Three of the Blackwater workers identified

[Blue_Tires]

Good profile piece in the Virginian-Pilot.
And if anyone has back issues of Mother Jones, they wrote a very chilling cover story piece about Blackwater sometime last year...

-quote-
On Thursday, Blackwater Security Consulting refused to release the identities of its four employees killed and mutilated Wednesday in Iraq.

The Moyock, N.C.-based company said its decision was made to protect the privacy of the families of those killed.

By Thursday night, three families had come forward to publicly acknowledge the loss of their sons. The three men have been identified as Jerry Zovko of Ohio, Michael Teague of Tennessee, and Scott Helvenston of Florida. Zovko and Teague were with the Army’s airborne special forces before joining Blackwater.
-unquote-
PilotOnline

EDIT: I suck at the internet

[MetaTrope]

1. Too bad they couldn't get productive jobs

:cry:

[lebkuchen]

2. It beats what the military is paying.

Wonder what their families received in insurance policies; more than what the military family gets in case of death, to be sure.

Who pays their policies, btw?

[Blue_Tires]

5. there are insurance companies that specialize

in this kind of service...according to the article, one of the larger defense contractor insurers is Global Underwriters Inc. of Cincinnati

[lebkuchen]

8. Ah, yes, the last paragraph

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, insurance policies for these workers have increased significantly. Global Underwriters Inc. of Cincinnati covered many of the workers who were killed in Iraq, and has written policies for defense contractors from Hampton Roads.


Govt. contract workers....quite an expensive undertaking for the U.S. taxpayer.

[Columbia]

3. If...

Putting their lives on the line protecting food being delivered to an impoverished people doesn't count as productive, what does? :shrug:

[lebkuchen]

4. Do you really think their job was to deliver food? nft

[Columbia]

6. No, their job was to protect the people delivering food

[lebkuchen]

7. So the story goes....sounds noble, anyway

Navy Seals/SF (former or otherwise) are trained from the highest heights, the deepest depths, and under the most deprived of conditions. I highly doubt their job in Iraq was to protect a food delivery truck.

[Columbia]

10. There is no reason to doubt it

If you are thinking intel, I highly doubt CIA/NSA types would drive around in highly visible SUV's to snoop.

If you are thinking combat operators, we already have SF groups to do those things.

Perhaps these well-trained veterans were hired to provide security for various contractors working to rebuild Iraq in dangerous areas. There is absolutely no reason to suspect anything differently.

[lebkuchen]

15. Was there a food truck nearby that I didn't read about

or did they have a dozen eggs stashed under the seats?

[AP]

35. Was the food company owned by Brown & Root?

Was it getting paid 1 million bucks to deliver 10,000 bucks in food?

I heard a soldier say on Democracy Now that they only really need 10K soldiers in Iraq to do what they're doing, but they have so many more becuase they need to justify paying the HUGE sums the taxpayers are paying to the private companies over there to do NOTHING OF VALUE.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

37. Uh...the food truck was completely destroyed! Yeah...that's it! That's..

...the ticket! Okay, okay...how's this? The food truck was blown up, set on fire, and completely burnt up including the frame, axles and wheels!

Tell it to the American people...if they'll believe Saddam had WMDs, they'll believe anything!

[Spentastic]

9. Er

I thought the food was being delivered to an army base. To supply an occupying force. That seems somewhat less noble to me.

I may be wrong.

[Columbia]

12. They probably do that too

I'm sure they run various protective details during their duties.

[Spentastic]

13. So

Is protecting food supplies to an occupying army noble?

Personally I'm saddened by the deaths of these men as I have been as many Iraqis have been killed.

However, it beggars belief that the army are not protecting their own supply lines. It makes these men legitimate targets for the resistance.

[Columbia]

14. That's an opinion

And something I'm sure we will never agree on.

[Spentastic]

16. Which bit?

You don't agree that people protecting supply lines are legitimate military targets?

[leanings]

17. How about

those medical personnel that treat the occupying forces? How about those people that make the vehicles the occupying forces use? How about those who help drive the economy that supports those occupying forces?

Keep on this line of reasoning and you'll be morally obligated to blow your own brains out.

There are combatants and noncombatants. Period.

[Spentastic]

18. Bollocks I'm afraid

Although I agree that I to some extent am culpable. I protested but was ignored. Their blood inadvertantly is on my hands as is the blood of thousands of Iraqis. I hate the people that took us to war for making it so.

Heavily armed men in a war zone protecting food supplies to soldiers who have killed people in said war zone are more likely to be targetted as legitimate targets than I. Does that make sense?

"There are combatants and noncombatants. Period"

Nope.

[leanings]

19. So what about medics treating the injured?

If you start messing around in the gray you can justify the killing of anyone in the world.

[Spentastic]

21. Deliberately obtuse eh?

I think you'll find international law frowns on such killings.

Mercernaries however are not protected. If these men (notice the if) were protecting the food supply on an occupying army how can they be anything other than combatants? Otherwise why the guns / military training?

