertheless, I have observed a clear pattern of secrecy.

In the past couple of days, I heard an interview on KPFK in which an expert on the history of the Vatican, a former Catholic priest, stated that William Casey, on behalf of the Reagan administration, transferred money to the Vatican to give to Solidarity in Poland. In a way, that is great. In another way, that is horrible. I'm not sure whether to believe it, and I am not sure whether that is good or bad from a moral point of view.

But from the point of view of how a democracy should, in my opinion, work, it is dreadful.

We need to end the excessive secrecy of the military and intelligence portions of our government. They have taken over. And their takeover is dividing us.

We are all suspicious of them and we take it out on each other. Why do we who are liberal think that the "gun-nuts" want to have so many weapons? Because they feel confused and don't trust the government? That is what they seem to be saying? I have not reacted by getting guns. Rather, I read and listen and try to inform myself.

Where is the transparency and justice that President Obama promised?

The documents from the past, no matter how incriminating should be provided to us. And the government, including the military and the intelligence branches should not be able to hide information from our courts.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Hopefully more and more people are waking up, JD.

There will be, soon, I hope, a spark that morphs into a serious movement for change.
That has typically been the pattern.
guess we just need "the 100th monkey" ...( enough people becoming aware, which will tip the scales)

[Dryvinwhileblind]

15. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^!SPARKAGE!^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[reformist2]

39. This is an issue where libs and conservatives can find common ground, actually.

In this case, it's the mushy moderates who are the obstacle to changing things.

[Paul E Ester]

11. Prince is a strange character

Born into a mega rich family he chooses to spook work and murder to the normal pursuits of the 1%.

[HiPointDem]

30. spook work is a 1%-er tradition. it *is* their normal work.

[ZRT2209]

12. ugh

[midnight]

13. It sounds like the agency is being privatized one no bid contract at a time...

Last edited Fri Mar 15, 2013, 12:44 PM - Edit history (1)

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. Interesting way to look at it...

but yes, it does...hmmmm

[midnight]

28. It does look like the privateers are usurping our infrastructure...

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. We suspected as much

[ProSense]

16. I said it before

"Last month, federal prosecutors dropped felony charges against Blackwater personnel
after it was revealed that the employees had been acting under the orders of the US government. "


...why do these assholes get away with murder by claiming they worked for the CIA as their defense?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2506891

If these were U.S. troops, they'd have been prosecuted.

[AlbertCat]

17. the employees had been acting under the orders of the US government.

So???

I thought "Ve veer only followink orders, ja." was not a defense.

Book 'em!

[OldDem2012]

18. The CIA has used paramilitary groups throughout their long history....

....Blackwater is not the first, and certainly won't be the last.

Here's a good summary that offers glimpses into that shadowy world:

Special Activities Division

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Gosh, a group known for murder, torture, subversion, spying, hires thugs to help them out.

Sorta like the Mafia hiring the Hell's Angels.

[bobthedrummer]

20. DeVos, Amway, RW extremists-yep the CIA "had" to go there to accomplish it's fascist agenda K&R

John Brennan's Heavy Baggage by Ray McGovern (3-11-13 Consortium News)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2013/03/11/john-brennans-heavy-baggage

CIA "Reform"--or Just Sack Them All by Robert Parry (4-3-05 Consortium News)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/040205.html

[Octafish]

21. Used to be the Mafia what got paid to do dirty work for gentlemen who didn't like dirty hands.

Today, an Outfit needs a purchase order.

C.I.A. Said to Use Outsiders to Put Bombs on Drones

By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI
The New York Times
August 21, 2009

WASHINGTON — From a secret division at its North Carolina headquarters, the company formerly known as Blackwater has assumed a role in Washington’s most important counterterrorism program: the use of remotely piloted drones to kill Al Qaeda’s leaders, according to government officials and current and former employees.

The division’s operations are carried out at hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company’s contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency. They also provide security at the covert bases, the officials said.

The role of the company in the Predator program highlights the degree to which the C.I.A. now depends on outside contractors to perform some of the agency’s most important assignments. And it illustrates the resilience of Blackwater, now known as Xe (pronounced Zee) Services, though most people in and outside the company still refer to it as Blackwater. It has grown through government work, even as it attracted criticism and allegations of brutality in Iraq.

SNIP...

In interviews on Thursday, current and former government officials provided new details about Blackwater’s association with the assassination program, which began in 2004 not long after Porter J. Goss took over at the C.I.A. The officials said that the spy agency did not dispatch the Blackwater executives with a “license to kill.” Instead, it ordered the contractors to begin collecting information on the whereabouts of Al Qaeda’s leaders, carry out surveillance and train for possible missions.

“The actual pulling of a trigger in some ways is the easiest part, and the part that requires the least expertise,” said one government official familiar with the canceled C.I.A. program. “It’s everything that leads up to it that’s the meat of the issue.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/us/21intel.html?_r=0

Privatized Secret Government. Secret Kill Lists. Death by Drone without Trial. What will they think up next?

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. Yikes....but then again, why am I surprised????

Thanks Octafish, for coming thru again with the rea deal.

[caseymoz]

22. A for-profit government agency?

The best of all worlds. They can siphon off the defense budget for a profit margin of what? Fifty, eighty percent. At a time when the rest of the economy is struggling to get off the mat.

Keeping them secret definitely didn't have any defense justification. I mean, it wouldn't have mattered to the Iraqis, Afghans, or an anyone else if Blackwater was a government agency or not, it was still working for the US.

No, the only reason to have kept this secret would have been to conceal the cash cow from the American people, who were paying these "mercenaries" far more to do what the military would have been doing without that excess profit motive, and with a little more control. This is literally, the Defense and Intelligence Departments giving themselves a hefty raise.

