America’s mercenary crusaders
Dr Habib Siddiqui
Following the Iraqi Invasion and the subsequent American occupation, one
probably could not miss hearing about the trigger-happy Blackwater
mercenaries. Blackwater (now Xe Services) is the largest private
military (mercenary) company in the USA that trains more than 40,000
people a year. The training consists of military offensive and defensive
operations, as well as smaller scale personal security.
The company has nine business units. Its Aviation Worldwide Services (AWS)
provide services to the CIA, and its aircrafts have also been used in
the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” programs. Blackwater first came to
our attention in 2003 when it received a $21 million no-bid contract
from the US government for guarding L. Paul Bremer, the head of the
Coalition Provisional Authority. Within months, it drew much notoriety
for trigger-happy, killer instinct of its guards that resulted in wanton
killing of unarmed civilians. The Iraqis hated these savage mercenaries
who had no respect for human lives. On March 31, 2004, when four
Blackwater employees were ambushed and killed in Fallujah, its residents
displayed their furious public anger by hanging their charred bodies
from the bridge.
From published reports, it is believed that since June 2004, Blackwater
has been paid more than $320 million out of a $1 billion, five-year
State Department budget protecting U.S. officials and some foreign
officials in conflict zones. Between 2005 and September 2007, its
security personnel were involved in 195 shooting incidents; in 163 of
those cases, Blackwater personnel fired first. Here below are some
examples. On February 16, 2005, four Blackwater guards escorting a U.S.
State Department convoy fired 70 bullets into an Iraqi’s car, claiming
that they felt threatened by the car’s approach. An investigation by the
State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service concluded that the
shooting was not justified and that the Blackwater employees provided
false statements to investigators.
The U.S. Embassy’s top security officer declined to punish Blackwater or
the security guards, stating that “any disciplinary actions would be
deemed as lowering the morale” of the Blackwater contractors.
On February 6, 2006, a Blackwater sniper opened fire from the roof of
the Iraqi Justice Ministry, killing three Iraqi guards working for the
state-funded Iraqi Media Network. An Iraqi police report found that
Blackwater had “caused the incident,” and described it as “an act of
terrorism.” On Christmas Eve 2006, a Blackwater employee Andrew Moonen
killed the security guard of the Iraqi vice president, Adel Abdul Mahdi
while on duty outside the Iraqi prime minister’s compound. On September
16, 2007, Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour
Square, Baghdad.
The fatalities occurred while a Blackwater Personal Security Detail (PSD)
was escorting a convoy of U.S. State Department vehicles en route to a
meeting in western Baghdad with USAID officials. The U.S. military
reports indicate Blackwater’s guards opened fire without provocation and
used excessive force. Iraq’s government vowed to punish Blackwater after
an Iraqi inquiry found that the guards were “not touched even by a
stone” when they opened fire on the civilians in Nisour Square. As the
NY Times later reported during the incident one member of the Blackwater
security team continued to fire on civilians, despite urgent cease-fire
calls from colleagues. Federal prosecutors convened a grand jury in the
aftermath of the shootings. A number of Iraqi victims and victims’
families have filed a lawsuit against Blackwater in Atban, et al. v.
Blackwater USA, et al. So, what is new about these criminal mercenaries?
This past week, a former Blackwater employee (identified in the court
papers as John Doe #2) and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security
operative for the company (identified as John Doe #1) have made some
explosive accusations. In sworn statements filed in federal court in
Virginia, the two men claimed that Erik Prince, the company’s owner, may
have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were
cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. John Doe
#2 also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader
tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,”
and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of
Iraqi life.” To that end, “Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq
certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and
wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis.
Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar,”
the Christian Jihadists who fought the Crusades. Mr. Prince’s executives
would openly speak about going over to Iraq to “lay Hajiis out on
cardboard.” Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport
or game. Mr. Prince’s employees openly and consistently used racist and
derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as “ragheads” or “hajiis.”
According to award-winning investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill, “In
their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling
weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by
transporting “illegal” or “unlawful” weapons into the country on
Prince’s private planes. They also charge that Prince and other
Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other
documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and
other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were
sealed out of concerns for their safety.”
These allegations, and a series of other charges, were filed late at
night on August 3 as part of a 70-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi
civilians suing Blackwater for war crimes and other misconduct. As
Scahill tells Keith Olbermann of the MSNBC, “Erik Prince viewed
Blackwater as a neo-crusader force and has from the beginning. This is a
guy who comes from the powerhouse of the radical religious right.
And then we have his force employed in Iraq as part of a war against a
Muslim nation that George Bush characterized as a crusade. What we have
here, Keith, is a confirmation from insiders at Blackwater that, in
fact, Erik Prince did have a neo-crusader agenda, and, most explosively,
may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were
intending to or did cooperate in the federal government’s criminal
investigation of Blackwater. This is deadly serious.” When asked by
Olbermann how the Bush administration’s State Department could have
missed this crusader element, Scahill said, “I think it was considered a
plus in the Bush White House… what we had here was the Bush
administration essentially create a force that acted as an armed wing of
the administration, not subject to the military command, not subject to
the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, that reported directly to George
Bush’s secretary of state and then to the president. These were his men,
his private force in Baghdad. And the allegations that they were running
around shooting Iraqis as part of a war to eliminate Islam globally, as
is actually what one of these individuals said, is extremely disturbing
to anyone who believes in any semblance of Constitution, law or human
rights.”
If actions mimic one’s intentions, obviously, we had plenty of
incriminating hard evidences to suspect that something was fundamentally
wrong – not just with the Iraqi war as to why and how it was planned and
conducted, but also with the mercenaries sent there whose members
appeared drugged or demon possessed. Just as with the Christian
extremists within the U.S. Military, we now have a Christian mercenary
force Blackwater, employed by the U.S. government, which saw the Iraqi
battlefield as its personal Crusade to go and kill Muslims. In that
toxic equation, motivated by their Christian faith and Crusading zeal,
every crime from committing gruesome murders, slaughtering Iraqi
civilians for sport and fun, smuggling unauthorized deadly weapons to
destroying incriminating evidence came easy. No actions thus were taken
by the U.S. government to punish these neo-Crusading soldiers of the
Christ committing horrendous war crimes. But how long can the U.S.
government and its Congress hoodwink global citizens from seeing its
ugly, noxious package of Christian militarism?
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