• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Before Shooting in Iraq, a Warning on Blackwater

danarhea

danarhea

Slayer of the DP Newsbot
DP Veteran
Joined
Aug 27, 2005
Messages
43,602
Reaction score
26,256
Location
Houston, TX
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Conservative
WASHINGTON — Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor’s operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater’s top manager there issued a threat: “that he could kill” the government’s chief investigator and “no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” according to department reports.
Click to expand...

Holy crap. Blackwater threatened to assassinate a government official a few weeks before these guards, who are now on trial for manslaughter, committed the heinous act of massacring civilians.

Manslaughter? They should have been brought up on war crimes charges. They are no better than the jihadists who are now slaughtering civilians in Iraq, and should receive the same treatment. We have met the terrorists, and they are Blackwater. And people have the god damned gall to ask why they hate us? The answer is obvious. As for the Blackwater official who made the assassination threat? He deserves life in prison without parole.

Article is here.
 
danarhea said:
Holy crap. Blackwater threatened to assassinate a government official a few weeks before these guards, who are now on trial for manslaughter, committed the heinous act of massacring civilians.

Manslaughter? They should have been brought up on war crimes charges. They are no better than the jihadists who are now slaughtering civilians in Iraq, and should receive the same treatment. We have met the terrorists, and they are Blackwater. And people have the god damned gall to ask why they hate us? The answer is obvious. As for the Blackwater official who made the assassination threat? He deserves life in prison without parole.

Article is here.
Click to expand...

Blackwater is a reckless organizations that actually believes they can get away with anything. They think of themselves of above the law. They are nothing but mercenary thugs.
 
I urge everyone to read the entire NYTimes article. It is shocking and appalling. Even worse is that governmental agencies, from US Embassy officials in Iraq to the State Department and about everyone in between were in collusion with the horrific Blackwater attitude that "the law couldn't touch" them... and not only did nothing about it, they actually encouraged it because our government had allowed itself to become so dependent upon Blackwater's willingness to take high-risk missions using basically what sounds like a number of "don't ask, don't tell" procedures that were highly questionable and in some cases blatantly illegal.

I'm not easily shocked any more. This... this shocked me.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Blackwater is a reckless organizations that actually believes they can get away with anything. They think of themselves of above the law. They are nothing but mercenary thugs.
Click to expand...

For the right price DemSocialist, those mercenaries will help you succeed in your war of liberation.
 
For the usual uninformed and misinformed like those who put an incompetent community organizer into the White House, there is no longer a "Black Water."

But to **** with the left, there is a Black Water website. -> https://www.blackwaterusa.com/

Those former Black Water employees are American military veterans doing what they should have been allowed to do when they were on active duty with the U.S. military, killing America's enemies without liberal political correct Rules of Engagement.

Academi
 
APACHERAT said:
For the usual uninformed and misinformed like those who put an incompetent community organizer into the White House, there is no longer a "Black Water."

But to **** with the left, there is a Black Water website. -> https://www.blackwaterusa.com/

Those former Black Water employees are American military veterans doing what they should have been allowed to do when they were on active duty with the U.S. military, killing America's enemies without liberal political correct Rules of Engagement.

Academi
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but killing of civilians is a war crime. And threatening to assassinate a US official is treason.
 
APACHERAT said:
For the usual uninformed and misinformed like those who put an incompetent community organizer into the White House, there is no longer a "Black Water."

But to **** with the left, there is a Black Water website. -> https://www.blackwaterusa.com/

Those former Black Water employees are American military veterans doing what they should have been allowed to do when they were on active duty with the U.S. military, killing America's enemies without liberal political correct Rules of Engagement.

Academi
Click to expand...

IF you read the article they touch on this.
 
danarhea said:
I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but killing of civilians is a war crime. And threatening to assassinate a US official is treason.
Click to expand...

The fire bombing of Dresden and Japan were war crimes. But if you win, you escape the gallows. That's the way it works.

Killing civilians in Iraq when there's a recognized government in place is not war crime but falls under Iraqs jurisdiction.

A perfect example was the My Lai incident aka "My Lai Massacre."

If the My Lai hamlets were have been north of the 17th parallel, there would have been a war crime. But My Lai was south of the 17th parallel with in the sovereign nation of the RVN.

The U.S. military were guest of the RVN and were under RVN laws.

Since the RVN government in Saigon considered the civilians with in My Lai as being either VC or VC sympathizers and were classified as the enemy, the RVN government refused to file murder charges against Lt. William Kelly.

