Yes they are. Just like robbing a bank is more effective than working for living. The problem against "private military companies" is that they are called "Private Security Contractors." They are called that, because the term "mercenary" will get them arrested, as mercenary armies are illegal around the world. However, as long as they can keep their facade as "security guards", they are not technically illegal, because they use a different name. Like "wiseguy" instead of "gangster" or "racketeer
This guy got balls. I hope nothing happens to him Regardless of Blackwater being good or Bad We need people like him to inform The regular guy Cause you won’t hear this on tv
What a horrible thing to say, to be elated over someone being burned to death then hung from a bridge suggest serious psychopathic tendencies. Scott Helvenston (One of the victims) was on a patrol detail guarding a shipping truck when he and his driver were ambushed, he left behind a daughter and wife after going overseas to pay off his debts. Tell his daughter and wife of your joy.
Blackwater operators were the absolute best at what they did, with an impeccable record of keeping the high value targets under their care safe -- which is what they were hired to do. Call them what you want, but they were the best security money could buy. Plus, their training facilities and instructors are some of the best in the world...
Jeremy Scahill has not only been proven right over the past half decade or so ... he continues to be one of the most efficient, honest, brave, and admirable (actual) investigative journalists working today.
As a previous BW employee, I tried to read the first 50 pages of his book. It was so inaccurate and insulting that I stopped reading it. Thanks Jeremy, you've failed massively and revealed your own ignorance and bias.
Wow. I've watched the "turkey shoot" vid in its entirety. You cut out the part where he is shooting at a guy with an RPG but you show that quick blurb? Way to report the whole story. Thats great news reporting. Keep up the good work. (Sarcasm)
candyHam, don't be a dick. I will quote this from Wikipedia; "The M4 falls under restrictions of Title II of the National Firearms Act. The 14.5 inch barrel makes the M4 a Short Barrel Rifle (SBR) and select fire capability (semi-automatic and full automatic or burst-automatic) makes the M4 a machine gun." Time for you to stop talking and go back to your gaming console.
To someone who doesn't understand, the limited space to write here on RUclips is not enough to fully educate you. This guy is not a Bush basher, he is an American patriot for bringing these things to our attention.
Well hell. Im for Blackwater. Killing your enemy is one thing, every side does that its cruel but legit war, but burning your enemyes body and hang it on the bridge, while everyone is cheering, thats just immoral, someone HAD to pay for and hopefully they did
Finally an intelligent comment. You have a valid point bro. All these comments pointing fingers and blaming Blackwater and other PMC's . are the same people that are jealous they can't work and make the big salary that these guys do nor they have experience and training to even be considered and second they are the same people who never served in the Military and have not the slightest clue about brotherhood and serving.
Hey every body it's Jason Blaha and I wanna do a little story time for you guys. I grew up a competitive shooter and a hunter. I hunted since I was 6 years old, I shot since i was 6 years old, I started doing long distance rifle shooting in competition when I was 12 years old. So we'll call it a "hunter", I was a hunter of exotic game if that'll make you guys feel better. And a pretty good chunk of the game that I hunted was a very dangerous type of game that it's some sort of masonry or brick laying because I stacked bricks of some type up. Alright so let's go back and look at timelines a little bit. A lot of you guys grew up in a completely different world politically and even from a war perspective a lot of you guys reached adulthood around the time of 9/11, or shortly thereafter, or around that range. I'm turning 40 years old this year. I turned 18 in 1994, president Clinton became president in 1993, so my young adulthood was during the Clinton years, the Clinton Administration. So president Clinton was the President from the time I was 17 all the way until I was 25. The President before him was George Bush Senior who was the former head of the CIA which we then allowed to be Vice President twice. He pretty much ran the show on Reagan. And then he became president and he had his own ideas about the way the world and the country should be run and what our national interests were behind the scenes. But the Clinton Administration was one of the most corrupt administrations there ever was and people who don't know that just need to look a little bit at all the things that had gone on with the Clintons over the years, look at how many hundreds and hundreds of people who had association with them from the various administrations, business partners, things like that either died in accidents or committed suicide. That list is getting really, really long. So yes I became a man at the start of the Clinton presidency, I was scouted out for certain types of work before I even finished high school. Again, due to my family, my upbringing, connections certain members of my family might have had, along with my shooting skills. Again, I was shooting at 1000 yards as a teenager, well before I was an adult, in actual competitions. So it isn't far fetched that I may have been offered certain types of work at that point. And people keep saying things like (particularly my ex wife said all this) "the only mercenaries are people who were combat veterans". Look at what was going on in the mid and late 90s in the US and nearby countries around the world. What military veterans? What military veterans did we have in the 90s who'd be willing to do large amounts of morally questionable work? The only veterans we had were from Vietnam and those guys were getting really old at that point. And we had a very short engagement, a very very short war in Iraq and Desert Storm that had a very limited number of troops, many of whom still hold on to ideas like honor and valor, with very little combat experience. There were no veterans logistically speaking. Where were people going to get veterans to do the massive amount of exotic game hunting and similar work that was being done? Look what was going on ins this country during the Clinton years. We were in the middle of the drug was, or, like some people like to call them, the Powder Wars. There was massive fighting all through Central America, dealing with drug cartels. Everyone from the DEA trying to cut down on them to government agencies getting caught distributing drugs back into the inner cities, there were so many cases where government agents were actually linked to distribution of crack and cocaine in enormously