Blackwater’s Youngest Victim: Father of 9 Year-Old Killed in Nisour Square Gives Most Detailed Account of Massacre to Date (full article…)

Perhaps one of the most jarring comparisons here is the fact that ACORN is being attacked. Yet the Obama administration continues to contract with Blackwater, the Bush administration’s favorite mercenary company, which is headed by Erik Prince. Prince was a major donor to Republican causes and campaigns, including those of some of the Defund ACORN bill’s sponsors, like Indiana Republican Mike Pence, one of the key figures hunting down Van Jones. A former employee recently described Prince as a man who “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe” and said that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.” (full article…)

On the second anniversary of the single worst massacre of Iraqi civilians committed by a private force since the US invasion, President Obama should be forced to explain to the American people and the people of Iraq and Afghanistan why he continues to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to this company and why he permits them to remain on the ground, representing the United States in these countries. At a recent hearing of the bipartisan Wartime Contracting Commission, commissioner Linda Gustitus asserted that in not canceling Blackwater’s contracts after Nisour Square, the State Department “helped to send a message to other contractors that you can do a lot and not have your contract terminated.” (full article…)

For 1,929 days, the Bush administration’s mercenary force of choice, Blackwater Worldwide, has operated on a US government contract in Iraq in a climate that has wed immunity with impunity. Today the Justice Department took the first concrete step to hold accountable the individuals responsible for the single greatest massacre of Iraqi civilians at the hands of an armed private force deployed in Iraq by the US government.

Five Blackwater operatives turned themselves in to federal authorities in Salt Lake City on Monday morning after being officially notified that they had each been indicted on fourteen manslaughter charges and allegations they used automatic weapons in the commission of a crime. A sixth Blackwater operative has already pleaded guilty to two charges as part of an agreement to testify against his colleagues. The thirty-five-count indictment was unsealed today in Washington, DC. It stems from the operatives’ alleged role in the Nisour Square shootings in Baghdad in September 2007 that left seventeen Iraqi civilians dead and more than twenty wounded. Today’s indictments represent the first time in more than five years of the Iraq occupation that the Justice Department has brought criminal charges against armed private contractors for crimes committed against Iraqis.

Significantly, Blackwater as a company faces no charges in the case. (more…)