So Lt. Kelly was brought up on charges under the UCMJ.

CATCH-22, Black Water didn't fall under the jurisdiction of the UCMJ.
 
APACHERAT said:
The fire bombing of Dresden and Japan were war crimes. But if you win, you escape the gallows. That's the way it works.

Killing civilians in Iraq when there's a recognized government in place is not war crime but falls under Iraqs jurisdiction.

A perfect example was the My Lai incident aka "My Lai Massacre."

If the My Lai hamlets were have been north of the 17th parallel, there would have been a war crime. But My Lai was south of the 17th parallel with in the sovereign nation of the RVN.

The U.S. military were guest of the RVN and were under RVN laws.

Since the RVN government in Saigon considered the civilians with in My Lai as being either VC or VC sympathizers and were classified as the enemy, the RVN government refused to file murder charges against Lt. William Kelly.

So Lt. Kelly was brought up on charges under the UCMJ.

CATCH-22, Black Water didn't fall under the jurisdiction of the UCMJ.
Click to expand...

Your defense of the killing of civilians is sickening.
 
APACHERAT said:
For the usual uninformed and misinformed like those who put an incompetent community organizer into the White House, there is no longer a "Black Water."

But to **** with the left, there is a Black Water website. -> https://www.blackwaterusa.com/

Those former Black Water employees are American military veterans doing what they should have been allowed to do when they were on active duty with the U.S. military, killing America's enemies without liberal political correct Rules of Engagement.

Academi
Click to expand...

I seriously doubt that gunning down civilians is just an escape from ROE. It's murder. ROE only apply to armed enemy.
 
danarhea said:
Your defense of the killing of civilians is sickening.
Click to expand...

He's not really defending it, he's just correcting your terms.

Your knee jerk reaction is similar to those who scream "Your defense of baby killing is sickening" when you point out to them that "Your wrong, abortion is not 'murder' because 'murder' is illegal killing".

He's not so much defending civilians as arguing against your assertion that they should be brought up on "war crimes".
 
danarhea said:
Your defense of the killing of civilians is sickening.
Click to expand...

Zyphlin beat me to the punch in post #13.

You used the term war crime not knowing what a war crime is.

I gave you an example, My Lai. If My Lai were have been north of the 17th parallel (in North Vietnam) it would have been a war crime. Since the My Lai villages were south of the 17th parallel with in the RVN it wasn't a war crime and came under the laws of the RVN.

Remember, the American military was not an occupation force in South Vietnam but were guest of the RVN government and we had to obey the laws of South Vietnam from traffic laws to murder.

Unlike the ROE that were forced upon the Navy and Air Force over North Vietnam by the LBJ administration, the ROE that were forced upon the American troops in South Vietnam were written by the RVN government in Saigon. (And they seemed to change daily, free fire zones seemed to have gotten smaller and smaller as the war waged on.)

The fire bombings of Dresden during WW ll was a war crime. The entire Soviet offense against Germany on the western front during WW ll was a war crime. Some would say Sherman's march to the sea during the American Civil War was a war crime.

The war in the Pacific during WW ll was one big war crime.
 
danarhea said:
Holy crap. Blackwater threatened to assassinate a government official a few weeks before these guards, who are now on trial for manslaughter, committed the heinous act of massacring civilians.

Manslaughter? They should have been brought up on war crimes charges. They are no better than the jihadists who are now slaughtering civilians in Iraq, and should receive the same treatment. We have met the terrorists, and they are Blackwater. And people have the god damned gall to ask why they hate us? The answer is obvious. As for the Blackwater official who made the assassination threat? He deserves life in prison without parole.

Article is here.
Click to expand...

Probably a reason not to use mercenaries in the first place.
 
danarhea said:
Holy crap. Blackwater threatened to assassinate a government official a few weeks before these guards, who are now on trial for manslaughter, committed the heinous act of massacring civilians.

Manslaughter? They should have been brought up on war crimes charges. They are no better than the jihadists who are now slaughtering civilians in Iraq, and should receive the same treatment. We have met the terrorists, and they are Blackwater. And people have the god damned gall to ask why they hate us? The answer is obvious. As for the Blackwater official who made the assassination threat? He deserves life in prison without parole.

Article is here.
Click to expand...

