What is your opinion on Blackwater?

Believe me, 13th_redneck, I'm on both sides of the fences on it. On one hand, I believe that it's a good thing that they provide services that the military can't/won't undertake; on the other hand, we can't have them running around lawless. I understand that they aren't subject to military justice as individuals, but I believe that there should be contractual restrictions on the Blackwater and similar corporations as a whole when contracted by the U.S. government.
 
^^^ I'm with Deerslayer, there is certainly a lot more to this than meets the eye, so I find that I must make my judgement based on the best information available at the moment.

It's all anyone can do, unless of course, they have a second agenda.
 
Well put deerslayer.
Blackwater has been submitting proposals to various states as a viable alternative to the National Guard. In addition - Blackwater was just cleared to have their own fixed wing combat aircraft. If that does not get some of you concerned, this should - they are currently bidding on a proposal to build the replacement vehicle for the Humvee.
:tank:
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Concerning the accusations of taking up arms against the US - well, I can't speak for other organizations, but never in a blue moon would a Blackwater employee knowingly engage a US counterpart.
 
If restrictions apply to the military, it should apply to them as well. If it is deemed okay that these guys have some rules that don't apply to them, these rules should be discarded by the military as well.
Who knows... maybe this is what the future is destined to be and the military will now be a stay at home force and those who want to have a go abroad join Blackwater and the like.
It's not like I totally don't feel for a lot of the motivations either.
There's a lot of serious Non combat types (with a capital N) who don't seem to realize the military is a warfighting organization and they get in the way of people who want to get things done.
 
senojekips said:
^^^ I'm with Deerslayer, there is certainly a lot more to this than meets the eye, so I find that I must make my judgement based on the best information available at the moment.

It's all anyone can do, unless of course, they have a second agenda.
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Problem is, a second agenda is hard to prove. It's a double-edged sword- on one hand, you can pay a merc to undertake a sensitive, dangerous, or dull task that you can't (read won't) do yourself, and have no repercussions because it's legit, or you can have said mercenary fire on an unidentified target and have the public go bat**** about a topic it doesn't understand well.

That being said, I find it a bit easier than most folks to excuse such civilian casualties, because they are a fact of war that cannot be totally eliminated. Until there is concrete evidence that the shots were fired in malice without provocation, on subjects that Blackwater KNEW were unarmed, I'm going to reserve my judgment of that particular incident.

Here in my hometown, some police officers got caught in a crossfire last year. They'd been on bike patrol, investigating a real rough part of town where the kids were popping fireworks (against regulations). I've talked to one of the guys involved, and he believes that it was a ploy to disguise gunfire. If that sort of ruse is used in the U.S., I don't blame any military or paramilitary force for being extremely cautious of civilians in foreign countries, and quick to react with deadly force under duress.
 
You have a point but you ignore this crucial bit of information:
No Mercenary has ever been tried for shooting a civilian (at least as of a year or two ago).
The same cannot be said of the military.
They're in the same environment, and the military undertakes the more difficult and sensitive missions. So I don't see why the mercenaries should be given special immunity to any of the laws.
With the kind of ROEs that the mercs play with, heck life might even be easy for the average GI over there.
Maybe if these mercs are made to pay for actual crimes they commit, they won't strut around so much looking down on actual military folks who do the real fighting.
As with Blackwater ringing about the changes in terms of equipment... it's easy if you haven't blown the money on other equipment and it's easy with the type of money they charge for their services.
But again I say, what is this organization going to do after Iraq?
Not to mention, a company like this drains the military of good personnel. Who wouldn't make the switch? You do easier work, you get better deployment terms, you get to wear what you want and you get paid a fortune. And when Iraq is over, you will have a surplus of unemployed people with an array of military skills, many of which who have too much pride to become security guards at the local mall.
 
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I have the distinct impression from what I read that this is not a first time occurrence, and that many civilians have been killed in exchanges of fire. However the difference in this case seems to be that on this occasion the Iraqis seem to be convinced that the Blackwater operatives were distinctly careless and used an inappropriate amount of force.

Place yourself in the shoes of the Iraqis for a minute. Your country has been over run by the coalition forces. Now we won't go into the legitimacy of this act at this time and for the moment we will take the view of the Iraqis who welcomed this act whom I firmly believe were in the majority at the time.

Now, the forces have displaced the previous Government and have most of the bad guys locked up or executed. A civil government has been put in place and the forces remain to keep the peace and hopefully prevent a serious attempt by the previous ruling party to re establish themselves, this is accepted by the present regime as being necessary.

However, along with the regular coalition forces there is a group of armed civilians that are not responsible to the Iraqis, they are not under the control of the coalition forces, they are not covered under the Geneva convention and they behave as a law unto themselves, and from time to time they kill innocent members of your population and don't really give a stuff.

If this happened in your country what would you do? What would the American Militia do? I think that they would move into high gear and bother the sh!t out of them.
 
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In a stabler country I'd consider it the problem of Blackwater's, SOS Temps, whoever's personnel- but you bring a valid point to the table.
 
Once again - Blackwater was contracted by the US Government, the key word is contract. This contract clearly laid out Blackwater's ROE (covered in 1L). Blackwater's position is that they were engaged and that they were returning fire. It seems to me this is not the first time the insurgents have used human shields.
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There was some concern about what the company will do if evicted from Iraq, I can assure you Blackwater has enough obligations to fufill where nobody is getting laid off!
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Here's an idea - instead of putting a US Base back in Lebanon, we should let Blackwater go in and provide security! Wait - I think I am on to something!!! The U.S. Military has been consistent on objecting to security work - right? How many times have we heard the argument - the US Military should not be tasked as the free world's police force... :-P
Can see where I am going? Hey - get Mr. Prince on the line!
:cheers:
 
Tsunami said:
Once again - Blackwater was contracted by the US Government, the key word is contract. This contract clearly laid out Blackwater's ROE (covered in 1L). Blackwater's position is that they were engaged and that they were returning fire. It seems to me this is not the first time the insurgents have used human shields.
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If the US Government "contracted" the Mafia, that would not give it legitimacy. You consistently ignore the fact that Blackwater has absolutely no legal standing outside the United States other than as foreign visitors.
There was some concern about what the company will do if evicted from Iraq, I can assure you Blackwater has enough obligations to fufill where nobody is getting laid off!
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If that involves their employment only in the USA, that is the concern of the US Govenment and the citizens. Go for it.
 
