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I had noted that Rachel ought to have Jeremy Scahill on if she wanted to get to the bottom of what the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and lo and behold she did, not that I think I had anything to do with it. I was just glad to see her have Jeremy Scahill on to talk about just what the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the President's decision to escalate our presence in Afghanistan and the recent revelation that Erik Prince was acting not only as a military contractor, but a CIA asset as well. You can read Scahill's recent article at The Nation The Secret US War in Pakistan.
Transcript via Nexis Lexis.
MADDOW: By the time President Obama`s new plan for Afghanistan is implemented, there will be 100,000 U.S. troops there -- which means that President Obama will have roughly triple the number of U.S. troops that were in Afghanistan when he took office. That`s the most talked about, but the second most sobering set of numbers of the whole new Afghanistan policy.
The most sobering and perhaps overlooked is that as we look to get up to 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, turns out we`ve already got more than 100,000 contractors there. Yes. U.S. Central Command is telling "Talking Points Memo" that the number of contractors in Afghanistan is 104,000 now. And that number has grown by 30,000 just in the past six months. And the number of contractors is only expected to grow further along with the new troop increase.
The last time we paid a lot of attention to contractors in Afghanistan, some of them were doing vodka shots in places -- yes. Embarrassing the country and themselves and making us wonder all over again why it is that we pay people like this to go to our embassy instead of our own troops.
Here`s a new reason to wonder. Some pretty stunning revelations about the most notorious defense contractor of them all, Blackwater and its founder Erik Prince.
Rep. Mike Pence has been on the forefront of pushing this Van Jones scandal created by Glenn Beck (good to see he gets his walking papers from such an impeccable source, isn't it?), calling for his resignation and saying that Jones' "extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this Administration or the public debate."
But as Jeremy Scahill points out, Pence isn't bothered by the extremist views of Erik Prince of Blackwater/Xe, who has contributed thousands of dollars to Pence:
On Friday, Pence, who describes himself as “Christian, Conservative, Republican, in that order,” said Jones’s “extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate.” Beyond the obvious here (the hate-filled rhetoric we see every day from racist, right-wing wackos, including those in public office), it is an interesting comment considering that Pence is an extremist right-wing evangelical Christian who has taken thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Blackwater’s owner, Erik Prince. Prince has also donated to Pence’s Political Action Committee “Principles Exalt a Nation.” In December 2007, three months after Blackwater operatives gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, Pence and his Republican Study Committee, which serves “the purpose of advancing a conservative social and economic agenda in the House of Representatives,” organized a gathering to welcome Prince to Washington. “Not only has Mr. Prince personally been targeted by partisan warfare repeatedly over the past months, but the use of contracting throughout the government has been under attack by this Congress,” Pence’s committee’s statement said. Should Pence resign for cavorting with and accepting campaign cash from a man who allegedly “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” in the words of a former employee?
I think it's time for the majority party to start acting like one. If Republican-controlled Congress could set aside time to debate condemning MoveOn.org for their Gen. "Betray Us" ad, then the Democratic-controlled Congress ought to be making sure that the double standard of IOKIYAR no longer stands.
August 20, 2009 MSNBC Keith Olbermann
From Countdown Aug.7, 2009.
Olbermann: For the last three nights we have been quoting the sworn declaration of a former executive for Xe, X E, the company formerly called Blackwater, in which that executive describes the nearly global enterprise shot through with criminality, arms dealings, fraud, tax evasion, child prostitution, murder, all of which Xe denies, even in cases where its employees have already pleaded guilty.
One motive for all of this as the four year executive claims was greed. Tonight, in our third story, the other motive was god. Jeremy Scahill first wrote this story for The Nation magazine, he wrote the definitive book on Blackwater, in which he details some of the theocratic connections of founder Erik Prince. Now that former Blackwater executive known only as John Doe #2 who claims that Prince did more than subscribe to a fundamentalist Christian ideology, he used Xe to advance it.