large quantities. So you had so many factions involved with all of this, inside and outside the government itself. The gang wars that spilled into the streets, we had and enormous amount of death and violence in this country due to the gang wars, the drugs and cartels and everything going on that people who are living in this era don't understand because they didn't see what was going on. A lot of the stuff you see reflected in all this gangster movies, that's what reflects what was going on in this country during that time period inside of our cities. There was a drug war happening in the streets. There was a drug war happening all the way from our border with Mexico all the way down to Venezuela and Colombia. There was and enormous amount of mercenaries hired to do various work. And there weren't enough veterans, not even close to enough to do all of those jobs. So that Idea is just absurd. We didn't have young, skilled veterans during that day, they just weren't there, they didn't exist in any sort of meaningful number. So yes people with any of the right backgrounds who could be trained, that had aptitudes were recruited to do this sort of work who had no military experience. I met large numbers of men who had no military experience, young men who had certain aptitudes and skill sets or the right connections that got trained to do this sort of work. And it wasn't full time jobs, these were on and off things that we'd get a week here, a week there, couples weeks here, couple weeks there in and out of the country. And men wouldn't always get paid cash because the truth was this was a very competitive market, competitive environment, it was very dangerous and there were other things worth more than money for people who wanted to stay in this line of work: training and hardware. Those things were worth their weight in gold. There were times because the lack of getting enough training and needing access to newer tactics, newer skills, things that were being learned and pushed out there, that a lot of guys would do jobs and work for free and be paid by getting access to certain training facilities from time to time. Meaning they would do a job and be allowed to be trained at a certain facility for 2 weeks or they would get access to hardware that they couldn't easily buy themselves. Equipment that was so hard to get they would sometimes to jobs in exchange for hardware to improve their operational capacity, to improve their ability to make money. And when it comes to military grade hardware and access to training facilities nobody had deeper pockets than Uncle Sam. And the beautiful part? All of these young men were completely disposable. We got worked, we got worked hard and sometimes we got broken. And since none of these men were members of the military we had no VA benefits or access to resources when things went wrong because everything was done clandestinaly. Latebra Factum. And yeah, a lot of these men broke. I watched a lot of guys that I knew either died in the field, kill themselves or just been disposed of and disappear. Because at the end of the day we were all disposable and if we became a liability we could just be thrown away like garbage. And so all these veterans today who came back from all these wars and thought they were gonna get access to all these VA benefits the they were promised, and all this therapy, medical help, guys died while waiting in line in the VA. At least 20 veterans were committing suicide every day from these last two engagements in spite of the government promising them all this therapy and PTSD treatment. You already know how our government uses up its assets and throws them away. But I'm one of the lucky ones and I survived. So those of you who don't believe any of this, that's okay I really don't give a fuck. I'm still telling my story. This is ... this is what it is and if you don't believe me, fuck you go fuck yourself I don't care. For all these guys who are veterans who are standing there still screaming about your valor, stolen valor, after what I just told you, that that sounds like I'm stealing any of your valor, you know what? Fuck you kid. And go fuck yourself I don't really care what you think. But I will tell you this: if you decide that you're going to come confront me physically about it, you better not be a fucking Pog. You better be a stone cold killer. If you come at me aggressively, voice raised negative body language, as someone who I know is a trained killer. Because I don't flinch anymore when I hear a rifle round come by my head, when I hear that WHOOP and that snap or that sonic boom. I haven't flinched in 20 years from that shit. I got over that a long time ago. So if you come at me I want you to know son: it's not gonna be me who goes in the ground. I'm still here. I'm still upright and drawing air.
I might add, this video tells you about this book. But some of you did not bother to see that. It is full of information that you might find interesting about this group. I could not stop reading once I started. I really suggest all of you interested should read this. Then you will have facts that are more likely accurate when you join these blogs and argue back and forth. At least one of you will be well read.
People don't realize that there are 2 sides to private military companies. Private military companies although they might be bad they do provide an important role, which is protecting VIPs. Unless you want soldiers wasting their time protecting foreign government personnel, hiring contractors isn't a bad idea. Although I do have to agree that the private military industry is a very lucrative market.
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter." Ernest Hemingway
Are you brainwashed by the government as they always say? Raise your hand and say "I. Terry B believes that the freedom of speech people give out to the public is always wrong, the government has done nothing wrong, even swatting a fly secretly."
Members of Blackwater are former law enforcement officers and soldiers. Unlike the French Foreign Legion that works under the French flag, Blackwater is a private company that has no allegiance to any country in particular. They are primarily hired by the US government to do duties the military no longer has the manpower to do efficiently, like patrolling and security details.
In April 2004, a small team of Blackwater employees, along with a fire team of U.S. Marines, held off over 400 insurgents outside the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Al Najaf, Iraq, waiting for U.S. troops to arrive. During the siege, as supplies and ammunition ran low Blackwater contractors 70 miles away flew to the compound to resupply and bring an injured U.S. Marine back to safety outside of the city. Semper Fi Denver, CO
Ever since I played Rainbow Six Vegas 2, I thought it'd be so cool to be a mercenary. I bet they get paid more than the average US soldier, but as a consequence, they don't get money for college and their families are taken care of.
