tagged w/ Mercenary
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Brett Erlich and Ellen Fox join forces with top movie critics to review "Survival of the Dead," George Romero's horror film about a group of mercenaries fighting to survive as zombies take over the earth.
The Rotten Tomatoes Show is a movie review show that airs on Thursday nights at 10:30 e/p on Current TV. From reviews of the newest releases to commentary on cult favorites and movie trends, each episode of The Rotten Tomatoes Show is a fast-paced, comedic journey through the week in cinema.
For more from the Rotten Tomatoes Show: http://rottentomatoesshow.comBrett Erlich and Ellen Fox join forces with top movie critics to review "Survival... more
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Happy to use slogans and labeling, Erik Prince exemplifies the type of fanaticism that creates suicide bombers.Happy to use slogans and labeling, Erik Prince exemplifies the type of fanaticism that... more
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Over the past few years, it seems that more and more of Japans obscure RPGs are making their way state side. This is the same case for Aksys Games newest entry Mimana lyar Chronicles for the PSP. Aksys, mostly know for fighters Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, brings the same visually stunning two 2D art work from their previous games to this PSP RPG. However, with such wide selection of other JRPGs out there on the PSP can Mimana lyar Chronicle distinguish its self from the rest of the crowd?Over the past few years, it seems that more and more of Japans obscure RPGs are making... more
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He opened it, and Ali slumped toward him. "I was standing in shock looking at him as the door opened, and his brain fell on the ground between my feet," Mohammed recalls. "I looked and his brain was on the ground."He opened it, and Ali slumped toward him. "I was standing in shock looking at him... more
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During the Democratic primary battle, blasting the private security firm Blackwater USA as a bunch of unaccountable trigger-happy mercenaries was an easy crowd pleaser – particularly after the September 2006 Nisoor Square incident and a subsequent congressional report that stated the company’s use of force was “frequent and extensive”.
Hillary Clinton announced she was sponsoring legislation banning the use of private security contractors. Barack Obama didn’t sign up to this and would not rule out using Blackwater and its ilk. But he made clear his disdain for the outfit, trumpeting in Iowa City last October his proposal for “tougher government reforms than any other candidate in this race – reforms that would eliminate the kind of no-bid contracts that this administration has given to Blackwater”.
He added: “Most contractors act as if the law doesn’t apply to them. Under my plan, if contractors break the law, they will be prosecuted.”
In Pennsylvania in March he stated that “we have to crack down on private contractors like Blackwater, because I don’t believe they should be able to run amok and put our own troops in danger and get paid three or four times or ten times what our soldiers are getting paid”.
So who do you think protected Obama and his fellow senators Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel during their recent and much ballyhooed congressional delegation trip to Afghanistan? Yep, that’s right – Blackwater.
In his Washington Whispers column, the well-connected Paul Bedard reports that Obama was overheard saying that “Blackwater is getting a bad rap”. A fairly startling alleged observation given his previous utterances about the company – though perhaps unsurprising given he was in a war zone and his life was in the hands of Blackwater guards.
A tight-lipped Anne Tyrrell, spokeswoman for Blackwater, said she could neither confirm nor deny that the company had been involved in the visits by the senators to Afghanistan or Iraq. My request to Bill Burton, Obama’s national spokesman, for comment on the Bedard story – including whether the alleged quote or its sentiment was genuine – went unanswered.
But a source familiar with Obama’s security arrangements told me that Blackwater, along with the Secret Service, did pull security for the three senators in Afghanistan, though not Iraq.
Deceiver describes this as Obama’s “Rosie O’Donnell moment” That’s maybe a tad harsh but it will be interesting to see whether Obama’s public position on Blackwater changes as a result of his up-close time with their personnel in Afghanistan.During the Democratic primary battle, blasting the private security firm Blackwater... more
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asherp
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added this
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2 years ago
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"A federal judge Wednesday blocked the public from attending a critical set of pretrial hearings in the prosecution of five U.S. security contractors accused of killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in a 2007 shooting.
The hearings, which are expected to last through Friday, will examine whether the government improperly used immunized statements by the Blackwater Worldwide security guards in its investigation. The guards gave the statements to the State Department shortly after the controversial shooting Sept. 16, 2007, in a busy Baghdad square.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said Wednesday that he was closing the hearings because he wanted to shield witnesses and potential jurors from pretrial publicity. He also cited concerns about the disclosure of grand jury material. Urbina said he wanted to ensure the guards received a fair trial.
The five guards -- Paul Slough, Nicholas Slatten, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Donald Ball -- are charged with voluntary manslaughter and weapons violations in the killing of 14 civilians and the wounding 20 others. The Justice Department alleges that the guards unleashed an unprovoked attack on Iraqi civilians in Nisoor Square while in a convoy. One guard, Jeremy P. Ridgeway, has pleaded guilty and is expected to testify against the others.
Blackwater, which has since renamed itself Xe, had a contract to provide security for the State Department in Iraq.
The proceedings underway in the District's federal court, known as Kastigar hearings, will probe how well investigators gathered evidence without being tainted by those immunized statements. If the judge finds the government's case is tainted, he might be forced to throw out the indictment."
Fair trial? Throw out the indictment?
Contractors are mercenaries under a contract, hence the name, and part of the contract is that they cannot be prosecuted for crimes that the average American soldier would be under United States and International Law. Essentially, the have immunity.
So, when Blackwater, Xe, Executive Outcomes, Halliburton, KBR, BAE Systems have their mercenaries shoot up villages and revel in the plunder of heroin and prostitutes, American soldiers get hit with the retaliation, and in the case of Afghanistan, they're about to hit back real hard. Think Vietnam was bad? Wait til he Taliban start their "Tet Offensive."
These "peacekeepers" are now patrolling the streets of the US as part of an international police force. Google 'G20 police pittsburgh' and click on images. Remember, contractor=mercenary and they have no allegiance to the United States or the Constitution. They work under a different contract and they get private trials."A federal judge Wednesday blocked the public from attending a critical set of... more
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Jeremy Scahill sparred with NBC political director Chuck Todd on Friday, forcefully criticizing journalists and lawmakers for treading lightly on Blackwater's recently-revealed misdeeds.
Newly declassified memos this week showed that the CIA hired Blackwater, a private military security company, years ago as part of an effort to kill senior Al-Qaeda officials and other designated terrorists.
Scahill, who has written a popular book about Blackwater, had scathing comments about the organization, calling it "Erik Prince's Christian supremacist fighting force to eliminate Muslims and destroy Islam globally, and then they bill taxpayers again for this killing that they're doing and they're not held to the same standard as soldiers."
"There are Iraqi and Afghan forces that are forced to face down against them, when, I'm sorry, the US Congress does nothing to stop it," he continued, "and journalists have done nothing to hold the White House accountable now, Chuck, or under Bush. This has not been an issue and yet it constitutes more than half of the fighting force in Afghanistan."
Scahill singled out Todd, a fellow panelist on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher", for not taking the issue more seriously. "Chuck, you called it political cat-nip to talk about the CIA and Cheney's role in this, because it distracts from the important issues," he said. "This is a central issue and you called it cable cat-nip."
Here is video of Scahill singling out Todd:Jeremy Scahill sparred with NBC political director Chuck Todd on Friday, forcefully... more
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