We've imported our covert wars. Now the CIA is setting up front companies within the US to subvert and block the will of the people.

[Vinnie From Indy]

33. A raise and apparently immunity from the rule of law

It seems obvious to anyone paying attention that the BFEE saw HUGE profit potential in privatizing as much of the military as possible. It was a win win win scenario! More money, no rules and artificially low troop counts to obscure notice by the American public. In short, using private contractors meant no general draft of American kids and it was the mechanism used to steal tens of billions of dollars.

[bvar22]

25. Do you remember when Rumsfeld sat in front of a Senate Committee....

... investigating the abuses at Abu-Ghraib?

He blamed the "contractors",
and when asked WHO commanded the contractors,
he replied that "The Chain of Command was murky."

I KNEW then that it was the CIA ("Foggy Bottom&quot .

[Zorra]

26. Thanks. I think many of us already figured this out. nt

[yurbud]

29. on the one hand, it's not surprising. On the other hand, it's a black eye for the CIA since these

guys were essentially overpaid thugs.

[dixiegrrrrl]

31. Hey yurbud...

have not "seen" for awhile...

[yurbud]

32. family life keeps me busy lately. Thanks for shout out

[Rex]

34. Amazing how the government will allow an agency to be

as completely fucked up as the CIA or MIC and then expect (and be outraged) when The People don't buy their propaganda! The CIA needed to go away during Vietnam. They only got stronger and bolder. Let us not pretend the DHS cannot do the job, it is just now the CIA has been around long enough to have buried all the bodies. I have no doubt the DHS will become an even bigger monster given enough time and limitless money.

[johnnyreb]

35. Evening Kick n/t

[Canuckistanian]

36. Oh

I could suffer a heart attack and die from not surprise

[David Zephyr]

37. It was a welfare program for rich people.

PNAC.

[dixiegrrrrl]

38. Meglomania rich people.

And now. looking back at what has been accomplished so far, I am astounded at how easy it was for them.

[Octafish]

48. I like how they were all prosecuted for treason, warmongering and banksterism...

...to the fullest extent of the law -- but, it was only a dream, as the same crooks hire the regulator types after they leave government service for the private sector.

From when the Iraq war was brand new:

Lunch With the Chairman

Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?

by Seymour M. Hersh
Annals of National Security
The New Yorker
March 17, 2003

EXCERPT...

Khashoggi is still brokering. In January of this year, he arranged a private lunch, in France, to bring together Harb Saleh al-Zuhair, a Saudi industrialist whose family fortune includes extensive holdings in construction, electronics, and engineering companies throughout the Middle East, and Richard N. Perle, the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, who is one of the most outspoken and influential American advocates of war with Iraq.

The Defense Policy Board is a Defense Department advisory group composed primarily of highly respected former government officials, retired military officers, and academics. Its members, who serve without pay, include former national-security advisers, Secretaries of Defense, and heads of the C.I.A. The board meets several times a year at the Pentagon to review and assess the country’s strategic defense policies.

Perle is also a managing partner in a venture-capital company called Trireme Partners L.P., which was registered in November, 2001, in Delaware. Trireme’s main business, according to a two-page letter that one of its representatives sent to Khashoggi last November, is to invest in companies dealing in technology, goods, and services that are of value to homeland security and defense. The letter argued that the fear of terrorism would increase the demand for such products in Europe and in countries like Saudi Arabia and Singapore.

The letter mentioned the firm’s government connections prominently: “Three of Trireme’s Management Group members currently advise the U.S. Secretary of Defense by serving on the U.S. Defense Policy Board, and one of Trireme’s principals, Richard Perle, is chairman of that Board.” The two other policy-board members associated with Trireme are Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State (who is, in fact, only a member of Trireme’s advisory group and is not involved in its management), and Gerald Hillman, an investor and a close business associate of Perle’s who handles matters in Trireme’s New York office. The letter said that forty-five million dollars had already been raised, including twenty million dollars from Boeing; the purpose, clearly, was to attract more investors, such as Khashoggi and Zuhair.

CONTINUED...

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/03/17/030317fa_fact

USA! USA! USA!

PS: I'm sure the president would do something, if only he knew.



Who am I kidding? He wants his kids to live in $10.5 million apartments on the Upper East side, too.

[progressoid]

40. "nothing more than probation, house arrest and $5,000 fines"

Honestly, that's more than I expected. Usually they get away with it.

[wildbilln864]

43. k & friggin r! nt

[Faryn Balyncd]

44. Federal prosecutors have the DUTY to indict the outlaws in BOTH Blackwater & the CIA.

[hootinholler]

45. So this is proof that the government can order crimes to be committed with impunity

How is it that "The CIA made me do it" gets dropped?

WTF? Ok if you want it that way then the fact remains crimes were committed and someone should be held responsible for them. Where is the prosecution against the person who ordered this shit?

[dixiegrrrrl]

46. Well if the CIA "ordered this shit"

then who controls the CIA?

[hootinholler]

47. The unanswered question for the last half of the 20th century

Some claim Poppy Bush. All is speculation, really. In practice, I don't think either Congress or the Executive have had much control over them since the Bay of Pigs.

Then again J. Edgar did what he damn well pleased also.

[Octafish]

49. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Know your BFEE: Nazis couldn t win WWII, so they backed Bushes.

[dixiegrrrrl]

50. thanks for the link to the National Archives!

[bobthedrummer]

52. Nyet, vui panameiyo nymanoga Russki?! Like Aldrich Ames, Robert Hansen, etc. Kick.

[kattycat]

51. Anybody with half a brain could have figured this out

And many who see through government propaganda and lies knew this. The State Department contracts were a dead giveaway. The State Department is often used as a front for the CIA.