Privatized militaries are still funded by public money (taxes of the people). The only thing "privatized" about this Blackwater is that they are not under public scrutiny and just laws.
There is a really large book available in the library. The name of the book is "Blackwater". It is a complete biography complete with information that is true about this group of mercenaries. You should all go read it and.......then .....have a conversation. At least some of you will then have information that is more likely the truth. This group was a very real force and most likely still is. I think the name is now different however. Happy reading.
Also, consider this. If someone speaks out about something real, a real problem, and you shut him up through character assassination, then you will end up defending the problem, not fixing it. Causing trouble for your country. If you love your country, love its diversity first. If you are right and he is wrong, thank him for the opportunity to to show you are right. If you are not right, thank him for showing the truth. If you love your country, never hate. Because you will hate your own.
Blackwater is a Private Military Company not MERCENARIES!!!! Mercenaries are fighting for every country (any price) when a PMC are fighting fo US ONLY!
Pay varies depending on your contractor, job, and skill set. It is very possible to not get paid if you sign on with a less reputable firm. Generally $350-$500 a day but up to $1000 a day. Length of job varies based on contract. Joining typically requires minimum 2 years military experience or equivalent law enforcement (think SWAT or DEA FAST team). Contact via the company's website. If you're in Greece and not a US citizen I'm not sure. Maybe look in the UK first then other EU nations?
Private Contractors are necessary for most modern deployments. Specifically for Body Guarding/Personal Personnel Protection, Base/Diplomatic Mission/NGO Protection, and most importantly Logistics. They are invaluable as it is cheaper to use such a contractor then a soldier in most cases. The unfounded hatred and dislike of Private Contractors stems from ignorance more often than not.
How ironic that the term blackwater also refers to sewage. How can we not see that when we hire private mercenaries we are done for, we stew in our own effluent.
The key part of that speech was "the ones I knew" make no mistake we do not think that every single member of blackwater is an evil sadist with no sense of morality. However we do think that a significant portion of blackwater meet this description with varying levels of accuracy. These men who are maybe kind in normal life are given total immunity and total control due to their weapons. This combination of power and immunity changes people and it is clearly showcased by their actions.
@VictumRoManius - Right on! Finally, we have someone who has a BRAIN and a VOICE to break things down for the slow folk. Thank you and please keep sharing your thoughts with the slow folk...they obviously need all the help they can get!!!!
Most people never heard of mercenaries? Then most people might want to read a book The first recored use of mercenaries dates back to Ancient Egypt, 1500 BC, when Pharaoh Razmez II used 10,000 mercenaries during his battles.
No, I think you are getting confused because that is what I was trying to convey to you. You were simply focusing on the possible crimes that mercenaries could have conducted while ignoring more fundamental problems until I brought it up. Nice try though.
Spot on. When it comes to the armed forces it's all about politics. PMC's do not NECESSARILY have to abide by their ''rules'' if you will which means you get more effective results.
"the guys who could not join the military, and sold everything THEY had to go fight along side our forces. That is called American Pride" yes thats the american way: sell everything you have for money, that is your pride. Slavish pride.
an m4 is NOT a machine gun. it is an assault rifle. assault rifle- is a personal weapon that is, in fact, a rifle, and that has automatic or semi-automatic fire, and carries a magazine. An M-16, AK-47 or AK-74, FN-FAL, etc. are all assault rifles. machine gun- a weapon that is capable of holding very large box magazines or firing belt ammunition, or some other loading mechanism that allows many rounds to be fired without reloading. Machine guns are always on full auto. know the difference...
@TheBlitzkriegHammer Really dangerous talk. Especially since Blackwater is private, not government, meaning it holds allegiance to currency, not to a nation.
M4s are machine guns in the perspective of law if they are capable of firing more than 1 round per trigger pull or have any parts related to such functionality. The US law does not have provisions to allow companies like Blackwater to have machineguns so they can only have semiauto M4 just like civillian gun owners.
RRISC Management, DynCorp, Hambright Protection Services, Obelisk International, Saber Teams LLC, and AirScan. Although I think AirScan specializes in aerial surveillance rather than security. VeeNRoG is right though, there are several more in the US. Also, Blackwater was not the only PMC in New Orleans and CBS News reported on this. And I'll add, contrary to this video, when operating in the US they are subject to both Federal and State Law and are NOT a "shadow army".
The USA is a republic.A democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch. Being a mercenary is a more respectable than being a liberal politician for sure.
We saw the true colors of Blackwater when it renamed itself XE . No one who isn't in the occult would choose that name . XE is pronounced ZEE and is a another name for Chaos magick . They even used the symbol for chaos magick when it was called XE . Case closed . PK
You know something, its funny how it takes literaly a squad of 5 or 6 U.S. military personal and in this case 4 black water soldiers ( former U.S. military) to kill 100s of insurgents and takes the same amount and plus to kill only 4 of them.