I'm not exactly sure who you're addressing, Tsunami, but despite your very good argument, it won't make a bit of difference if the contract is a. nullified by the Iraqi govt's insistence they pull out, b. nullified by USG insistence that Blackwater be removed from the scene and/or pulls its contract, or c. investigations show that the company's employees violated their rules of engagement and/or contract. As for my last post, I was speaking hypothetically and I'm pretty sure that I made it clear that I was not making a reference to Blackwater's operations in Iraq.
 
senojekips said:
If the US Government "contracted" the Mafia, that would not give it legitimacy. You consistently ignore the fact that Blackwater has absolutely no legal standing outside the United States other than as foreign visitors.
If that involves their employment only in the USA, that is the concern of the US Govenment and the citizens. Go for it.
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They have no legal standing within the US either, despite some of them claiming to have been deputized during Hurricane Katrina in order to terrorize residents. Not only did they claim powers of arrest and detention but also Deadly Force.

There was never any record of either the Governor or DHS giving them this power.

That is why they are so dangerous they consider themselves above everything.

Why Felony charges of "impersonating a police officer" were not filed in LA is beyond me.
 
Because they were doing what someone wanted them to do. Its not that hard to figure out. And like I told TOG, unless you know some of them personally you should be wary of making judgements about their beliefs and values, that's called bigotry.
 
bulldogg said:
Because they were doing what someone wanted them to do. Its not that hard to figure out. And like I told TOG, unless you know some of them personally you should be wary of making judgements about their beliefs and values, that's called bigotry.
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Obviously, they were doing what the employer wanted them to do. But Rent-a-Cop is not the same as a *real* cop. Despite Blackwater claims, There is NO EVIDENCE of anybody deputizing them legally, neither in DHS or the Governors Office. That means thay were acting illegally.

Thats not a judgment, thats a FELONY.

There was another PMC that acted as if they were a Police Force in Germany during the 1930's, they were called the SA.
 
MMARSH - your blather is rather repugnant, I have added the definition below so you can work it over in your mind a few times:
re·pug·nant [ri-puhg-nuhnt]
–adjective
1. distasteful, objectionable, or offensive: a repugnant smell.
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They have no legal standing within the US either, despite some of them claiming to have been deputized during Hurricane Katrina in order to terrorize residents.
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If you prefaced the above remark with "in my opinion" then I could roll with it... However - having survived 3 years of law school I can say honestly say that statement crosses the line in so many respects starting with the legality.
They are a privately held corporation - they have papers on file w/ the SEC, why would they be permitted to exist as a privately held corp if their activities were in fact illegal? Serious - and don't respond w/ that conspiracy crap neither.
Be very careful about the use of the word "terrorize" - likening this group of men to the subhuman scum were currently hunting in the middle east is a big step. It's a step showing ignorance to a degree that I don't think you intended.
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:m16:
 
^^^ Gotta agree with the big wave on this one folks. MMarsh, you are making statements that read as though you are proclaiming facts. Do you have proof or is this indisgestion of the personal kind? If you claim these as facts can you please provide chapter and verse for the following claims...

1. Blackwater employees engaging in terrorist activities.

2. Blackwater employees or the company making a statement explicitly or implicitly stating they are above everything (I assume you mean the law).

3. The records of an investigation proving claims against Blackwater employees that they "impersonated police officers".

I wait with salivating intellect.
 
I still stand by that Blackwater and the like must be subject to some kind of law, whether it be Iraqi (which they are not subject to) or American (which doesn't seem to be the case entirely either).
Iraqi civilian deaths must be treated seriously or else the message you send to the Iraqis is "you're not even people to us." Which is precisely not the sort of message you want to send if you want to win over hearts and minds.
Also I'm curious to see what will become of a PMC as big as Blackwater after the war in Iraq is over. Companies and other organizations of the like don't have good histories with going out quietly. They need to make ends meet.

I think one of the reasons this has happened is the whole move to a lighter, faster and more mobile force. Such forces already exist. USMC has been doing this forever and there's also Army Airborne divisions.
The traditional Army is large and heavy because it always needed to be that way. Now that they've tried to turn the whole Army into something lighter and more deployable, you've got the issue of not having enough troops.
Uggh.

Anyways, a valuable lesson for the military and the politicians who like to tweak with it all the time. I doubt anyone's gonna learn anything though.
 
mmarsh said:
Obviously, they were doing what the employer wanted them to do. But Rent-a-Cop is not the same as a *real* cop. Despite Blackwater claims, There is NO EVIDENCE of anybody deputizing them legally, neither in DHS or the Governors Office. That means thay were acting illegally.

Thats not a judgment, thats a FELONY.

There was another PMC that acted as if they were a Police Force in Germany during the 1930's, they were called the SA.
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I agree, and, the Republican Controlled Justice Department may have something to do with no Charges being brought at a Federal Level for Merc's Operating on US Soil.

I believe once the Democrats take over all of Washington D.C. that Blackwater will be out of a job totally, and I can only hope that the Democrats do not just hire a Democrat Company in place of a Republican Company (Blackwater) to do the same thing.
 
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