Mohammed was thrilled when the U.S. entered Baghdad years earlier in 2003. He was left with shrapnel in his body from the rocket launched grenade that was fired into his vehicle as he escaped. Despite having immense firepower at its disposal that could readily turn the tide in conflicts as protracted as Syrias proxy war, the Russian advance in Ukraine has been slower than expected according to most estimates because Russia is only targeting military infrastructure and doing all it can to minimize collateral damage, particularly needless civilian losses in the former Soviet republic whose majority population is sympathetic to Russia. [4] Germany to ship anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-ship-anti-aircraft-missiles-to-ukraine-reports/a-60995325. The Nisour Square massacre was one of the lowest episodes of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. Hussein Saheb Nasser, 35, told NBC News by telephone from his home in Baghdad on Wednesday. Ali was the youngest of Blackwaters victims that day. Before Nord Stream Sabotage, VT RADIO: Exposing East Palestine Train Derailment Disaster with VTs Jack Heart, Dr. Fauci Admits COVID Shots Didnt Have A Chance Of Controlling The Pandemic, More Home Care Services Needed for Military Veterans, VA is Lying Facebook Group is Social Media Done Right, Pregnant Dog Found Starving to Death in Cage Needs Help to be Reunited With Marine Who Rescued Her, Healthy Eating Options More Accessible to Military Community through the Exchange, Israels Illegal Violent Occupation: When De-Escalate Means Ramp Up, Citizen Kane Rupert Murdoch Openly Admits Fox News is Complete Bullshit. [99], Clemency caused outrage among Iraqi citizens and family members of the victims. The black-op of setting a building in the sprawling nuclear complex alight and then posting doctored video clips of Russian tanks shelling straight at the nuclear plant on social media, promptly verified as authentic by corporate media, was clearly the dirty work of covert saboteurs whove been advising and assisting Ukraines inept security forces and also taking an active part in combat operations in some of the hardest fought battles against Russias security forces north of Kyiv and at Kharkiv and Donbas. "The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. [10][11] The next day, Blackwater Worldwide's license to operate in Iraq was temporarily revoked. Mahde Shamke was 25 years old and driving a taxi to support his parents and siblings. She turned the location into an exotic bookstore and caf, offering erotica readings, among other licentious pastimes. While the #RussianOligarchs are vile post-Soviet capitalists, the hypocrisy of the US media is revealing. When #Blackwater mercenaries were murdering civilians in the #IraqWar, did these voices demand seizure of yachts owned by CEO Erik Prince? Before. Three Ex-Blackwater Guards Are Resentenced in Iraq War Massacre The men will serve about half of their original 30-year sentences for their roles in a 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq . Among the pardons made by President Trump this week, the pardon of four former guards for Blackwater has been regarded by some as particularly galling. As Mohammed held his sons hand, he convulsed and died in the back of the ambulance. The 14 victims killed by the Blackwater guards on trial were listed as Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubiay, Mahassin Mohssen Kadhum Al-Khazali, Osama Fadhil Abbas, Ali Mohammed Hafedh Abdul Razzaq, Mohamed Abbas Mahmoud, Qasim Mohamed Abbas Mahmoud, Saadi Ali Abbas Alkarkh, Mushtaq Karim Abd Al-Razzaq, Ghaniyah Hassan Ali, Ibrahim Abid Ayash, Hamoud Saeed Abttan, Uday Ismail Ibrahiem, Mahdi Sahib Nasir and Ali Khalil Abdul Hussein. We are taking fire from insurgents and Iraqi police. His mother also suffered a stroke, he added. They then set off stun grenades to clear the scene. Prosecutors argued the men did not face hostile gunfire when they began shooting, and continued to shoot despite the lack of threats. Says Guards Killed 14 Iraqis Without Cause", "Blackwater guards lose bid to appeal charges in Iraqi civilian shooting case", "U.S. troops in Iraq will need immunity: U.S. chief", "Jurors' Note Hints at Conviction in Blackwater Case", "Former Blackwater Guards Convicted in Iraq Shooting", "Shock And Dismay After Trump Pardons Blackwater Guards Who Killed 14 Iraqi Civilians", "Trump Pardons Two Russia Inquiry Figures and Blackwater Guards", "Trump pardon of Blackwater Iraq contractors violates international law - UN", "Iraqi Inquiry Says Shooting Was Unprovoked", "Blackwater guards fired unprovoked: Iraq police evidence", "Pentagon Dispatches Investigators to Iraq to Probe Private Security Contractors", "Joint Iraqi-U.S. review begins in wake of Blackwater firefight", "Blackwater faulted by