Also, a decorated Special Forces officer once wrote, that he was more afraid of these private contractors than he was of Iraqi insurgents. They are triggerhappy and undisciplined, and can fire at anything that moves. They even drive unsafely. That can cause big problems for real professionals who actually have people to protect. Being a bodyguard includes protecting from road accidents too.
Jeremy needs to add a little opinion into it sometimes to convince those without heart that the US causes chaos everywhere it goes. You have the facts, now you can be motivated to do something about it and tell others about these horrible crimes against humanity.
What's comical is that Hurricane Katrina happened in New Orleans not North Carolina,Secondly, Blackwater was there to help stop the looting that was going on during that time in the city;because essentially most of the cops walked off the job. So there was no law and order.Now I'm not a fan of Blackwater either,I believe in times like that that's what we have the National Guard for.
battle of Fallujah was started when Blackwater (Xi) mercenaries went into town and started robbing restaurants for BBQ equipment. The citizens fought back and hung those criminals to the top of the bridge and dragged them behind cars.
This is corporate militia...that is above the law. It's not a Lib or Conservative issue. Its those with the most money...hire an unaccountable army. Do people actually realize how dangerous a precedence this is? Crazy...
@ZteveN18 Actually having a standing military is unconstitutional, but times have changed. What bothers me is these private armies are protected by "Personhood", because they're corporations and not a well regulated militia. Since congress has no say over Private Armies it is unconstitutional to use them or at least not wise. It's just my opinion so don't take it personally.
It should also be noted that the Praetorian Guard were responsible for killing multiple Roman Emperors and bringing new ones into power. So theirs that fact...
Not all soldiers have these loyalties. Some are just there for the action some for training. I've served for over 14 years and have not always done it for country and government or the people. So yeah mercenary I could be called.
The only problem I see with Blackwater is that they might be too much above the law. But these days, I would go so far as to say that might be what is needed to some extent. I mean, if a cop or a soldier shoots someone because they are perceived as a threat to themselves or another, our justice system and/or media can totally fry the poor bastard. That makes every cop and every soldier scared sh*tless and impotent to do anything against criminals that have no rules, no boundaries.
It's unconstitutional to have private armies, even if they call themselves security forces. Fact is private armies are NOT answerable to Congress, which has sole control over such expenditures. My tax money is going to pay private armies to do the job of our servicemen at higher costs to the American people and with or without the consent of congress. That's a big problem.
@divecommando exactly i love these guys their fight seems to be at par with the soldiers here, and they fight on the same side, and overall they help the u.s by keeping the cost rate down. it may seem like they make a lot of money, but thats just a fraction of the overall cost the u.s has to pay on one highly trained soldier deployed in iraq. however, i well do more investagative work before makng my final decision/vote on this one. overall they seem like a real class A heroes from what i hear.
@ZteveN18 Dude when I said "Killing is fun" it was a sarcastic remark. I'm sorry if you didn't get that from the way I wrote it. How could you when context is almost impossible to convey in type? Anyhow I meant you agreed killing was fun if it was a crazed gun man. Don't try to say I ruined a good argument. You know I didn't.
Yes they are. Just like robbing a bank is more effective than working for living.
The problem against "private military companies" is that they are called "Private Security Contractors." They are called that, because the term "mercenary" will get them arrested, as mercenary armies are illegal around the world.
However, as long as they can keep their facade as "security guards", they are not technically illegal, because they use a different name. Like "wiseguy" instead of "gangster" or "racketeer
This guy got balls.
I hope nothing happens to him
Regardless of Blackwater being good or Bad
We need people like him to inform
The regular guy
Cause you won’t hear this on tv
What a horrible thing to say, to be elated over someone being burned to death then hung from a bridge suggest serious psychopathic tendencies. Scott Helvenston (One of the victims) was on a patrol detail guarding a shipping truck when he and his driver were ambushed, he left behind a daughter and wife after going overseas to pay off his debts. Tell his daughter and wife of your joy.
Blackwater operators were the absolute best at what they did, with an impeccable record of keeping the high value targets under their care safe -- which is what they were hired to do. Call them what you want, but they were the best security money could buy. Plus, their training facilities and instructors are some of the best in the world...
Ty
Jeremy Scahill has not only been proven right over the past half decade or so ... he continues to be one of the most efficient, honest, brave, and admirable (actual) investigative journalists working today.
I loved my time with Blackwater. Pay is great, plenty of leniency. Company isn't called Blackwater anymore though and Eric isn't the CEO anymore
bullshit kid
Now they are in Ukraine
WTF i am from Ukraine it`s absolutly lie
Zhenya Tereshenkov Please enlighten these fucking idiots. Peace.
rt.com/news/158212-academi-blackwater-ukraine-military/
after 7 years, I think you are right..
This aged well
Bring back Blackwater
Your brilliance shines like the sun. Thank you for that deep, and elucidating commentary.
There’s greystone too, some of their mercs where killed in two helicopters shot down in ukraine
As a previous BW employee, I tried to read the first 50 pages of his book. It was so inaccurate and insulting that I stopped reading it. Thanks Jeremy, you've failed massively and revealed your own ignorance and bias.
Damn, so you're a war criminal. Lmao you piece of shit
🤡War criminal
I'm surprised you managed to read 50 pages. Assuming you're a real BW employee, I would have assumed that you're illiterate.
