>>>>> “It’s news to YOU...” <<<<<
The outsourcing monster created by Dick Cheney has become a crazed killer. Hiring "mercenaries" to replace U S troops was invented as a way to dodge the laws that apply to the military, that outsourcing trick allows "non-standard" soldiers of fortune to kill civilians with impunity.
When
asked who handcuffed and shot dead school children in Afghanistan, the Pentagon
shrugged and said, 'Not our troops...musta been some "non-standard"
soldiers; with a wink and a nod they indicated that it was Blackwater/Xe
personnel.
Some Americans
fear that, while their local law officers will not harm them, Blackwater/Xe
mercenaries brought in from outside the community will be willing to shoot to
kill and follow orders from the Pentagon.
Who will
shoot the Blackwater/Xe hired killers?
Two senior United States military officers who arrived at the site soon after the shooting and killing of 27 Iraqi civilians told investigators that they saw no evidence of insurgent activity that would have justified the shootings, according to the documents.
Three private security guards working
for Blackwater Worldwide who
witnessed the 2007 episode in Baghdad told a federal grand jury that
they believed the shootings were
unjustified, according to newly unsealed court documents.
The statements were disclosed in a report prepared by prosecutors
in the federal criminal case against five guards from Blackwater, now named Xe
Services, who were charged with manslaughter and weapons charges in connection
with the shootings in Nisour Square in Baghdad.
The charges against the five guards — Paul A. Slough, Nicholas A. Slatten,
Evan S. Liberty, Dustin L. Heard and Donald W. Ball — were dismissed on Dec. 31
by Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of Federal District Court in Washington, who
criticized the prosecutors for their handling of the case. The prosecution’s
report, prepared before the case was dismissed, was unsealed by Judge Urbina on
Friday.
According to the report, the three Blackwater guards who testified — Mark
Mealy, Adam Frost and Matthew Murphy — were members of the same Blackwater
convoy, code-named Raven 23, that was involved in the episode and was on the
scene when the shootings occurred.
According to the prosecution report, Mr. Murphy was the lead turret gunner
in the second vehicle in the convoy, and he testified to the grand jury that he
never saw any threats that day and so he never fired his weapon.
He said he witnessed “unarmed civilians shot and killed who were clearly no
threat to anyone by his fellow Raven 23 members,” the report said.
Mr. Frost, the fire team leader in the second vehicle in the convoy, said
that he was “upset because he had seen Iraqis shot although they posed no
threats.”
Mr. Mealy, the lead turret gunner in the first vehicle of the convoy, also
identified four other Blackwater members who fired their weapons at Iraqis.
One of the senior military officers who testified before the grand jury,
Col. Michael Tarsa, said that he rushed to the scene and came upon a “white Kia
with two corpses inside, decimated with bullet holes and on fire,” the report
said. He also saw other nearby vehicles “riddled with bullet holes,” even
though they were “apparently fleeing the shooting.”
The other officer, Col. David Boslego, arrived quickly and ordered
photographs to be taken of the scene, the report said. The photographs
corroborated Colonel Tarsa’s account, prosecutors said.
In dismissing the case, Judge Urbina criticized the prosecutors for
improperly relying on statements made in exchange for immunity by the
defendants to officials from the State Department’s Diplomatic Security
Service. The prosecution unsuccessfully argued in its report that it had not
relied on those statements and had gathered enough evidence to charge the
guards from other sources. The Washington Post first wrote about the report on
Saturday.
The Justice Department has not yet said whether it will appeal the judge’s
decision to dismiss the criminal case.
