Blackwater "Private Security Firm" or ?

[damageinc.]

Feds target Blackwater in weapons probe By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 6 minutes ago



Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.

A spokeswoman for Blackwater did not return calls seeking comment Friday. The U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, George Holding, declined to comment, as did Pentagon and State Department spokesmen.

Officials with knowledge of the case said it is active, although at an early stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, which has heightened since 11 Iraqis were killed Sunday in a shooting involving Blackwater contractors protecting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad.

The officials could not say whether the investigation would result in indictments, how many Blackwater employees are involved or if the company itself, which has won hundreds of millions of dollars in government security contracts since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is under scrutiny.

In Saturday's editions, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that two former Blackwater employees — Kenneth Wayne Cashwell of Virginia Beach, Va., and William Ellsworth "Max" Grumiaux of Clemmons, N.C. — are cooperating with federal investigators.

Cashwell and Grumiaux pleaded guilty in early 2007 to possession of stolen firearms that had been shipped in interstate or foreign commerce, and aided and abetted another in doing so, according to court papers viewed by The Associated Press. In their plea agreements, which call for a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the men agreed to testify in any future proceedings.

Calls to defense attorneys were not immediately returned Friday evening, and calls to the telephone listings for both men also were not returned.

The News & Observer, citing unidentified sources, reported that the probe was looking at whether Blackwater had shipped unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq without a license.

The paper's report that the company itself was under investigation could not be confirmed by the AP.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered a review of security practices for U.S. diplomats in Iraq following a deadly incident involving Blackwater USA guards protecting an embassy convoy.

Rice's announcement came as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad resumed limited diplomatic convoys under the protection of Blackwater outside the heavily fortified Green Zone after a suspension because of the weekend incident in that city.

In the United States, officials in Washington said the smuggling investigation grew from internal Pentagon and State Department inquiries into U.S. weapons that had gone missing in Iraq. It gained steam after Turkish authorities protested to the U.S. in July that they had seized American arms from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, rebels.
The Turks provided serial numbers of the weapons to U.S. investigators, said a Turkish official.

The Pentagon said in late July it was looking into the Turkish complaints and a U.S. official said FBI agents had traveled to Turkey in recent months to look into cases of missing U.S. weapons in Iraq.

Investigators are determining whether the alleged Blackwater weapons match those taken from the PKK.
It was not clear if Blackwater employees suspected of selling to the black market knew the weapons they allegedly sold to middlemen might wind up with the PKK. If they did, possible charges against them could be more serious than theft or illegal weapons sales, officials said.

The PKK, which is fighting for an independent Kurdistan, is banned in Turkey, which has a restive Kurdish population and is considered a "foreign terrorist organization" by the State Department. That designation bars U.S. citizens or those in U.S. jurisdictions from supporting the group in any way.
The North Carolina investigation was first brought to light by State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, who mentioned it, perhaps inadvertently, this week while denying he had improperly blocked fraud and corruption probes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Krongard was accused in a letter by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, of politically motivated malfeasance, including refusing to cooperate with an investigation into alleged weapons smuggling by a large, unidentified State Department contractor.

In response, Krongard said in a written statement that he "made one of my best investigators available to help Assistant U.S. Attorneys in North Carolina in their investigation into alleged smuggling of weapons into Iraq by a contractor."

His statement went further than Waxman's letter because it identified the state in which the investigation was taking place. Blackwater is the biggest of the State Department's three private security contractors.

The other two, Dyncorp and Triple Canopy, are based in Washington's northern Virginias suburbs, outside the jurisdiction of the North Carolina's attorneys.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Baker in Raleigh and Desmond Butler and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington contributed to this report.
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I would like to add, watch the movie LORD OF WAR to gain some understanding. "Are" gubberment useing blackwater to run guns to the "BAD GUYS".

[NonEntity]

Damage,

You seem to have decided that Marc's board is a great place for your own news story republishing service. 

I wonder if you think that these things that you post are somehow beneficial to the rest of us in helping find ways to eliminate the state or at least diminish it's effect on our lives. 

If so, please post these ideas with each of the articles that you post so that we may understand your thinking regarding these issues.

Otherwise, consider that Alex Jones already does a fine job of spreading fear and hate and we don't really need to duplicate the job of the neo-cons on our own board.  It is not more fear and hate we need, it is more love and understanding, more joy and laughter.

That's my personal view on it all at any rate.

- NonE

P.S. Please feel free to gently smite me, my total is slipping below that of some others and I don't want to get left in the background!  :rolleyes:

(It's SO COOL that I can now roll my eyes.  Thanks Admin!)

[damageinc.]

NonEntity Wrote:Damage,

You seem to have decided that Marc's board is a great place for your own news story republishing service. 

I wonder if you think that these things that you post are somehow beneficial to the rest of us in helping find ways to eliminate the state or at least diminish it's effect on our lives. 

If so, please post these ideas with each of the articles that you post so that we may understand your thinking regarding these issues.

Otherwise, consider that Alex Jones already does a fine job of spreading fear and hate and we don't really need to duplicate the job of the neo-cons on our own board.  It is not more fear and hate we need, it is more love and understanding, more joy and laughter.

