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 Blackwater, the private security services company now known as Xe Services, which …
Continue reading “Who Says Obama’s Bad for Business?”
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, it highlights the UAE’s growing stature as a …
Continue reading “Bigger than Blackwater: Arming the UAE”
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 by warlords, warns a new report released last week by the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee. The …
Continue reading “Senate Urges Pentagon to Rein in Afghan Contractors”
Vlahos on Blackwater and a devil’s bargain
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 security for new diplomatic buildings, including consulates outside Kabul, giving the firm a total of $220 …
Continue reading “Blackwater: Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop”
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 Virginian-Pilot reported on March 8, two Blackwater "workers" – Christopher …
Continue reading “Lawyers, Guns, and Blackwater”
Kelley Vlahos on contractors abusing contractors
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 "systematic fraud" under its contracts with the U.S. State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan; the Iraqi government announced it …
Continue reading “Blackwater’s Migraines Multiply”
Updated at 7:07 p.m. EST, Feb. 11, 2010
Hundreds of former Blackwater security guards have until Sunday to leave Iraq in a clear act of retribution for the dismissal of a U.S. court case against the company. The Iraqi government, meanwhile, also complained about former PM Allawi’s “dangerous” statements about civil war. At least three Iraqis were killed and eight were wounded in light violence, while a U.S. soldier died of injuries received in a non-combat incident.
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 applies to roughly 250 security contractors who worked for Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, in …
Continue reading “Iraqi Govt Expels Former Blackwater Contractors” 