@@shiningpecan6978 i love you
We did a good job
Wow. I've watched the "turkey shoot" vid in its entirety. You cut out the part where he is shooting at a guy with an RPG but you show that quick blurb? Way to report the whole story. Thats great news reporting. Keep up the good work. (Sarcasm)
Immortal Technique - Caught In A Hustle
I rather see these guys on our streets than BLM and Antifa
You say that now, if they take your guns like they did the citizens in New Orleans, you'd probably think differently.
We need more journalists like Jeremy Scahill and Ben Swann !
"M4 machine guns"
Time for you to stop talking.
candyHam, don't be a dick. I will quote this from Wikipedia; "The M4 falls under restrictions of Title II of the National Firearms Act. The 14.5 inch barrel makes the M4 a Short Barrel Rifle (SBR) and select fire capability (semi-automatic and full automatic or burst-automatic) makes the M4 a machine gun."
Time for you to stop talking and go back to your gaming console.
CALL OF DUTY
No
Funny how this channel shuts off comments in controversial stories when it doesn't meet your propaganda.
I have not seen my comment cut out as of yet. And I punched many holes in this video.
To someone who doesn't understand, the limited space to write here on RUclips is not enough to fully educate you. This guy is not a Bush basher, he is an American patriot for bringing these things to our attention.
Blackwater fills a job that needs to be done. get over it.
Lol people have been using mercenary for hundreds of years
Thousands
Ok, and?
Well hell. Im for Blackwater. Killing your enemy is one thing, every side does that its cruel but legit war, but burning your enemyes body and hang it on the bridge, while everyone is cheering, thats just immoral, someone HAD to pay for and hopefully they did
The worst part is they are paid significantly more money, are given all the best equipment, than the regular, legitimate, hard working troops.
Finally an intelligent comment. You have a valid point bro. All these comments pointing fingers and blaming Blackwater and other PMC's . are the same people that are jealous they can't work and make the big salary that these guys do nor they have experience and training to even be considered and second they are the same people who never served in the Military and have not the slightest clue about brotherhood and serving.
Hey every body it's Jason Blaha and I wanna do a little story time for you guys.
I grew up a competitive shooter and a hunter. I hunted since I was 6 years old, I shot since i was 6 years old, I started doing long distance rifle shooting in competition when I was 12 years old. So we'll call it a "hunter", I was a hunter of exotic game if that'll make you guys feel better. And a pretty good chunk of the game that I hunted was a very dangerous type of game that it's some sort of masonry or brick laying because I stacked bricks of some type up.
Alright so let's go back and look at timelines a little bit. A lot of you guys grew up in a completely different world politically and even from a war perspective a lot of you guys reached adulthood around the time of 9/11, or shortly thereafter, or around that range. I'm turning 40 years old this year. I turned 18 in 1994, president Clinton became president in 1993, so my young adulthood was during the Clinton years, the Clinton Administration. So president Clinton was the President from the time I was 17 all the way until I was 25. The President before him was George Bush Senior who was the former head of the CIA which we then allowed to be Vice President twice. He pretty much ran the show on Reagan. And then he became president and he had his own ideas about the way the world and the country should be run and what our national interests were behind the scenes.
But the Clinton Administration was one of the most corrupt administrations there ever was and people who don't know that just need to look a little bit at all the things that had gone on with the Clintons over the years, look at how many hundreds and hundreds of people who had association with them from the various administrations, business partners, things like that either died in accidents or committed suicide. That list is getting really, really long.
So yes I became a man at the start of the Clinton presidency, I was scouted out for certain types of work before I even finished high school. Again, due to my family, my upbringing, connections certain members of my family might have had, along with my shooting skills. Again, I was shooting at 1000 yards as a teenager, well before I was an adult, in actual competitions. So it isn't far fetched that I may have been offered certain types of work at that point. And people keep saying things like (particularly my ex wife said all this) "the only mercenaries are people who were combat veterans". Look at what was going on in the mid and late 90s in the US and nearby countries around the world. What military veterans? What military veterans did we have in the 90s who'd be willing to do large amounts of morally questionable work? The only veterans we had were from Vietnam and those guys were getting really old at that point. And we had a very short engagement, a very very short war in Iraq and Desert Storm
that had a very limited number of troops, many of whom still hold on to ideas like honor and valor, with very little combat experience.
There were no veterans logistically speaking. Where were people going to get veterans to do the massive amount of exotic game hunting and similar work that was being done? Look what was going on ins this country during the Clinton years. We were in the middle of the drug was, or, like some people like to call them, the Powder Wars. There was massive fighting all through Central America, dealing with drug cartels. Everyone from the DEA trying to cut down on them to government agencies getting caught distributing drugs back into the inner cities, there were so many cases where government agents were actually linked to distribution of crack and cocaine in enormously large quantities. So you had so many factions involved with all of this, inside and outside the government itself. The gang wars that spilled into the streets, we had and enormous amount of death and violence in this country due to the gang wars, the drugs and cartels and everything going on that people who are living in this era don't understand because they didn't see what was going on.