U.S. military: report", "Iraq determined to rein in private security guards", "The Iraqi Account of the Killings [infographic]", "Former Blackwater Employee Sentenced to Life Imprisonment for Murder in 2007 Shooting at Nisur Square in Iraq", "US Lawyers for Blackwater Guards: 2007 Baghdad Shooting was Self-Defense", "From Errand to Fatal Shot to Hail of Fire to 17 Deaths", "Four Former Blackwater Employees Found Guilty of Charges in Fatal Nisur Square Shooting in Iraq", "Iraqi ministers back Blackwater shutdown - CNN.com", "Iraqi Report Says Blackwater Guards Fired First", "State Dept. [32] In response to the guards' killing of the Iraqi policeman, other Iraqi police officers began to fire at the Blackwater men, who communicated to the State Department operations center that they were under attack. Mohammed kept seeing the man on the ground next to him being fired upon as he lay dead. Liberty is one of four former Blackwater mercenaries pardoned by President Donald Trump in one of . Blackwater Worldwide - The New York Times and thus prosecution by U.S. After selling Blackwater to a group of investors in 2010, Erik Prince, a former US Navy Seals officer and the swashbuckling founder of Blackwater, has founded another security company Frontier Services Group, registered at Hong Kong Stock Exchange, that advises and provides aviation and logistical solutions to Chinese oligarchs for the security of their lucrative business projects in Africa. "Paul Slough and his colleagues didn't deserve to spend one minute in prison," Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for Slough, told The Associated Press. The White House further stated that the Court of Appeals "ruled that additional evidence should have been presented at Mr Slatten's trial", and recently that prosecutors said "that the lead Iraqi investigator, who prosecutors relied heavily on to verify that there were no insurgent victims and to collect evidence, may have had ties to insurgent groups himself". Slatten, whom prosecutors said started the shooting, was sentenced to life in prison. Before VT Nuclear Education: The Beirut Nuclear Coverup, The Hidden History of the Incredibly Evil Khazarian Mafia. Trump Just Pardoned Those Convicted Killers", "Pardons in killings of Iraqi civilians stir angry response", "Chief of Blackwater Defends His Employees", "Tracing the Paths of 5 Who Died in a Storm of Gunfire", "Blackwater Execs Remain Free as Guards Convicted for Killing 14 Iraqis in Massacre", Use of white phosphorus by the United States, United States and the International Criminal Court, A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, "The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time", AfghanIraqi Freedom Memorial (Salem, Oregon), The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nisour_Square_massacre&oldid=1141803510, Violent non-state actor incidents in Asia, People convicted of murder by the United States federal government, Pages using embedded infobox templates with the title parameter, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 26 February 2023, at 22:05. He was shot in the abdomen. My law firm received a call from an immigration attorney the next year seeking representation for the Blackwaters victims, and I was eventually retained to represent the Kinani family in a civil lawsuit against Blackwater, Prince, and various other Blackwater companies and, of course, the men who were charged and eventually convicted of murder, manslaughter, and weapons charges for their conduct. [29] The banning was described by P. W. Singer, an expert on the private military industry, as "inevitable", given the US government's reliance on and lack of oversight of the private military industry in Iraq. Supporters of the former contractors at Blackwater Worldwide had lobbied for the pardons, arguing that the men had been excessively punished. . [58] Nor is the US a signatory of the 1977 additional protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions in which Article 47 specifies that mercenaries are civilians who "take a direct part in the hostilities" and are "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain". In 2013, Academi subsidiary International Development Solutions received an approximately $92million contract for State Department security guards. Ukrainian POW Unveils, Russian forces eliminating Ukrainian saboteurs that violated border, Greetings from Oujda, Morocco, the City of Mosques, VT RADIO: Exposing East Palestine Train Derailment Disaster with VTs, VT RADIO: Foreign Policy Gone Mad with VTs Senior Editor, VT RADIO: UFOs, Aliens, & Chinese Balloons with VTs Jack, Many Predicted NATO Expansion Would Lead to War. Dozens of witnesses were brought to the United States to testify about what happened on September 16, 2007. ", "By investigating these crimes and completing legal proceedings, the US complied with its obligations under international law," she added. Dickinson says that the victims' families are likely to feel let down and abandoned by the U.S. government. Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince, whose sister, Betsy DeVos, was appointed Trumps education secretary. [34], In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Blackwater's rights to conduct work in Iraq were temporarily suspended. In the sheer desperation to inflict maximum material damage to Russias security forces, however, NATO appears to have breached its own long-standing convention of curbing the proliferation of anti-aircraft munitions. [45] Also, it is not clear whether the license revocation is permanent. Slattern was sentenced to life and the others to 30 years in prison each. When Slattens conviction was overturned, I was concerned that the case would be ignored. I had never imagined that Trump or any other politician would affect American justice.". Bulk comes from private military companies of the Blackwater/Academi kind. How many covert wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if our reporters werent on the beat? Nasser, who attended the 2014 trial in the United States, said his brother's death had broken his father's heart. Blackwater mercenaries sentenced for 2007 Iraq massacre "Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families," said Jelena Aparac, Chair . Now justice has been undone by the stroke of a pen," Sarah Holewinski, the organization's Washington director, said in a statement. Video of the aftermath includes an image of a human brain on the road in Nisour Square. Scores of Iraqis injured in anti-government protests in Baghdad, Who will protect us?: Baghdad residents wait out fighting as city grinds to halt, Iraqi cleric tells loyalists to return to their homes after fighting in Baghdad, Deadly violence in Baghdad after leading cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says he is quitting politics, Shia factions mass in Baghdad raising fears of more unrest, Protesters storm Iraq parliament again amid unrest over Iran-backed groups, Iran may eventually get its way in protracted power struggle in Iraq, Hundreds of protesters storm Iraq parliament in support of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, Briton jailed in Iraq for smuggling antiquities to be freed, says lawyer. This includes the right to see perpetrators serve punishments proportionate to the seriousness of their conduct. "[51][52][53], On January 19, 2008, The New York Times reported that the contractor responsible for many of the deaths in the engagement, previously known only as "turret gunner no. Blackwater mercenary sentenced to life in prison - NationofChange [14], On October 2, 2007, the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a report stating that Blackwater USA guards had used deadly force weekly in Iraq and had inflicted "significant casualties and property damage". Dec. 24, 2020 Mohammed Hafedh Abdulrazzaq Kinani with a photo of his 9-year-old son, Ali, who was killed by Blackwater. Despite losing the empire in the nineties, as far as military power is concerned, Russia with its enormous arsenal of conventional as well as nuclear weapons still more or less equals the military power of the United States, as is obvious from the unfolding Ukraine war where all the NATO could do is watch it from distance, and not even attempting to enforce a no-fly zone lest the conflict spirals into a mutually destructive nuclear war. Following Russias intervention in Ukraine, Germany alone hasproudly bragged[4] of dispatching caches of 500 US-made surface-to-air Stinger missiles and 2,700 Soviet-era, shoulder-fired Strelamissiles to Ukraines conscript military. Why did it happen? The Machiavellian plan of NATOs military strategists is to establish refugee settlements with the humanitarian assistance in the border regions of Ukraines neighboring countries Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, and then provide guerrilla warfare training and lethal arms to all able-bodied men of military age in order to bleed Russias security forces in the protracted irregular warfare. The Blackwater incident cost the American military in the Middle East a lot more, experts interviewed by RT believe. Thats all it takes to support the journalism you rely on. In addition to the Kinani family, I represented five other families and victims. "These four individuals were given sentences ranging from 12 years to life imprisonment, including on charges of first-degree murder," spokesperson Marta Hurtado said in a statement. https://t.co/O88HKyb3wd, Kevin Reed | wsws.org (@KevinReedWSWS) March 4, 2022. The men, all military veterans working in Iraq for the private security contractor Blackwater, were convicted of massacring 