President Obama’s critics like to say he’s anti-business, and that he doesn’t understand, nor even like, the military. He is a Democrat, after all, so how could he? Well, we can say that’s fundamentally not true with only two words: Blackwater Worldwide. If...
Bigger than Blackwater: Arming the UAE
The International Defense Exhibition, otherwise known as IDEX, has been held bi-annually in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since 1993. It is the largest defense expo in the Middle East and North Africa and one of the biggest in the world. But far from being a one-off,...
Senate Urges Pentagon to Rein in Afghan Contractors
Failures in vetting, training, and supervising Defense Department private security contractors are putting U.S. and coalition troops as well as Afghan civilians at risk and unwittingly aiding Afghan militants by hiring security contractors provided by the Taliban and...
The Picture of Erik Prince
Blackwater: Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
Blackwater (rebranded as Xe in an effort to escape the negative publicity associated with their former name), recently received a $100 million contract from the CIA to secure its bases in Afghanistan. The State Department also awarded them $120 million to provide...
Lawyers, Guns, and Blackwater
It's shameful enough for the country that spends more on defense than the rest of the world combined to hire mercenaries to fight its woebegone wars; the mercenaries we hire are hooligans who we kicked out of our overpriced military. As Tim McGlone of The...
Shadow Army, Hidden Casualties
Blackwater’s Migraines Multiply
Legal headaches are growing exponentially for the security firm formerly known as Blackwater – once the darling of the military-industrial community. In separate developments, two former employees of the company charged that the security firm committed...
Thursday: 1 US Soldier, 3 Iraqis Killed; 8 Iraqis Wounded
Iraqi Govt Expels Former Blackwater Contractors
The Iraqi government has ordered hundreds of private security contractors who previously worked for Blackwater Worldwide or its subsidiaries to leave the country within seven days or risk arrest for visa violations, Iraq's interior minister said Wednesday. The order...