A lot of the stuff you see reflected in all this gangster movies, that's what reflects what was going on in this country during that time period inside of our cities. There was a drug war happening in the streets. There was a drug war happening all the way from our border with Mexico all the way down to Venezuela and Colombia. There was and enormous amount of mercenaries hired to do various work. And there weren't enough veterans, not even close to enough to do all of those jobs. So that Idea is just absurd. We didn't have young, skilled veterans during that day, they just weren't there, they didn't exist in any sort of meaningful number.
So yes people with any of the right backgrounds who could be trained, that had aptitudes were recruited to do this sort of work who had no military experience. I met large numbers of men who had no military experience, young men who had certain aptitudes and skill sets or the right connections that got trained to do this sort of work. And it wasn't full time jobs, these were on and off things that we'd get a week here, a week there, couples weeks here, couple weeks there in and out of the country. And men wouldn't always get paid cash because the truth was this was a very competitive market, competitive environment, it was very dangerous and there were other things worth more than money for people who wanted to stay in this line of work: training and hardware. Those things were worth their weight in gold. There were times because the lack of getting enough training and needing access to newer tactics, newer skills, things that were being learned and pushed out there, that a lot of guys would do jobs and work for free and be paid by getting access to certain training facilities from time to time. Meaning they would do a job and be allowed to be trained at a certain facility for 2 weeks or they would get access to hardware that they couldn't easily buy themselves. Equipment that was so hard to get they would sometimes to jobs in exchange for hardware to improve their operational capacity, to improve their ability to make money. And when it comes to military grade hardware and access to training facilities nobody had deeper pockets than Uncle Sam.
And the beautiful part? All of these young men were completely disposable. We got worked, we got worked hard and sometimes we got broken. And since none of these men were members of the military we had no VA benefits or access to resources when things went wrong because everything was done clandestinaly. Latebra Factum. And yeah, a lot of these men broke. I watched a lot of guys that I knew either died in the field, kill themselves or just been disposed of and disappear. Because at the end of the day we were all disposable and if we became a liability we could just be thrown away like garbage.
And so all these veterans today who came back from all these wars and thought they were gonna get access to all these VA benefits the they were promised, and all this therapy, medical help, guys died while waiting in line in the VA. At least 20 veterans were committing suicide every day from these last two engagements in spite of the government promising them all this therapy and PTSD treatment. You already know how our government uses up its assets and throws them away. But I'm one of the lucky ones and I survived.
So those of you who don't believe any of this, that's okay I really don't give a fuck. I'm still telling my story. This is ... this is what it is and if you don't believe me, fuck you go fuck yourself I don't care. For all these guys who are veterans who are standing there still screaming about your valor, stolen valor, after what I just told you, that that sounds like I'm stealing any of your valor, you know what? Fuck you kid. And go fuck yourself I don't really care what you think. But I will tell you this: if you decide that you're going to come confront me physically about it, you better not be a fucking Pog. You better be a stone cold killer. If you come at me aggressively, voice raised negative body language, as someone who I know is a trained killer. Because I don't flinch anymore when I hear a rifle round come by my head, when I hear that WHOOP and that snap or that sonic boom. I haven't flinched in 20 years from that shit. I got over that a long time ago. So if you come at me I want you to know son: it's not gonna be me who goes in the ground. I'm still here. I'm still upright and drawing air.
You sound like a scared little boy.
And some Americans still wonder why other nations dislike them so much.
I might add, this video tells you about this book. But some of you did not bother to see that. It is full of information that you might find interesting about this group. I could not stop reading once I started. I really suggest all of you interested should read this. Then you will have facts that are more likely accurate when you join these blogs and argue back and forth. At least one of you will be well read.
People don't realize that there are 2 sides to private military companies. Private military companies although they might be bad they do provide an important role, which is protecting VIPs. Unless you want soldiers wasting their time protecting foreign government personnel, hiring contractors isn't a bad idea. Although I do have to agree that the private military industry is a very lucrative market.
Cheney made a lot of money on the wars.
This is the right way to go i.e. more private armies. It is one of the oldest occupations.
Jeremy Scahill never served in the military nor was he ever an employee of any private military company.
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
Ernest Hemingway
I remember this guy from a documentary, keep up the good work. The world run by governments can be very surprising.
***** Bro, what are you talking about?
Are you brainwashed by the government as they always say? Raise your hand and say "I. Terry B believes that the freedom of speech people give out to the public is always wrong, the government has done nothing wrong, even swatting a fly secretly."
no americans are playing angel . and to prove it look how good the americans are in their movies like angels .
A M4A1 is a machine gun. A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm.
Members of Blackwater are former law enforcement officers and soldiers. Unlike the French Foreign Legion that works under the French flag, Blackwater is a private company that has no allegiance to any country in particular. They are primarily hired by the US government to do duties the military no longer has the manpower to do efficiently, like patrolling and security details.
Everyone hates on Blackwater because they are HIGHLY paid for their services.
"what is cowardice but the body's wisdom of it's weakness''
"what is bravery but the body'd wisdom of it's strength"
40 cents of every dollar !!!!! robbing the taxpayer !
In April 2004, a small team of Blackwater employees, along with a fire team of U.S. Marines, held off over 400 insurgents outside the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Al Najaf, Iraq, waiting for U.S. troops to arrive. During the siege, as supplies and ammunition ran low Blackwater contractors 70 miles away flew to the compound to resupply and bring an injured U.S. Marine back to safety outside of the city. Semper Fi Denver, CO
Bog dicks.
Ever since I played Rainbow Six Vegas 2, I thought it'd be so cool to be a mercenary. I bet they get paid more than the average US soldier, but as a consequence, they don't get money for college and their families are taken care of.
My dad hated these guys.. he said they did the dirty work that isn't supposed to be known about. And yes he's a seal and has 22+ years in
Privatized militaries are still funded by public money (taxes of the people). The only thing "privatized" about this Blackwater is that they are not under public scrutiny and just laws.
There is a really large book available in the library. The name of the book is "Blackwater". It is a complete biography complete with information that is true about this group of mercenaries. You should all go read it and.......then .....have a conversation. At least some of you will then have information that is more likely the truth. This group was a very real force and most likely still is. I think the name is now different however. Happy reading.
Also, consider this. If someone speaks out about something real, a real problem, and you shut him up through character assassination, then you will end up defending the problem, not fixing it. Causing trouble for your country.
If you love your country, love its diversity first. If you are right and he is wrong, thank him for the opportunity to to show you are right.
If you are not right, thank him for showing the truth.
If you love your country, never hate. Because you will hate your own.
Blackwater is a Private Military Company not MERCENARIES!!!!
Mercenaries are fighting for every country (any price) when a PMC are fighting fo US ONLY!
if they are fighting for "US ONLY" then why the fuck are they in Ukraine?
aron majid
Get me!
Who do you think they send them there???
A mercenary is a private military company.
Mercenariesre soldiers without a loyalty to any specific country. National armies have loyalty to their country and it's people.
Pay varies depending on your contractor, job, and skill set. It is very possible to not get paid if you sign on with a less reputable firm. Generally $350-$500 a day but up to $1000 a day. Length of job varies based on contract. Joining typically requires minimum 2 years military experience or equivalent law enforcement (think SWAT or DEA FAST team). Contact via the company's website. If you're in Greece and not a US citizen I'm not sure. Maybe look in the UK first then other EU nations?
Private Contractors are necessary for most modern deployments. Specifically for Body Guarding/Personal Personnel Protection, Base/Diplomatic Mission/NGO Protection, and most importantly Logistics. They are invaluable as it is cheaper to use such a contractor then a soldier in most cases. The unfounded hatred and dislike of Private Contractors stems from ignorance more often than not.
How ironic that the term blackwater also refers to sewage. How can we not see that when we hire private mercenaries we are done for, we stew in our own effluent.
The key part of that speech was "the ones I knew" make no mistake we do not think that every single member of blackwater is an evil sadist with no sense of morality. However we do think that a significant portion of blackwater meet this description with varying levels of accuracy. These men who are maybe kind in normal life are given total immunity and total control due to their weapons. This combination of power and immunity changes people and it is clearly showcased by their actions.
I love it when people call him a right winger when he votes libertarian.
cool how much were you making just out of curiosity
@VictumRoManius - Right on! Finally, we have someone who has a BRAIN and a VOICE to break things down for the slow folk. Thank you and please keep sharing your thoughts with the slow folk...they obviously need all the help they can get!!!!
Most people never heard of mercenaries? Then most people might want to read a book
The first recored use of mercenaries dates back to Ancient Egypt, 1500 BC, when Pharaoh Razmez II used 10,000 mercenaries during his battles.
We see Blackwater now Blackrock taking over in East Palestine, Ohio. Can you say "Yeehaw!"?
black water can go where the us military cant go, and do missions that the military cant legally do. they get the job done.
The Nation needs to do a piece on our proposed intervention in Syria...
No, I think you are getting confused because that is what I was trying to convey to you. You were simply focusing on the possible crimes that mercenaries could have conducted while ignoring more fundamental problems until I brought it up. Nice try though.
Spot on. When it comes to the armed forces it's all about politics. PMC's do not NECESSARILY have to abide by their ''rules'' if you will which means you get more effective results.
"the guys who could not join the military, and sold everything THEY had to go fight along side our forces. That is called American Pride"
yes thats the american way: sell everything you have for money, that is your pride. Slavish pride.
an m4 is NOT a machine gun. it is an assault rifle. assault rifle- is a personal weapon that is, in fact, a rifle, and that has automatic or semi-automatic fire, and carries a magazine. An M-16, AK-47 or AK-74, FN-FAL, etc. are all assault rifles.
machine gun- a weapon that is capable of holding very large box magazines or firing belt ammunition, or some other loading mechanism that allows many rounds to be fired without reloading. Machine guns are always on full auto. know the difference...
@TheBlitzkriegHammer Really dangerous talk. Especially since Blackwater is private, not government, meaning it holds allegiance to currency, not to a nation.
M4s are machine guns in the perspective of law if they are capable of firing more than 1 round per trigger pull or have any parts related to such functionality. The US law does not have provisions to allow companies like Blackwater to have machineguns so they can only have semiauto M4 just like civillian gun owners.
RRISC Management, DynCorp, Hambright Protection Services, Obelisk International, Saber Teams LLC, and AirScan. Although I think AirScan specializes in aerial surveillance rather than security. VeeNRoG is right though, there are several more in the US. Also, Blackwater was not the only PMC in New Orleans and CBS News reported on this. And I'll add, contrary to this video, when operating in the US they are subject to both Federal and State Law and are NOT a "shadow army".
Thanks for the info. I learn every day :)
The USA is a republic.A democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch. Being a mercenary is a more respectable than being a liberal politician for sure.
these guys get paid about 1.5k a fucking day, I want a job like this
We saw the true colors of Blackwater when it renamed itself XE . No one who isn't in the occult would choose that name . XE is pronounced ZEE and is a another name for Chaos magick . They even used the symbol for chaos magick when it was called XE . Case closed . PK
jeremy schahill is so brave, the new Christopher Hitchens of my generation.
You know something, its funny how it takes literaly a squad of 5 or 6 U.S. military personal and in this case 4 black water soldiers ( former U.S. military) to kill 100s of insurgents and takes the same amount and plus to kill only 4 of them.
Also, a decorated Special Forces officer once wrote, that he was more afraid of these private contractors than he was of Iraqi insurgents. They are triggerhappy and undisciplined, and can fire at anything that moves. They even drive unsafely.
That can cause big problems for real professionals who actually have people to protect. Being a bodyguard includes protecting from road accidents too.
Don't skew information. U.S. economy is totally independent from other economies.
Is this anti PMC? Because this sounds great. This is who I want fighting wars.
M4 isn't a macheine gun. It's an assault rifle.
Jeremy needs to add a little opinion into it sometimes to convince those without heart that the US causes chaos everywhere it goes. You have the facts, now you can be motivated to do something about it and tell others about these horrible crimes against humanity.
What's comical is that Hurricane Katrina happened in New Orleans not North Carolina,Secondly, Blackwater was there to help stop the looting that was going on during that time in the city;because essentially most of the cops walked off the job. So there was no law and order.Now I'm not a fan of Blackwater either,I believe in times like that that's what we have the National Guard for.
everyone's gonna believe what they want to believe, no use arguing, guys.
battle of Fallujah was started when Blackwater (Xi) mercenaries went into town and started robbing restaurants for BBQ equipment. The citizens fought back and hung those criminals to the top of the bridge and dragged them behind cars.
This is corporate militia...that is above the law. It's not a Lib or Conservative issue. Its those with the most money...hire an unaccountable army. Do people actually realize how dangerous a precedence this is? Crazy...
@tybennion1 P.S.
Since you hadn't noticed, "hoping" or "wishing" someone gets shot is vastly different from actually doing it, don't ya think?
@ZteveN18 Actually having a standing military is unconstitutional, but times have changed. What bothers me is these private armies are protected by "Personhood", because they're corporations and not a well regulated militia. Since congress has no say over Private Armies it is unconstitutional to use them or at least not wise. It's just my opinion so don't take it personally.
It should also be noted that the Praetorian Guard were responsible for killing multiple Roman Emperors and bringing new ones into power. So theirs that fact...
the book "blackwater" was a loosley paraphrased book with pertinent omitted information leading to a "cash cow" for scahill.
What does he mean when he compares Blackwater to FedEx?
seems to me blackwater is pretty awesome at everything.
When you train do they make you turn off your cell phone??????
they aren't mercenaries. Mercenaries are foreign forces that are hired by a country. the hiring of mercenaries in the U.S. is illegal.
We know it too. At least the ones here who aren't sheep.
Not all soldiers have these loyalties. Some are just there for the action some for training. I've served for over 14 years and have not always done it for country and government or the people. So yeah mercenary I could be called.
where do I sign in?
Take this crude black heart as an apology
♥
The most disturbing series you would ever watch
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"THE GREAT DISASTERS"
The only problem I see with Blackwater is that they might be too much above the law. But these days, I would go so far as to say that might be what is needed to some extent. I mean, if a cop or a soldier shoots someone because they are perceived as a threat to themselves or another, our justice system and/or media can totally fry the poor bastard. That makes every cop and every soldier scared sh*tless and impotent to do anything against criminals that have no rules, no boundaries.
It's unconstitutional to have private armies, even if they call themselves security forces. Fact is private armies are NOT answerable to Congress, which has sole control over such expenditures. My tax money is going to pay private armies to do the job of our servicemen at higher costs to the American people and with or without the consent of congress. That's a big problem.
They're called Academy now! So they're not so bad anymore.
Nothing wrong with hiring Mercenaries, the power of Blackwater is troubling but Mercenary armies threatening the power of nations is not new.
@divecommando exactly i love these guys their fight seems to be at par with the soldiers here, and they fight on the same side, and overall they help the u.s by keeping the cost rate down. it may seem like they make a lot of money, but thats just a fraction of the overall cost the u.s has to pay on one highly trained soldier deployed in iraq. however, i well do more investagative work before makng my final decision/vote on this one. overall they seem like a real class A heroes from what i hear.
@ZteveN18 Dude when I said "Killing is fun" it was a sarcastic remark. I'm sorry if you didn't get that from the way I wrote it. How could you when context is almost impossible to convey in type? Anyhow I meant you agreed killing was fun if it was a crazed gun man. Don't try to say I ruined a good argument. You know I didn't.