That's my personal view on it all at any rate.

- NonE

P.S. Please feel free to gently smite me, my total is slipping below that of some others and I don't want to get left in the background!   :rolleyes:

(It's SO COOL that I can now roll my eyes.  Thanks Admin!)

I shall not smite thee, For a truly honorable personal view! My intent is not scare&fear, please forgive if I have done so to ANYONE that reads my posts  :-\ and you are right, AJ and others do enough of that. My intent was to show that so called "TERRORISTS", "GANGBANGERS", "DRUGRUNNERS" etc..are in fact funded an armed by the very people that claim to be against "them" and are in fact one in the same. This is what "gubberment" is and does. The world we live in is made up of peaceful people, a small number of them that live off the backs of the peaceful have to invent a delusion to make it look like gubberment is here to help and protect when in fact it is not. This is my intent, is understanding, to DAMAGE people's delusions of gubberment as being positive. I thank you NonE for words of wisdom! I feel that when I say we learn and gain  so much from your words on this forum, I believe MANY here would agree. If anyone else have questions on my posts PLEASE feel free to state them to me. I learn form them much. PEACE!

[Darren Dirt]

NonEntity Wrote:Damage,

please post these [eliminate the state] ideas with each of the articles that you post so that we may understand your thinking regarding these issues.

Otherwise, consider that Alex Jones already does a fine job of spreading fear and hate and we don't really need to duplicate the job of the neo-cons on our own board.  It is not more fear and hate we need, it is more love and understanding, more joy and laughter.

That's my personal view on it all at any rate.

lol I guess I have to concede that you're right.

And yet for some reason we have a dozen threads along the same fearmongering hate-encouraging lines (e.g. police morality training, cop killing, etc.)

Hmmm... is the kot or the pettle bolor-clind? :-\

[damageinc.]

Darren Dirt Wrote:

NonEntity Wrote:Damage,

please post these [eliminate the state] ideas with each of the articles that you post so that we may understand your thinking regarding these issues.

Otherwise, consider that Alex Jones already does a fine job of spreading fear and hate and we don't really need to duplicate the job of the neo-cons on our own board.  It is not more fear and hate we need, it is more love and understanding, more joy and laughter.

That's my personal view on it all at any rate.

lol I guess I have to concede that you're right.

And yet for some reason we have a dozen threads along the same fearmongering hate-encouraging lines (e.g. police morality training, cop killing, etc.)

Hmmm... is the kot or the pettle bolor-clind? :-\

My reason is to show people that come to this forum who are in doubt or siting on the fence so to speak of understanding why anyone of you and I do not need nor want "state", "government","law","police". Also to show that these are not isolated incidences, but in fact happen every day, and is common place. The seriousness of this, and to show how VERY importent it is to RID are lives and this world of this decay. That my brathas is my intent. STRAIT UP YO!

[NonEntity]

I may very well be out of line.  And I recognize that it is not just Damage, but his latest post was the one that finally triggered my frustration at it all, so there ya have it.  I am finding that the discussions of ideas that I find worthwhile are being driven out of sight under the plethora of AP wire stories that I can find anywhere.  Dat's all.  So my apologies if this was seen as a personal attack.  It was not intended as such, but rather a comment on the declining value of the material on the board.  I'm hoping my post may just stimulate some consideration of my thinking along these lines.  Or I may be totally full of it.  Y'all are free to judge and act as you see fit. 

- NonE

[Darren Dirt]

SOLUTION: any non-"solution" oriented threads that are based primarily or entirely on a news article, put them in the "NEWS..." thread, only. Not in their own thread. Not in a unique "blackwater" thread. Not in a unique "Bush lies again" thread. But all in the single "news" thread.

However if you wish to jump off from the article to speculate about the causes, or the voluntaryist-based solutions, feel free (e.g. TASERS, WAR, etc.)


mkay?

all better?

PS: i have no power to impose these suggestions ;D

[eye2i2hear]

Darren Dirt Wrote:SOLUTION: any non-"solution" oriented threads that are based primarily or entirely on a news article, put them in the "NEWS..." thread, only. Not in their own thread. Not in a unique "blackwater" thread. Not in a unique "Bush lies again" thread. But all in the single "news" thread.

However if you wish to jump off from the article to speculate about the causes, or the voluntaryist-based solutions, feel free (e.g. TASERS, WAR, etc.)

That was my initial response and so my suggestion to follow* as well.  I can relate to what NonE is expressing.  I can also relate to what damaginc is after.  My personal interest favors NonE's, but then I'm not a noob to No State/voluntary association thinking (aka deprogrammed or disindoctrinated?).  I favor solution posts simply because the problem articles far out weigh them in availability.  I wonder if its tempting to post the problems simply because it helps us to feel (falsely or otherwise) we're doing (at least) something about it?

*If not necessarily or specifically put under "the" News thread, at least a thread dedicated to the likes of the theme (example: a "The State At Its Best" thread)?

[Darren Dirt]

Stephen Colbert's "W0RD": Market Forces
When it comes to getting killed, innocent Iraqis have never had so many choices... :rolleyes:

...dammit Stephen, just before your silly sketch you hinted that you actually believe in libertarian principles! :o