Feds Won't Charge Blackwater in Sudan Sanctions Case

[RainDog]

Source: McClatchy New Service

The security contractor Blackwater Worldwide tried for two years to secure lucrative defense business in Southern Sudan while the country was under U.S. economic sanctions, according to current and former U.S. officials and hundreds of pages of documents reviewed by McClatchy.

The effort to drum up new business in East Africa by Blackwater owner Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL who had close ties with top officials in the George W. Bush White House and the CIA, became a major element in a continuing four-year federal investigation into allegations of sanctions violations, illegal exports and bribery.

The Obama administration, however, has decided for now not to bring criminal charges against Blackwater, according to a U.S. official close to the case.

Instead, the U.S. government and the private military contractor are negotiating a multimillion-dollar fine to settle allegations that Blackwater violated U.S. export control regulations in Sudan, Iraq and elsewhere. Prince renamed the company Xe Services in an apparent attempt to shake off a reputation for recklessness, and this month put it up for sale.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/27/96579/obama-wont-charge-blackwater-with.html

---

If they had been indicted, they would have been suspended from ever doing business with the U.S. Govt. - instead, the U.S. govt. has just awarded them a huge new contract.

THIS is a major part of what's wrong in American politics at this time.

If you are a big enough whore, thief and murderer, you walk. When people see there is no justice in this nation, they see no need to support either party.

[matt819]

1. Of course not

How can the government indict its corporate overseers?

[lobill]

2. MM says it best

As Mike Malloy would say "the rat bastards got away again". Well the Corp.'s own WA DC What more is ther e2 say?

[MichiganVote]

3. Shocking...not.

[havocmom]

4. when military and intel is privatized, the nation is blackmailed by the contractors

Gotta pay the piper if you want the troops to have water. Gotta believe what the company tells you because you don't do your own intel.

America is owned, pure and simple.

[RainDog]

7. a private military is a hallmark of fascism. n/t

[havocmom]

10. yep

there are no nations, only corporations. WWI is finally over.

[mbperrin]

5. Wish I was even mildly surprised.

But I'm not.

[Jakes Progress]

6. Let's all just move on.

What's done is done. What's past is past. Let's just look forward to a wonderful bipartisan future.

Vomit for government.

[Lint Head]

8. Folks, there will be torture and killing in this country by Xe and it

will be condoned. They have to be stopped now. We must speak up or we deserve what is coming.

[midnight]

11. True.

[RainDog]

12. Blackwater AND foreign military (from Israel) have already been in the U.S.

they were deployed after Hurricane Katrina.

This article is a MUST READ -

http://www.alternet.org/katrina/25858/

"Blackwater is not alone. As business leaders and government officials talk openly of changing the demographics of what was one of the most culturally vibrant of America's cities, mercenaries from companies like DynCorp, Intercon, American Security Group, Blackhawk, Wackenhut and an Israeli company called Instinctive Shooting International (ISI) are fanning out to guard private businesses and homes, as well as government projects and institutions. Within two weeks of the hurricane, the number of private security companies registered in Louisiana jumped from 185 to 235. Some, like Blackwater, are under federal contract. Others have been hired by the wealthy elite, like F. Patrick Quinn III, who brought in private security to guard his $3 million private estate and his luxury hotels, which are under consideration for a lucrative federal contract to house FEMA workers.

...Blackwater's success in procuring federal contracts could well be explained by major-league contributions and family connections to the GOP. According to election records, Blackwater's CEO and co-founder, billionaire Erik Prince, has given tens of thousands to Republicans, including more than $80,000 to the Republican National Committee the month before Bush's victory in 2000. This past June, he gave $2,100 to Senator Rick Santorum's re-election campaign. He has also given to House majority leader Tom DeLay and a slew of other Republican candidates, including Bush/Cheney in 2004. As a young man, Prince interned with President George H.W. Bush, though he complained at the time that he "saw a lot of things I didn't agree with--homosexual groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act, those kind of bills. I think the Administration has been indifferent to a lot of conservative concerns."

Prince, a staunch right-wing Christian, comes from a powerful Michigan Republican family, and his father, Edgar, was a close friend of former Republican presidential candidate and antichoice leader Gary Bauer. In 1988 the elder Prince helped Bauer start the Family Research Council. Erik Prince's sister, Betsy, once chaired the Michigan Republican Party and is married to Dick DeVos, whose father, billionaire Richard DeVos, is co-founder of the major Republican benefactor Amway. Dick DeVos is also a big-time contributor to the Republican Party and will likely be the GOP candidate for Michigan governor in 2006. Another Blackwater founder, president Gary Jackson, is also a major contributor to Republican campaigns."

---These people with whom Prince is associated with all are fascist theocrats. Extremists.

"While juicing up the firm's political connections, Prince has been advocating greater use of private security in international operations, arguing at a symposium at the National Defense Industrial Association earlier this year that firms like his are more efficient than the military. In May Blackwater's Jackson testified before Congress in an effort to gain lucrative Homeland Security contracts to train 2,000 new Border Patrol agents, saying Blackwater understands "the value to the government of one-stop shopping." With President Bush using the Katrina disaster to try to repeal Posse Comitatus (the ban on using US troops in domestic law enforcement) and Blackwater and other security firms clearly initiating a push to install their paramilitaries on US soil, the war is coming home in yet another ominous way. As one Blackwater mercenary said, "This is a trend. You're going to see a lot more guys like us in these situations."

Blackwater employs ex-military from Pinochet's dictatorship, from the racist armies of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa, as well. Foreign soldiers given permission by corpo-fascist fucks to operate on American soil.

http://www.alternet.org/story/18193/

I read about this initially in The New Yorker.

That smell you smell? It's fascism.

[gratuitous]

9. Hilarious!

"The Obama administration, however, has decided for now not to bring criminal charges." What a scream! :rofl: As if there's some future time when our government will decide to prosecute their overlords.

:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:
:rofl:

[GlennWRECK]

13. Too funny

[RainDog]

14. I don't see any humor in this at all

can you explain what's funny about Blackwater?

[Solly Mack]

15. Snort