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Another Lawsuit Targets Founder of Blackwater
Yet another civil lawsuit accuses Blackwater guards of driving through the streets of Baghdad randomly shooting innocent Iraqis.
Grilled by the politicans ... Erik Prince, chairman of the Prince Group, LLC and Blackwater USA, testifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. (Photo: AFP) The latest case accuses Blackwater founder Erik Prince of personally directing murders from a 24-hour remote monitoring "war room" at the private military company's Moyock, N.C., headquarters.
Prince "personally directed and permitted a heavily-armed private army... to roam the streets of Baghdad killing innocent civilians," alleges the suit, filed by four Iraqi citizens.
Prince was well aware that his men, including top executives, "viewed shooting innocent Iraqis as sport," the suit says. In fact, "those who killed and wounded innocent Iraqis tended to rise higher in Mr. Prince's organization than those who abided by the rule of law."
Prince's top executives openly discussed "laying Hajjis out on cardboard" and "bragged about their collective role in killing those of the Islamic faith," the suit alleges.
On more than one occasion, the suit says, Prince's men went "night hunting" in helicopters after 10 p.m. over the streets of Baghdad, wearing night goggles, killing at random.
The lawsuit says Prince caused murders to occur on at least 11 occasions, including one and perhaps more in the United States.
The suit describes one case in which a young man, not identified in the court papers, died after photographing Anna Bundy, a Blackwater executive, packaging illegal weaponry outfitted with silencers for shipment to Iraq.
One employee is said to have warned the young man that such photographs "are what get people killed." Lawyers for the plaintiffs plan to use the legal discovery process to learn whether Prince participated in the events leading to his death.
The latest suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, is the sixth civil case brought against Prince and his company, now known as Xe, by the Washington law firm Burke O'Neil on behalf of more than 60 Iraqis or their estates.
Many of them were injured or killed two years ago today - Sept. 16, 2007 - in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in a shooting incident that left 17 Iraqis dead and ultimately led to the loss of Blackwater's diplomatic security contract.
Five former Blackwater guards face criminal charges of voluntary manslaughter in that incident. Last week, federal prosecutors filed papers alleging a yearlong pattern of hostile action against Iraqis by the defendants leading up to that shooting.
In one episode described in those papers, one of the five defendants, Evan Liberty, allegedly drove through Baghdad on Sept. 9, 2007, a week before the Nisoor Square incident, randomly shooting Iraqis through the porthole of an armored vehicle.
The latest civil suit is an apparent outgrowth of that event. The plaintiffs are four Iraqis who operated a shop in Baghdad and were allegedly injured by Liberty's "wanton shooting."
Xe had no immediate comment on the new allegations.
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13 Comments so far
Show AllThis is 'so scary." All this move toward fighting back by the people of this country by lawyers and maybe even litigation is liable to lead, at least very well might to a bit of an outbreak of democracy and accountability from our neo con rules and power elites as referred by C Wright Mills. Now "what would happen" then? Why it's frightening, if the current prostitutacracy and rule by billions and their stooges should fall-- "just damn terrible" seeing such a "fine system" of corruption struck down like lightning, because a few of us "rabble subversives and Communist loving" progressives just don't know "our place" in this system.
AD
It Inevitable in a SYSTEM that rewards psyhcopathic behaviour (Which is what the American system of Capitalism does) that such individuals would rise to the top.
It also a reflection of the Society at large that such people can be held in esteem by the Public.
SouixRose, where are you? What star allignment created this being called Eric Prince? Was it the same alignment that created Genghis Khan? Hermann Goering? Bush Junior?
I know that every being gets their karmic justice, even if I don't believe that Mr. Prince will be brought to justice in this lifetime. Some little comfort, huh?
prince was born june 6 1969 in Holland, Michigan.
What about all the newborn babies in the nursery that day in Holland Michigan? Did they grow up to be monsters too?
Joe
No - the "Prince" of Darkness won the monster title on that infamous day in 1969.
Sioux Rose
J: That's a valid question. Most would have issues with religion, natures marked by a strong internal dichotomy. A few would probably require medication, as the pattern looks bi-polar. I have only done a very limited form of ad hoc research, but everyone I've ever known who was bi-polar had strong placements in Gemini, Sagittarius and sometimes Virgo. This type of interior swing can lead some to artistic achievement, the vast majority to wrecked relationships and attempts to self-medicate away the interior roller coaster/mood swings. With alcohol and drug abuse rates as high as they are, that approach would mask symptoms. Such characters would fit right in with today's (often sick) societies.
Sioux Rose
VBD: Thanks for providing the date. George Bush Sr & Barbara are both Gemini natives, and I think we can agree something was vastly missing as per the turn-out of sociopath, jr. I just finished an article that explains how the first 4 signs establish the elemental blueprint, and how these work as a foundation for any civilization. Each one has positive and negative potentials and implications. The Zodiac begins with fire (Aries/Mars), moves to earth (Taurus/Venus), then to air (Gemini/Mercury), and I relate this sequence because water--that which makes for FEELINGS and caring and empathy is LAST to emerge. Many Gemini persons are caring, but Kissinger and the Bush parents and Eric are examples of those who have never developed the slightest iota of that empathy necessary to a humane experience. It could be argued their souls have not yet come to water!