14 civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified rampage of gunfire and. [54] He served one tour in Iraq before being hired as a Personal Security Specialist in Iraq. [2] Reactions [ edit] The fire has since been extinguished after the plant was captured by Russian troops and no radiation leakage has been detected. [47], The U.S. State Department said it planned to investigate what it called a "terrible incident". The My Lai massacre took place on 16 March 1968. He never received treatment. "I consider what the security company personnel have done is a terrorist act, as many civilians were martyred and wounded," said Hashem, 41, a father of five who was partially disabled and forced to retire after the incident. The committee was co-chaired by Abd al Qadir, the Iraqi Minister of Defense, and Patricia A. Butenis, the Charg d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. Donald Trump has pardoned four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater who were serving jail sentences for killing 14 civilians including two children in Baghdad in 2007, a. More were arriving in the backs of trucks. On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned four former Blackwater contractors convicted in the killings. In the middle of the attack, Mohammed could not understand why this man lying dead was a target. The majority of the Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq after the . The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. When Mohammed looked to his right, the driver of the car next to him shouted that the soldiers had just shot into another car in front of them. An ambulance was called, and Ali and Mohammad were rushed to the other side of town. [54] He enlisted in 1999, and served in Bosnia with the 3rd Infantry Division. Those Warnings Were Ignored, How Russia Will Counterpunch U.S./EU Declaration of War, Khazarian Mafia at War: The Jewish Oligarch Who Planned the Terror Attack on Bryansk, Covert Operations In Vietnam: The Incomplete History of US-Norway Collaboration. 2004 Fallujah ambush - Wikipedia Trump Pardons Blackwater 4 for Nisour Square Massacre in Iraq, because My clients assuredly feel ignored, mistreated, and used. Further, besides advising and assisting the UAEs petro-monarchy in strengthening the police state, Erik Prince alsoreportedly provided[3] weapons and modified aircraft to eastern Libyas warlord and former CIA asset Khalifa Haftar, backed by Egypt and UAE, in his thwarted military campaign against the Tripoli government lasting from April 2019 to June 2020. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex, and petro-imperialism. The Iraqi government and Iraqi police investigator Faris Saadi Abdul stated that the killings were unprovoked. Trump's pardon of Blackwater contractors convicted of massacre greeted "Trump pardons Blackwater contractors jailed for massacre of Iraq civilians", 23 December 2020. I know that each of them placed great faith in the U.S. legal system. And none of the I.P. [12] The U.S. State Department has said that "innocent life was lost",[13] and according to The Washington Post, a military report appeared to corroborate "the Iraqi government's contention that Blackwater was at fault". Blackwater Mercenaries Filmed on a Rampage in Iraq & Shooting Civilians Also quoted in the memorandum was David Boslego, a retired US army colonel, who said the massacre was a grossly excessive use of force and grossly inappropriate for an entity whose only job was to provide personal protection to somebody in an armoured vehicle. [63], A U.S. judge's decision to dismiss all charges against Blackwater on January 1, 2010, sparked outrage in the Arab world. Rather than mitigating the suffering of Ukraines disenfranchised masses held hostage by the Zelensky regime, the self-styled champions of human rights are doing all they can to lure Russia into their bear trap project, a term borrowed from the Soviet-Afghan War of the eighties when Western regimes used Pakistans security forces and generous funding from the oil-rich Gulf States for providing guerrilla warfare training and lethal weaponry to Afghan jihadists to bleed the security forces of former the Soviet Union in the protracted war. That day destroyed me completely, Kinani said. What Is Blackwater? I felt I had done that, and I knew the prosecutors were doing that. "We've backed off that. Boslego also said the attack had a negative effect on our mission, [an] adverse effect It made our relationship with the Iraqis in general more strained.. [6][85][86] Jurors sided with prosecutors' contention that the shooting was a criminal act, not a battlefield encounter gone wrong.
Perimeter Behavioral Health Arkansas, Daniel Jones Sarah Jane Parkinson, Hopwood Hall College Staff, Permanent Hair Color With 10 Volume Developer, Articles B