"Civilian Contractors" = Mercenaries?

eagerly anticipating his RIP thread

x-post

Oh as far as the government eating the cost of training, that's every outsourced job, not just killing people. That's everything. That's why I don't buy it that the DC area can sustain any of this recent economic growth - the biggest arguments for outsourcing everything the entire federal government does, from defense to domestic police work and emergency services, are all based on the same scam, fingers crossed that nobody listens to the GAO when they inevitably release a report summing up how much redundancy and sheer out-and-out waste has come from it all.

Yes, it should be illegal. But it never will be as long as congress writes the laws.

they should privatize the secret service next, is what I think

"why make a guy take an oath, and risk having to give him a pension, when I can just pay this other guy a bunch more money upfront and he'll do the job just as well if not beh"

"oh, shit"

and yeah while it can be argued with many examples that civil servants have a minimum of accountability at best, I can state for a fact that with the rare exception of truly amazing matos-stepdad-minus-one-hundred level imbeciles who get fired for plainly violating multiple laws (e.g. storing child porn on a govt. computer), there's absolutely no accountability whatsoever in the contracting business either. None.

We should just use a headhunting firm to fill the oval office and congress.

whenever erik prince dies it'll be far, far too late

If we did, Hurting, that would be the one instance where we could not possibly do any worse than the current system

Not that I would expect to see a subpoena ever get issued, but having Prince testify to Congress would be amusing (in that all he'd do is take the Fifth).

whenever erik prince dies it'll be far, far too late

o ye of little faith

payback's a bitch, karma strikes at unexpected moments, etc. (see also: Lee Atwater brain aneurysm)

I mean really what's the worst case scenario, we hire a brain-damaged former alcoholic with a falsified resume and a charmless paranoid warmonger to fill the executive branch and accidentally fill every other position with a bunch of sycophantic, power-queer rubber-stamping morons who only show up to work about half the time?

in fact yeah that's kind of a hilarious realization that randomly picking the next thousand resumes to get posted on monster.com would probably generate a better government than what we've achieved through democracy

so much for this social experiment I guess

It's entertaining to think of Blackwater USA's ambition to have brigade-size deployable heavily armed security forces as a uniquely capitalistic spin on the development of an American Waffen SS. Give 'em a couple more years and they'll be able to field an entire panzer corps.

so much for this social experiment I guess

roll out the bones for good king richard
raise up your glass for good king john

I think what you mean Gorge is "give 'em a couple more years and they'll be able to mount a coup on any democrat who thinks they deserve to be commander in chief"

just noticed this from the Scahill interview:

The vast majority of Blackwater's contracts in Iraq are not with the Pentagon. They're actually with the U.S. State Department.

note the note again:

http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Art/WORLD_NEWS/070920/AP_contractors_070920.gif

Immunity deal hampers Blackwater inquiry

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071029/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/blackwater_prosecutions;_ylt=Ah36k3CV5jd5rbW6RloPWEis0NUE

WASHINGTON - The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned.

The immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident that has infuriated the Iraqi government.

"Once you give immunity, you can't take it away," said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

big huge fucking surprise

wtf kind of immunity is it, anyway? diplomatic? give me a fucking break

stupid whores

Hopefully, this doesn't mean immunity from "Iraqi" prosecutions.

oh whatever. they're all getting away scot free just like the telecoms who sold our conversations to the intel community. fuck it. fuck the whole decade.

"Getting away with it" == a given. "Public relations fiasco" == hopefully.

See, eventually the Bush regime will collapse under the weight of scandal, amirite?

Even if not, I can still enjoy a little schadenfreude at seeing Bushco squirm.

"squirm" is pretty far away from "die in a fire" which is what all these people deserve tbh

I think water torture and thumbscrews on the rack would be a lot fairer, L-T.

I only woke up the thread because I was somewhat nervous about this getting buried, but it's looking fairly loud already

Garrity protections generally are given to police or other public law enforcement officers, and were extended to the Blackwater guards because they were working on behalf of the U.S. government, one official said. Experts said it’s rare for them to be given to all or even most witnesses — particularly before a suspect is identified.

“You have to be careful,” said Michael Horowitz, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan and senior Justice Department official. “You have to understand early on who your serious subjects are in the investigation, and avoid giving these people the protections.”

It’s not clear why the Diplomatic Security investigators agreed to give immunity to the bodyguards, or who authorized doing so.

Bureau of Diplomatic Security chief Richard Griffin last week announced his resignation, effective Thursday. Senior State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said his departure was directly related to his oversight of Blackwater contractors.

wow, glad they didn't run Nuremburg

The State Department has just renewed its contract to provide security for U.S. diplomats in Iraq for at least another year. Threats by the Iraqi government to strip Western contractors of their immunity from Iraqi law have gone nowhere. No charges have yet been brought in the United States against any Blackwater guards in the September shooting, either, and the FBI agents in Baghdad charged with investigating whether Blackwater guards committed any crimes under United States law are sometimes protected as they travel through Baghdad by Blackwater guards.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/10/africa/blackwater.php

http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1112843.html

Erik Prince, who owns Blackwater and Presidential Airways, briefly discussed the lawsuit in a meeting today with editors and reporters at The News & Observer. Prince was asked to justify having a case involving an American company working for the U.S. government decided by Afghan law.

“Where did the crash occur?” Prince said. “Afghanistan.”

Milgram experiment

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/daniel-corbett-navy-seal-jail-serbia-mercenary-yemen

"In 2012, police in Madrid said Bojovic and his men killed a fellow criminal and then ate his flesh and threw his bones in a river"

let those among us who have not gotten a wee bit carried away during a city break cast the first stone

sometimes one can be a bit too chewsy with ones friends.

lads!

it was just desserts