"Mr. Prince is motivated to engage in misconduct by two factors: First, he views himself as a Christian crusader, tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe. 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 opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the crusades."
Keith goes on to list the Christian organizations Prince has used either his family's or Blackwater's profits to fund.
•Prison Fellowship Ministries
•Focus on the Family
•Family Research Council
•Christian Freedom International
•Council for National Policy
And it just gets uglier from there. I'll add the full transcript once MSNBC gets it up. Prince and his employees need to be sitting in a jail cell instead of getting any new contracts or continuing business as usual in Iraq or anywhere else. I'm happy to see it looks like the Justice Department is finally dealing with them in the manner they should be. Given this man's family and political ties, I'm not holding my breath for any convictions.
Keith Olbermann reports on the latest criminal charges being made against Erik Prince and Blackwater, now known as Xe. TPM Muckraker has the list or charges and more:
• The murder charge: The former Blackwater employee, identified only as "John Doe Number 2," claims that, "based on information provided to me by former colleagues, it appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct." John Doe 2 adds that "on several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince's employ, Mr. Prince's management has personally threatened me with death and violence." The former Marine, identified as "John Doe Number 1," refers to "suspicious circumstances" under which informants have been killed.
• The destruction of evidence charge: John Doe 2 claims:
On more than one occasion, Mr. Prince and his top managers gave orders to destroy emails and other documents. Many incriminating videotapes, documents and emails have been shredded and destroyed.
• The religious charge: John Doe 2 claims that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that 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."
• The prostitution charge: John Doe 2 claims that Prince "failed to stop the ongoing use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes," during his visits to Blackwater's camp in Iraq.
• The weapons smuggling charge: John Doe 2 claims:
Using his various companies, [Prince] procured and distributed various weapons, including unlawful weapons such as sawed off semi-automatic machine guns with silencers, through unlawful channels of distribution.
Keith talks to Jeremy Scahill about the latest revelations implicating Blackwater in murder and gun smuggling and for having a radical right, neo-crusader agenda in Iraq.
Olbermann: As horrific as all of this sounds, it's just part of what you describe in the piece today. Flesh it out for us.
Scahill: Well, I mean obviously to hear the term murder and Blackwater in the same sentence is no great surprise, particularly to people who've been following the history of this company. It's been at the center of some of the worst violence in Iraq. Killing civilians repeatedly. Five of its men are going to be tried on manslaughter charges for the Nisoor Square massacre in Baghdad in September of '07. Another one plead guilty. The Congress is investigating. The IRS is investigating. This is a scandal plagued company.
What is explosive about what's happened here, and you just went through some of the most explosive of these details is that you have two former Blackwater officials, I have learned from sources that John Doe #2 was actually in Blackwater management and was privy to some of the inner workings of the company.
Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater remains the sole owner of the company no matter that he stepped down as CEO and the founder of the company. He micro-manages every aspect of Blackwater's operations and that's well known. On the Christian supremacists angle, let's remember that Erik Prince used Blackwater as a neo-crusader force and has from the beginning. This is a guy who comes from one of the power-house families of the radical religious right.
His father was a major bank roller, and gave the seed money to Gary Bauer to start The Family Research Council, James Dobson, Focus on the Family. And then we have his forced deployed 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 face Erik Prince did have a neo-crusader agenda, and most explosively, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals that were intending to or did cooperate in the investigation of Blackwater. This is deadly serious.
Scahill also appeared on Democracy Now to discuss Blackwater.
(h/t Andy K)
Erik Prince's company Blackwater (now known as XE) has been embroiled in controversy for years. Company employees have posted videos online of their own ruthless behavior and abuses against Iraqi citizens, and can be heard laughing off camera. We're now finding out that this brutality most likely came from the top, down from Prince himself -- former employees are finding their consciences and telling horrifying stories about their former boss:
A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee 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."
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, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct. Read on...