My thesis is that the misuse of the first principle--Mars inclines power to be used against the weak, rather than for their protection (arguable basis for national defense).
The misuse of the 2nd principle (Venus/Taurus) leads to the LOVE of money which becomes the basis for all evil.
The misuse of the 3rd founding principle (air) is seen when a nation's media is entirely embedded with those who serve a dark purpose and agenda, that is, they send propaganda rather than truth over the public's air waves.
The last element, Cancer/water can undermine a society when families become the means through which individuals are socialized to conform to a corrupt state. The undoing of these first 4 primal elements explains how any nation can fall upon its own symbolic sword.
In any case, it's interesting that Prince was born on D-day. I have always had very tough personal life events at that time, and I consider it a strange date. His I ching number is 37/family and as a white racist, he only recognizes the family of mankind through his own "type." 3 + 7 = 10 which is the same as a number 1, and he likes being boss, the leader, not needing to consider another's point of view when he makes his absolute decisions. He is "numero uno."
His Moon is in Pisces in square to his sun. (That usually means the parents had little to no love for one another, or any cohesive true bond when he was conceived.) The Pisces moon can lead to spiritual delusion. With sun in a dual sign (Gemini) in hard aspect to moon in a dual sign (Pisces), he is at war with himself. I consider a preponderance of the dual/mutable signs as evidence the soul incarnated with marked internal (psychological) divisions. When we consider how often a person had to pose as other than what s/he believed to avoid persecution given the warped nature of human history, it's easy to understand why some must live a double life. Seems he's seeking his own brand of salvation by turning others into martyrs. His Mercury (mindset) is also in Gemini, fairly close to his sun which would limit his capacity to step out of his own mocassins to recognize another's truth (one that departed from his own).
He is probably such a good liar, he isn't sure when he's even telling the truth. All that mutability makes for adaptation to circumstance at the risk of losing one's core truth (presuming he possessed any to begin with).
His Mars is in Sagittarius. So here the principle of war, ego and what one will fight for is in the sign of foreign adventure and religious principles. His own Jupiter (it rules Sagittarius) is in narrow-minded Virgo, so he really believes (as do so many authoritarians) that there is only one right way! His Jupiter is very close to Uranus (the rebel planet that rules Aquarius), so he sees himself as a law unto himself. He truly thinks he's working out a penance direct with God and that he need not answer to men or mundane law! I would not be surprised if he had a major sexual dysfunction... the Jupiter-Uranus Virgo are also very close to Pluto, the sex planet. And Virgo still carries the stigma of the sign of virgins... I think someone tried to teach him that sex/pleasure were dirty. There is something really OFF here. I'd have to go biking and meditate further on it, but it's key to his twisted personality.
We see the nodes as the symbolic portals of past life baggage and present life necessity. His south node (the past life "baggage claim") is at 27 Virgo precisely conjoined with his Jupiter (religion), and Uranus (rebellion to the status quo), and Pluto (sexuality, forgiveness, capacity for transformation). He's working on seeing how all the parts fulfill the whole (north node Pisces) in this lifetime, but his insistence on the narrow Virgo parameters, the categories of who's an insider and who's an outsider are so strongly etched into his belief system as to have him take out those he considers undesirables.
Incidentally his I ching for this year is 23/splitting apart, the same as the actual numerology for 9-11-2001. He's not used to having his authority challenged and it IS getting to him on the inside. A shame he has the face of such a NICE guy. If he didn't have Blackwater, he'd probably torture intimate partners.
Ray Berthiaume
I can't wait to see Michael Moore's CAPITALISM; A LOVE STORY.
If I may suggest Xe's future new name :
⇒ _ T A R G E T S _ Я _ US _ ⇐
I believe that this is the proper mix of higher than Wallmart quality,
and down to Earth dealing with people like children, to ensure appropriate audience responses.
I have some great ideas for an awesome new uniform and penetrating "camouflage," but I must clarify that I am only suggesting that they be legal targets, for prosecution and lawsuits.
No one ( else ) deserves carrying the weight of inhumane extra-legal murders.
_||_
killing knows no nationality...kill kill kill...with so much killing, and so little brain, it can be hard to remember under which circumstances the killing is approved...
Are you surprised by this man from Am Way? I first heard about this pyramid scheme of making money by selling people soap products when I first moved to Michigan in 1983. It was a scam then and everything they have done is just a bigger scam.
Am Way: the American Way. How awful that it's true.
In case you haven't noticed, the state department is offering new operating contracts to both Xe (Blackwater) and Wackenhut (the drunken party specialists) to guard our diplomats and our bases in Afghanistan. There isn't any difference between Bush or Obama, they are both corporate rats! Can you imagine the out come of the battle of the Bulge if Patton had to depend on KBR instead of the U.S. Army for fuel and supplies?