Posted on 10/23/2014 11:43:48 AM PDT by Dave346
The founder and former CEO of the Blackwater Worldwide security firm said Thursday that the conviction of four of his former employees for their roles in the 2007 fatal shooting of 14 unarmed Iraqis was unexpected, and raised questions whether they received a fair trial.
“Well, there was certainly a lot of politics surrounding this and the fact that the federal government spent tens of millions of dollars on this, now trying it seven years after the event, and 7,000 miles from where it happened,” said Erik Prince, in a phone interview. “Certainly, it adds a lot of politics to it.”
Prince, a former Navy SEAL, founded Blackwater in 1997 and left the firm in 2010. He said the federal government is 1 for 2 in prosecuting the case, citing a judge’s decision in late 2009 to dismiss charges against five guards amid allegations that prosecutors improperly used statements the guards provided to the State Department. The government brought charges against the five guards again, including the four convicted Wednesday.
“The first time they tried it, it was thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct, and the guys have a lot of very solid options for appeal,” said Prince, who said he did not recall ever meeting the guards involved. “I’m sure they will exercise their rights to the fullest.”
Prince said Thursday that the case should have been tried by the military under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a different system of laws that is administered by military officers. Prince is the chairman of another security and logistics firm, Frontier Services Group, that is focusing on Africa.
“This is a war zone case, clearly,” Prince said. “It’s probably tougher for [the jury] to get a full understanding of the events, again, 7,000 miles away and seven years later.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
These guys were operating under nearly impossible circumstances, being in a war while civilian life goes on simultaneously. Being surrounded by “civilian” insurgents firing on them, cops who were also firing on them, car bomb attacks, suicide attacks. All this during a commute surrounded by commuters.
Were the insurgents tried? The turn-coat cops? The suicide attackers?
You can’t litigate war in civilian courts. You must not. If it is something that could be settled by lawyers and civilian judges then quite frankly you aren’t at war.
They should have been tried by military court if they were tried at all.
And also the suspect vehicle after they fired on it they said an Iraqi policeman then ran up and tried to push it toward the convoy.
So then they opened fire again and the policeman ran away.
They pretty much destroyed the car as I understand it so there is no way of knowing if it was a bomb or not.
Prosecution argued the suspect vehicle probably wasn’t a bomb because it contained a woman and her son.
Not a convincing argument to me but maybe the jury bought it.
And one other interesting element is the first indictment came just 6 days before Bush signed a new status of forces agreement with Iraq in December 2008.
There clearly was great pressure to prosecute from the Iraqi side.
I believe there may be a case to be made about these guys not fulfilling something that I think is vitally important. That would be the presence of an undeniable combatant. Are they wearing recognizable war zone uniforms?
I have a big beef with people who don’t identify themselves on the battlefield for what they are, namely a bonified combatant that is not a terrorist.
I don’t think these guys are terrorists, but I can’t bitch and moan about not being able to tell combatant from citizen on the terrorist side, if our own team sometimes doesn’t dress as a bonified battle combatants.
Other than that, I do see some issues. I’m not all that bothered by this. I am willing to accept that perhaps I should be. As of this moment I am not, but I could be moved by the right argument.
As long as these men conduct themselves by the same rules as one of the members of our armed forces, as much as that can be accomplished, I don’t have a problem with it.
It’s another way of outsourcing. We may save money by doing it. These guys must be paid rather well, so I’m not sure that’s true. I would be very miffed if I thought our troops were paid X and these guys got X plus.
That may be the case too.
Great. That doesn’t sound good.
Explaining away those AK-47 rounds is iffy at best. How do you not have reasoned doubt about that? Did they verify traffic cops had been in the area? That seems very lame.
The thing is these Blackwater guys are paid much better than the military.
State Department was paying them $1 billion for security and only 1,000 of them were in country.
There are a lot of contractors that work with the military so it would be hard to get rid of all of them.
But they are an easy scapegoat for those who want to attack the war without being unpatriotic.
Blackwater took 41 casualties in Iraq but no one they were guarding were harmed at any time.
According to one report, Blackwater charged $445,000 per contractor per year - six times the cost of fielding a U.S. solider.
LOL - I also thing the grenade blow back excuse is lame.
They really think 7 Blackwater guards (4 of which were convicted and 1 plead guilty) were mowing down civilians without provocation and they disabled their own vehicle by firing grenades too close?
Not to mention it’s common knowledge that any bullet fired up still COMES BACK DOWN and can hit people.
Did they have any traffic cops testify about how regularly they do that?
I don’t know how you calculate the worth of these contracted combatants vs the regular troops. You don’t have to train, house, or transport them. You don’t have to arm or supply them.
There are a lot of costs that are eaten by the contracting firm, so it may not be quite as lopsided as it seems on the surface.
It does give us a pool or ‘talent’ when our forces are not as robust as they used to be.
These guys probably do have combat experience or training.
I appreciate your view that some folks like to scape-goat them, feeling frees since they are not our troops. I consider them to be on our side, so I’m willing to go the extra mile to defend them, as long as they are within certain boundaries of course.
I appreciate the comments.
Proseuction also brought in a helicopter pilot who said he didn’t see hostile fire.
Again I don’t know how much that proves or for how much of the event the helicopter was even in the area.
Well, that’s their story and they’re sticking with it. (Gov’t that is)
I also worry about the judge involved in a thing like this. Is he a Dem appointee upset the war even took place? Does he understand combat dynamics?
There’s a whole lot of wiggle room here, and it basically boils down to which translation you’re willing to buy off on.
If a guy is putting himself in harms way for our nation, he’s going to get the benefit of the doubt from me. If proven to be a bad apple, I’m going to be aggressively against him too. I just want some rationality behind it either way.
One of the funny lines I saw from the press was “It’s unclear why Iraq police would fire at Blackwater” (when discussing the radio logs).
The obvious response would be, it’s unclear why Blackwater would randomly shoot a whole bunch of civilians for no reason.
The first judge that dismissed the indictment was a Dem appointee. Then he was overruled by the appeals court and everything restarted.
Not sure about the current judge.
Looks like the second Judge was appointed by Reagan and the first by Clinton.
Thanks. Sounds like an honest Dem for once.
But they weren't in the military.
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