The risk is now that the U.S., who has a presence worldwide, has exposure for how they might be treated or what people of other countries might think could happen or would happen if war crimes are committed by U.S. citizens abroad. After capturing Kherson yesterday, Russian forces even apprehended several suspicious and armed foreign nationals who are currently being interrogated by Russias military intelligence GRU. Hassan Salman is among the Iraqis who were shot during the ambush. [15] The incident sparked at least five investigations, including one from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. [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". [19] According to this account, the security team fired warning shots and then lethal fire at the Kia. Their route home was through Nisour Square. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. And none of the I.P. Nicholas Slatten was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted of murder, while Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted of manslaughter and weapons charges. The killing of innocent civilians, including two young boys, sparked international outrage and public scrutiny into the use of private military companies . Five were charged with 14 counts of manslaughter, 20 counts of attempted manslaughter and a weapons violation: Donald Ball, a former Marine from West Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former Marine from Knoxville, Tennessee; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, New Hampshire; Nicholas Slatten, a former army sergeant from Sparta, Tennessee, and Paul Slough, an army veteran from Keller, Texas. [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. "This incident motivated the Iraqi authorities to seek the withdrawal of American troops from the country. In November last year, he pardoned a former US army commando who was set to stand trial over the killing of a suspected Afghan bomb-maker, and a former army lieutenant convicted of murder for ordering his men to fire at three Afghans. IE 11 is not supported. [6][85][86] Jurors sided with prosecutors' contention that the shooting was a criminal act, not a battlefield encounter gone wrong. The Iraqi government condemned the pardons, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying in a statement late on Wednesday that it would follow up with the U.S. through diplomatic channels to urge a reconsideration. The report found that the guards fired their weapons 195 times from the beginning of 2005 through the second week of September 2005. "The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. [63] The suit was settled for an undisclosed sum in January 2010. A burnt car at the site where Blackwater guards opened fire on a crowd in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007. [89][90][91] The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's fractured per curiam decision first found that Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act authorized the prosecutions, over the partial dissent of Judge Janice Rogers Brown. [36] Several Iraqi and American investigations have been conducted into the incident. The Nisour Square massacre was the FBIs most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. The four armed contractors, Scott Helvenston, Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, and Mike Teague, were killed and dragged from their vehicles. Six of my Blackwater brethren contractors are on the helicopter going to Tikrit. Bullets were everywhere. I know that each of them placed great faith in the U.S. legal system. "The ministry believes that this decision did not take into account the seriousness of the crime committed and was inconsistent with the U.S. administration's declared commitment to the values of human rights, justice, and the rule of law, and regrettably ignores the dignity of the victims," it said. [21]:116, During opening arguments for a criminal trial held in 2014, defense lawyers representing former Blackwater members of Raven 23 argued the men felt the approaching Kia was a credible threat as a possible car bomb, and opened fire in self-defense. Russias reluctant and delayed military intervention in Ukraine is fundamentally a war of power projection, a shot across the bow to perfidious former allies, the East European states, whove been joining the EU and NATO in droves since the break-up of Soviet Union in 1991, that the collective security of Eurasian nations is a shared responsibility, and NATOs eastward expansion along Russias western flank not only imperils the security of resurgent Russia but also compromises the balance of power in the multipolar world. Luckily, before his SUV was attacked, Mohammed, his sister, and their children had time to duck into the car. The State Department announced an American-Iraqi joint commission to investigate both the shooting and the broader issue of employing private security contractors. Who would hold party elites accountable to the values they proclaim to have? They started out as a private security firm providing training support to law enforcement, the justice department, and military organizations and received their first contract from the United States government in 2000 after the bombing of the USS Cole. An ambulance was called, and Ali and Mohammad were rushed to the other side of town. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq increasingly relied on private contractors, Blackwater being only the most infamous. [2] 16,000 volunteers coming to Ukraine, Zelensky: https://www.rt.com/russia/551149-zelensky-ukraine-foreign-fighters/. Blackwater Mercenaries Filmed on a Rampage in Iraq & Shooting Civilians from WarPosting After being leaked by a former employee of the notorious PMC, the footage dated April 2006 was featured in a piece called "The Warrior Class" by Charles Glass. He was driving on flat tires and with a shattered windshield. The Beginning Blackwater USA began in 1997 by Al Clark and Erik Prince. security contractors who had previously been sentenced over the death of 17 Iraqi civilians in the 2007 Nisur Square massacre . [21]:116[22] The Blackwater commander, Jimmy Watson, had received an order to stand by and not leave the Green Zone upon reaching a checkpoint, but he made a "tactical decision" to advance to Nisour Square after waiting for a few minutes; upon informing the Blackwater Tactical Operations Center of this, he was ordered to return to the Green Zone. These men will now be free, despite their crimes, and they will not serve the time in prison they deserved. How many covert wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if our reporters werent on the beat? Nassar Hamza was 67 years old when he was shot and wounded in the arm. The majority of the Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq after the . American troops invaded Iraq in 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. He was shot through the roof of his car as the Blackwater convoy drove past firing down into traffic. On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned four former Blackwater contractors convicted in the killings. Let us assume that I travel to America and kill 17 American citizens. 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". The four were convicted at then VP Joe Biden's insistence, and were serving jail terms. But its the much more subtle and insidious tactic of economic warfare for which Russia has no antidote, as the global neocolonial order is being led by the United States and its Western European clients since the signing of the Bretton Woods Accord in 1945 following the Second World War. More than 3,000 troops remain in Iraq, according to defense officials, with a drawdown scheduled for January. on about your day, ask yourself: How likely is it that the story you just read would have been produced by a different news outlet if The Intercept hadnt done it? Paul Dickinson is a lawyer who represented six Iraqi families in a civil lawsuit against Blackwater and its founder, Erik Prince (who is the brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos). Abraham Al Mafrage was a 70-year-old farmer and father of seven who was also shot in the head and died that day. He told NPR on Wednesday that he was shocked by Trump's pardons he himself had made trips to the U.S. to give testimony in the proceedings against the four. Nicholas Slatten, 35, was a former security guard at the private US military firm Blackwater and was based in Baghdad. https://t.co/O88HKyb3wd, Kevin Reed | wsws.org (@KevinReedWSWS) March 4, 2022. The report found that the use of contractors such as Blackwater was a "new form of mercenary activity" and illegal under international law; however, the United States is not a signatory of the 1989 UN Mercenary Convention banning the use of mercenaries. What takes place doesnt mention Russian soldiers but others preventing citizens from escaping. He was in the car next to Mohammed. Four Blackwater security guards convicted in 2014 of carrying out a massacre of Iraqi civilians, sparking an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war . [41] Senate Democratic leaders said they planned to pass similar legislation as soon as possible. When Blackwater security guard Nicholas Slatten was tried and convicted for murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, the U.S. legal system determined that he needed a new trial. Dozens of witnesses were brought to the United States to testify about what happened on September 16, 2007. Video of the aftermath includes an image of a human brain on the road in Nisour Square. About the author:Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geostrategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Af-Pak and the Middle East regions. [77] "Prosecutors should therefore have built their case against the men without them", a BBC report explained. The Nisour Square Massacre, in which Blackwater mercenaries fired hundreds of rounds in a crowded Baghdad traffic square, killing fourteen Iraqis, including ten women and two children, and . Blackwater mercenaries committed a massacre. He was shot through the back with a massive exit wound in his chest. Thats what lawyers do in the United States: We fight for those who cant fight for themselves. Mohammed turned his bullet-riddled SUV around and drove back to the closest hospital only a few blocks behind him. As Mohammed held his sons hand, he convulsed and died in the back of the ambulance. When Mohammed saw the convoy enter the traffic circle, he initially thought they were regular U.S. Army members. Russian-American political scientist Malek Dudakov called the shooting a landmark event and a major international scandal. "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 . [56], On April 1, 2011, the Associated Press reported on Erik Prince's seven-hour testimony about what allegedly transpired. When the first indictments were dismissed on New Years Eve in 2009, they were told that the prosecutions would continue. [54] He served one tour in Iraq before being hired as a Personal Security Specialist in Iraq. The result is not just that we see an injustice in the United States, but that the world must surely see cracks in the pillars of justice upon which our system is based. "It was obviously excessive", a U.S. military official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Washington Post. Witnesses described how the American men ambushed the civilians unprovoked, firing on Baghdad's Nisour Square with heavy gunfire and grenade launchers.
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Awake Game Show Application, Articles B