War is ugly, people involved in war do ugly things, thanks for posting this though, +1.
 
danarhea said:
I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but killing of civilians is a war crime. And threatening to assassinate a US official is treason.
Click to expand...
But only under the Geneva Convention rules, correct? if so, didn't that get tossed out the window with the bath water too?
 
DiAnna said:
I urge everyone to read the entire NYTimes article. It is shocking and appalling. Even worse is that governmental agencies, from US Embassy officials in Iraq to the State Department and about everyone in between were in collusion with the horrific Blackwater attitude that "the law couldn't touch" them... and not only did nothing about it, they actually encouraged it because our government had allowed itself to become so dependent upon Blackwater's willingness to take high-risk missions using basically what sounds like a number of "don't ask, don't tell" procedures that were highly questionable and in some cases blatantly illegal.

I'm not easily shocked any more. This... this shocked me.
Click to expand...

My guess is that there are many similar incidents to be examined. The arrogance of the Executive branch filtered all the way down to the lowest levels. Torture, murder, plunder, and on and on. A sad situation, but one expects such from a war brought under fraud.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Blackwater is a reckless organizations that actually believes they can get away with anything. They think of themselves of above the law. They are nothing but mercenary thugs.
Click to expand...

Brought in by Cheney to do the criminal work that would have been more difficult to do overtly by the military.
 
APACHERAT said:
The fire bombing of Dresden and Japan were war crimes. But if you win, you escape the gallows. That's the way it works.

Killing civilians in Iraq when there's a recognized government in place is not war crime but falls under Iraqs jurisdiction.

A perfect example was the My Lai incident aka "My Lai Massacre."

If the My Lai hamlets were have been north of the 17th parallel, there would have been a war crime. But My Lai was south of the 17th parallel with in the sovereign nation of the RVN.

The U.S. military were guest of the RVN and were under RVN laws.

Since the RVN government in Saigon considered the civilians with in My Lai as being either VC or VC sympathizers and were classified as the enemy, the RVN government refused to file murder charges against Lt. William Kelly.

So Lt. Kelly was brought up on charges under the UCMJ.

CATCH-22, Black Water didn't fall under the jurisdiction of the UCMJ.
Click to expand...

Right, which is why Cheney brought them in. So that he could commit his war crimes in the dark.
 
danarhea said:
Holy crap. Blackwater threatened to assassinate a government official a few weeks before these guards, who are now on trial for manslaughter, committed the heinous act of massacring civilians.

Manslaughter? They should have been brought up on war crimes charges. They are no better than the jihadists who are now slaughtering civilians in Iraq, and should receive the same treatment. We have met the terrorists, and they are Blackwater. And people have the god damned gall to ask why they hate us? The answer is obvious. As for the Blackwater official who made the assassination threat? He deserves life in prison without parole.

Article is here.
Click to expand...

This society is pretty much going the way of Blade Runner and is basically a lost cause.

The expanding economic and technological superstructure overlaying everything is spurring too much radical, uncontrollable change for there to be any moral discipline of any kind.

Politically, nobody has any serious conviction in anything other than being as much of a pain in the ass to the people they dislike as possible.
 
Last edited:
Funny how the typical Bush/Cheney supporters are absent, save one and he actually defended Blackwater. Partisan hypocrisy at its HIGHEST,
 
Zyphlin said:
He's not really defending it, he's just correcting your terms.

Your knee jerk reaction is similar to those who scream "Your defense of baby killing is sickening" when you point out to them that "Your wrong, abortion is not 'murder' because 'murder' is illegal killing".

He's not so much defending civilians as arguing against your assertion that they should be brought up on "war crimes".
Click to expand...

They should be brought up for murder, and the manager that threatened to kill a US diplomat who was going to investigate wrong doing should be tried on treason. And I thought there was only one defender of the Blackwater (emphasis on BLACK) mercenaries in this thread!
 
Montecresto said:
They should be brought up for murder, and the manager that threatened to kill a US diplomat who was going to investigate wrong doing should be tried on treason. And I thought there was only one defender of the Blackwater (emphasis on BLACK) mercenaries in this thread!
Click to expand...

You seem to need to look up what "defend" means. Pointing out incorrect information, or highlighting that someone is doing such, is not "defending".

If they broke Iraqi laws, then the Iraqi's should decide what legal action they wish to take. If they broke any United States laws that would apply in a foreign country then the U.S. should take legal action against them for that. This doesn't qualify as "war crimes" however, and asserting that they should be charged with such simply because you have a strong dislike for their actions doesn't magically make it correct.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom