I guess shooting those Iraqi civilians wasn't such a good idea, after all (Blackwater indictment thread)

Gee, I wonder how the careers of those prosecutors will suffer after making this horrid and egregious mistake? What incompetance! Oh, my!

My guess is, they will not suffer at all. Even if their careers as prosecutors stall out, some obliging law firm from the far right will give them cushy jobs. That is how these things work out. No obvious illegalities involved, just the subversion of justice in favor of loyalty.

I guess shooting those Afghan civilians wasn't such a good idea, after all

First adjust the squelch on your bullshit filter before proceeding, but this small article on Blackwater's rebranding to Xe is intriguing. Especially after the recent flap about secret bible verses on guns

Erik Prince, the founder and owner of the now infamous US corporation, Blackwater, hails from Holland, Michigan where his family was both powerful and prominent in two institutions - (1) the Republican Party and (2) the evangelical Christian Church. After scandals hit his large and lucrative firm, Prince ordered a curious rebranding that changed its name to Xe.

X is an archaic form of abbreviation for Christ and/or Christian that was derived from the cross and the Greek Alphabet. X or Chi is the Greek letter that is the initial of "Christos" - X - which at the same time served as a symbol for the cross. Sometimes written Chi-Rho, (Xp) is another abbreviation for Christos and his followers, the Christians. From the perspective of medieval Christian symbology, 'Xe' is a combination of the Christic cross and the Greek letter, Epsilon, the first letter in the Greek word, Evangelion, glad tidings or gospel. From the perspective of a modern member of the Knights Templar, Xe is immediately recognizable as it symbolizes Christian Evangelism.

Prince's background

Eric Prince's father owned a thriving automotive parts business and sent his son to Holland Christian School - an evangelical establishment that accepts students from Kindergarten through the 12th grade. Since then, Prince has converted to Roman Catholicism - and may be a member or associate of Opus Dei, a very conservative cult now described as a prelature that is a strong ally of the current pope, Benedict XVI, who - when he was a Cardinal - paved the way for the beatification and canonization of the cult's founder, St. Josemaria Escriva by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

Here is a brief description of Erik Prince's religious background taken from a website :

The founder and CEO of Blackwater is Erik Prince, son of Edgar Prince, the now deceased businessman from Holland, Michigan. Prince's background as a Western Michigander is not just limited to geography, the brother of Betsy DeVos has also embraced the conservative religious beliefs that his family promoted zealously, particularly with their money. Erik began his political career working as an intern for Gary Bauer at the Family Research Council and also worked in the Bush I White House, although he thought that this administration was too liberal. Prince disapproved of the Bush I administration to the extent that in 1992 he supported Patrick Buchanan for President, something that got him into trouble with his sister Betsy.

Unlike his family, which is part of the Christian Reformed Church, Erik Prince is a Catholic. He most likely became Catholic when he married his first wife, who died of cancer shortly after they were married. Interestingly enough, most of the leadership at Blackwater is also Catholic, albeit a conservative wing of the church that is quite reactionary. Erik Prince is personally connected to conservative Catholic groups like Catholic Answer, Crisis magazine, and a Grand Rapids-based group, the Acton Institute. But Prince has not abandoned his Protestant/Evangelical roots and is a close friend of Watergate criminal turned believer Chuck Colson. They have shared the podium on several occasions, even once at Calvin College. According to Scahill, Prince is aligning himself with a new Catholic/Evangelical alliance called "Evangelicals and Catholics Together." The ECT manifesto states:

"The century now drawing to a close has been the greatest century of missionary expansion in Christian history. We pray and we believe that this expansion has prepared the way for yet greater missionary endeavor in the first century of the Third Millennium. The two communities in world Christianity that are most evangelistically assertive and most rapidly growing are Evangelicals and Catholics."

Prince's relationship to what Scahill calls the "Theocon" movement is not marginal. Prince himself writes about this relationship and it's importance, particularly with the mission of Blackwater. Prince says "Everybody carries guns, just like the Prophet Jeremiah rebuilding the temple in Israel - a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other."

...

Erik Prince's personal Crusade

Among his personnel at Xe, Prince is known to be a high-profile Islamophobe who believes his personal mission in life is to bring about the total extinction of the Muslim population of this planet in what he has described as a global campaign of genocide or a, "Crusade."

Here is an excerpt of an article about Prince that appeared in The Economist:

In an affidavit lodged with a court in Virginia, one of the witnesses said that Mr Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe." The statement continues

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 available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.

Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince's executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to "lay Hajiis out on cardboard." Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince's employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as "ragheads" or "hajiis."

Grand Rapids is so embarrassing.

Scahill:

A federal jury in Washington DC returned guilty verdicts against four Blackwater operatives charged with killing more than a dozen Iraqi civilians and wounding scores of others in Baghdad in 2007....

The incident for which the men were tried was the single largest known massacre of Iraqi civilians at the hands of private US security contractors. Known as “Baghdad’s bloody Sunday,” operatives from Blackwater gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians at a crowded intersection at Nisour Square on September 16, 2007. The company, founded by secretive right wing Christian supremacist Erik Prince, had deep ties to the Bush administration and served as a sort of neoconservative Praetorian Guard for a borderless war launched in the immediate aftermath of 9-11.

While President Barack Obama pledged to reign in mercenary forces when he was a US senator, once he became president he continued to employ a massive shadow army of private contractors. Blackwater — despite numerous scandals, Congressional investigations, FBI probes and documented killings of civilians in both Iraq and Afghanistan — remained a central part of the Obama administration’s global war machine throughout his first term in office.

Just as with the systematic torture at Abu Ghraib, it is only the low level foot-soldiers of Blackwater that are being held accountable. Prince and other top Blackwater executives continue to reap profits from the mercenary and private intelligence industries. Prince now has a new company, Frontier Services Group, which he founded with substantial investment from Chinese enterprises. Among its areas of focus is the African continent. Prince recently suggested that his forces at Blackwater could have confronted Ebola and ISIS. “If the Administration cannot rally the political nerve or funding to send adequate active duty ground forces to answer the call, let the private sector finish the job,” Prince recently wrote....

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/22/blackwater-guilty-verdicts/

Too bad Prince is not gonna get any jail time

life sentence: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/four-blackwater-guards-sentenced-in-iraq-shootings-of-31-unarmed-civilians/2015/04/13/55b777e0-dee4-11e4-be40-566e2653afe5_story.html?hpid=z1

unrepentent Blackwater guards are gonna appeal

don't understand why Western governments aren't doing more to stop their citizens absconding to kill people in the Middle East

if you become a mercenary you're exiled on pain of life incarceration imo

Erik Prince, founder of the now-defunct mercenary firm Blackwater and current chairman of Frontier Services Group, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for attempting to broker military services to foreign governments and possible money laundering, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.

What began as an investigation into Prince’s attempts to sell defense services in Libya and other countries in Africa has widened to a probe of allegations that Prince received assistance from Chinese intelligence to set up an account for his Libya operations through the Bank of China. The Justice Department, which declined to comment for this article, is also seeking to uncover the precise nature of Prince’s relationship with Chinese intelligence.

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/24/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-under-federal-investigation/

so long, fucker:
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/457414-former-blackwater-employee-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-2007

do Erik Prince next

Certain to get a pardon.

I wouldn’t make that assumption

at least not until someone convinces Trump that Iraq is in Mexico

Exactly

This White House announcement of clemency doesn't really tell the story of how these men were convicted of the massacre of Iraqi civilians while working as Blackwater contractors pic.twitter.com/dkeJqQ6db8

— Lawrence Hurley (@lawrencehurley) December 23, 2020