Monday, November 16, 2009

Blackwater and Pakistan

I read an interesting article on the CNN News website
Pakistan, Peshawar blasts blackwater
where Al Qaeda denied having anything to do with the current bombings in Pakistan. Not being a great lover of terrorist groups I wondered what benefit Al Qaeda would gain from not admitting to those bombings, seeing as Al Qaeda had taken great pleasure in admitting other terrorist attacks. I decided to do a little investigation into 'Blackwater' now known as 'Xe'. I didn't have to look any further than wikipedia where there is an interesting article about them Wikipedia.
The company, Xe, was founded by an ex-US Navy seal, Erik Prince who was an intern in the Bush administration. The president of Xe, Gary Jackson, is also an ex-US Navy seal. No problem, one would think, two ex-forces mates setting up a private company to make a bit of money in their old profession. It starts getting a little more complicated and suspicious when there are members of their board, namely: Cofer Black, who was director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center between 2006 and 2008, and who is also chairman of 'Total Intelligence Solutions' a company linked to Xe. It starts getting a little complicated after this, which, I suppose, is what it is supposed to do. Anyway, the kernel of the story is that Xe is 'linked' to the CIA. Now, if I started up a security company and wanted the 'big' contracts then I would bring on board ex-CIA men who had contacts within the CIA to pass on those contracts to my company. Or, I suppose, another way of looking at it is that Xe is a front for the CIA. Take whichever viewpoint suits you.
To get back to the original point, why would Al Qaeda deny bombing those towns in Pakistan unless they didn't do it. Could it be that Al Qaeda are right and that they didn't bomb those towns but Xe operatives did? If they did then one would have to ask why would a USA private(?) security company, linked to the CIA, bomb towns in Pakistan killing and maiming hundreds of Pakistani citizens? The only conclusion that I can come to is that the USA needed to focus the minds of the Pakistani government and the world at large to keep pressure on the Pakistani government to ensure their army continue fighting the Talaban on their border with Afghanistan.

2 comments:

  1. You know me. I'm always willing to believe that any organization that has ever even touched the CIA is a front--because that's usually the case. And, sad to say, one can't put bombing civilians past these people.

    I wish I could say it was impossible.

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  2. Sadly, and I mean this, I wish that I was wrong but this is big boy politics and a few million people dying to further the aims of individual nations seems small change to them.

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