Blackwater/Xe founder ran guns, murderd whistleblowers, and commited Genocide
Blackwater Founder Erik Prince Implicated in Murder
So apparently, not only did he hire mentally ill psychopaths, run drugs and illegal weapons to all sides of the Iraqi conflict, and give orders to his men to fire on US troops on several occasions, but it looks like he also had company whistle blowers murdered and had plans to exterminate all Muslims. Aren't you glad he's on our side?
Originally posted by King Kandy
Blackwater makes me question above anything if our capitalist system has any validity whatsoever... they are not accountable to anyone and can't be tried in military OR civilian courts, the worst that could ever happen to them is losing their jobs no matter what they do.
ya, even the most ardent proponents of free market capitalism have stated that the government should have a monopoly on the use of force.
Xe is not a representation of capitalism
Originally posted by inimalist
ya, even the most ardent proponents of free market capitalism have stated that the government should have a monopoly on the use of force.
Originally posted by King Kandy
Obviously not or else they wouldn't be here... the government is employing them, there's someone who is thinking it's a good idea. If I recall Cheney actually wanted to privatize the military 100% (can someone spot why this is a bad idea?)
fair enough, the point being that Rand would probably be against private military contractors. It isn't capitalism.
You actually outline why it isn't capitalism. For Xe to work, it has to be in bed with the government. Traditional capitalism would hold that there should be a separation between the state and the economy.
That the guy who runs Xe is also a dominionist Christian who wants the American government to be Christian also scares the shit out of me.
Originally posted by inimalist
fair enough, the point being that Rand would probably be against private military contractors. It isn't capitalism.You actually outline why it isn't capitalism. For Xe to work, it has to be in bed with the government. Traditional capitalism would hold that there should be a separation between the state and the economy.
That the guy who runs Xe is also a dominionist Christian who wants the American government to be Christian also scares the shit out of me.
EVERYTHING about blackwater scares the shit out of me.
Originally posted by King Kandy
Who's rand?
/facepalm
Between Smith and Friedman as the most important people in the philosophy of capitalism.
Really someone you should know if you are going to bash the system. It'd be like going "who is the Lenin fellow?" when bashing Communism... Maybe not so bad, as he ran a nation for a while.
Originally posted by King Kandy
EVERYTHING about blackwater scares the shit out of me.
oh, indeed
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Who's Friedman?
😠 😠 😠
He won a Nobel Prize for the love of Christ
Originally posted by Darth Jello
What makes him even scarier is that Prince does kind of look like iconic 80's American Fascist Oliver North. It's insane that we're in bed with these comic book villains and the media who isn't reporting this stuff resembles the asides from a latter day Frank Miller book.
lol
nothing to add, the comic book villainy remark made me chuckle though
I had thought about making a thread about this individual before, though seeing as this is the thread for tying Blackwater to major criminal activity, I figure it is just as good a place as any. So, with no further adieu:
inimalist presents: I did your goddamned investigative journalism for you
Slavko Ilic.
Bosnian born, spent time in the Yugoslav army. Worked as a private military contractor in a bunch of places, before winding up as a training officer and VIP guard in Iraq working for Blackwater. (1)
sometime around, oh, 2000ish, he moves to Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, and begins training with Rickson Gracie in Brazilian Jujitsu. He was moderately active in sparring and teaching (1), but looking at posts and activity in some local Jujitsu forums, it appears that sometime around 2005 he dropped out of that scene (2). He still did contract work for Blackwater, and in July 2006 was featured in an interview with Pilot about how awesome it was to train people to hurt others and how much he loved war (3).
Oddly enough, he was also arrested (basically in my city) in summer 2006 for threatening to blow up his wife. At the time, he was also charged with guns and thousands of dollars in Meth and E (4, 5). So, just to set the scene, we have mercenary guy living in Canada, doing contract work for a private military firm in America, dealing large amounts of chemical drugs in Canada. And, I don't mean to be presumptuous, but one doesn't just "pick up" dealing thousands of dollars of meth.
Anyways, cue 2008. Ilic is being watched by the police, because an informant picked up at the Sarnia US-Canada border has implicated him in a major cocaine smuggling operation (6). So, in front of a fitness center, cops see him make a deal, and bust him. The initial deal was for 2 kilos, and the man he was seen selling that to has since confessed (likely to avoid the international drug smuggling rap) (6). When searching Ilic's vehicle, they found an additional 33 kilos of coke. So, A) nobody is just a "coke dealer". Coke is a drug with such high profit margins that there are no independent business men in the game, and B) even if there are, there is nobody at the 33kilo level of coke distribution who isn't basically a member of a criminal cartel.
I'm interested to see where this goes in court, but even the Canadian press is ignoring it. The connection, to me, is so blatant. There is no direct link between Ilic's coke and Blackwater, at least not one available through Google searches, but military involvement in the shipping of drugs over borders is not something new. I don't think Prince is a drug dealing criminal, but he clearly has no qualms with hiring such people. I don't think it would be surprising to find that Blackwater (or the American military for that matter) is moving narcotics from Afghanistan/Iraq into Europe/America, especially when people who do it in their spare time are the employees.
1 - http://www.jiu-jitsu.net/interviews/ilic/
2 - http://www.defend.net/deluxeforums/mixed-martial-arts-mma-bjj-forum/677-attn-yella-tiger.html
3 - http://hamptonroads.com/node/66231
4 - http://news.therecord.com/article/369397
5 - http://www.copswiki.org/w/bin/view/Common/M641
6 - http://news.therecord.com/article/446303
Re: Blackwater/Xe founder ran guns, murderd whistleblowers, and commited Genocide
Originally posted by Darth Jello
Blackwater Founder Erik Prince Implicated in MurderSo apparently, not only did he hire mentally ill psychopaths, run drugs and illegal weapons to all sides of the Iraqi conflict, and give orders to his men to fire on US troops on several occasions, but it looks like he also had company whistle blowers murdered and had plans to exterminate all Muslims. Aren't you glad he's on our side?
Love Jeremy Scahill
do you have links to Blackwater drug running or ordering firing on US troops?