These were not innocent aid workers slaughtered in the course of their duties. They seem to be military contractors killed in the course of their duties.

That's not to say they deserved it. But I'm afraid it would seem to be an occupational hazard.

[leanings]

22. Did these people FIGHT for money?

Were they out actively engaging in combat? Were they out running patrols? Were they SOLDIERS? No. So they weren't mercenaries. I mean, what does that term mean to you? Anyone who carries a gun for money? Well, every security guard at every government and private installation in the world is then a merc. I don't think so.

So they were noncombatants.

Any case, I'm off to bed. Nice talking to ya, g'night.

[Spentastic]

23. Have a good sleep

These people were paid to provide "security" for military supplies. This implies an active role. They were in a war zone after all.

They were being paid for this service.

[DoNotRefill]

25. Please provide a link....

to where it says they were protecting MILITARY food.

[Spentastic]

30. Fair enough

Add "if" to the start of the previous post.

[DoNotRefill]

31. 'k

eom

[Spentastic]

33. From Washington Post article

"A Blackwater spokesman said the men were guarding a convoy on its way to deliver food to troops under a subcontract to a company named Regency Hotel and Hospitality. One of those killed was identified by his family yesterday as Jerry Zovko, 32, an Army veteran from Willoughby, Ohio. The three other Blackwater employees were former SEALs, the Navy's elite counterterrorism force."

So looks like your source or the WP is wrong.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

36. You're going to believe the "Blackwater spokesman"...

...when you know that these guys had been trained in the latest military and covert ops in their previous military careers? Do you honestly think that these guys' skills would have been wasted guarding a food convoy?

IMHO, the "Blackwater spokesman" is laying down a cover story designed to gain the most sympathy for the American cause in Iraq.

[DoNotRefill]

24. They don't use civilian contractors to provide security....

for a military convoy. QMC logistical lines are protected by the military. My sources tell me that they were working for an unnamed NGO providing food to the locals, NOT for the military.

If they were in fact working to protect a NGO run food shipment destined for the people in the area, will that change your mind about them?

[Spentastic]

26. Yes it would

Hence all the ifs and buts.

I'd have to caveat all of this with

It wouldn't have happened if we hadn't invaded their country. Also making money on the back of such an invasion is ethically dubious.

[DoNotRefill]

27. Ah.

I've got a friend in Iraq. He's a contractor. He has no military background (I know this because I had to teach him how to shoot before he went over there), he's an construction engineer, working to build a school. He gets paid. He carries a gun (a BHP clone he picked up locally, which is suitable for self defense at very short range only). He's also got security contractors on-site protecting him.

Is that ethically dubious? After all, if we hadn't invaded Iraq, he wouldn't be there. Does he deserve to die because he's there? Does it matter that he works for a foreign company? Are the people protecting him doing something ethically dubious? After all, they have guns, and would shoot people trying to kill my friend. My friend is in Iraq not for the money (which isn't that great), but because he's doing what he can to alleviate the suffering. He was anti-war, but is there because he thinks it's important to do what he can to make things right. If he gets killed, you'll probably consider him to be a mercenary, too. After all, he's getting paid and he has a gun...

[theHandpuppet]

28. Um... correction

The food being protected was for the US military, not the people of Fallujah. I also had assumed what you did. However, this might explain their actual assignment in Fallujah:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/01/1621223

[theHandpuppet]

32. Do you have a link...

... stating that they were protecting food "being delivered to an impoverished people"? This information would belie that assumption and might explain the rage of the Iraqis in Fallujah:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/01/1621223

[Skittles]

39. LOL

please tell me you don't believe that ridiculous story about "protecting food".

[Zen Democrat]

11. Here's a link to the Mother Jones article on Blackwater

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/05/ma_365_01.html

[lebkuchen]

20. This paragraph highlights the huge conflict of interest

not to mention lack of accountability.

And cheaper? Hardly.



The push to privatize war got its start during the administration of the elder President Bush. After the Gulf War ended, the Pentagon, then headed by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, paid a Halliburton subsidiary called Brown & Root Services nearly $9 million to study how private military companies could provide support for American soldiers in combat zones. Cheney went on to serve as CEO of Halliburton -- and Brown & Root, now known as Halliburton KBR, has since been awarded at least $2.5 billion to construct and run military bases, some in secret locations, as part of the Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program. In March, the Pentagon hired Cheney's former firm to fight fires in Iraq if Saddam Hussein sabotages oil wells during a U.S. attack.

Pentagon officials say they rely on firms like Halliburton because the private sector works faster and cheaper than the military.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[izzie]

34. Makes my hair stand on end. Read Mother Jones.

Looks like the mountain men have finally made it to big time. Just which one of you do not think they will be used on us, if the DOD or this President feels like it? All those terrorist holding up signs must go.It is like the 'Brown Shirts"

[Blue_Tires]

38. TTT n/t

[nomatrix]

40. From the Democracy Now link above

"GHAZWAN AL-MUKHTAR: This incident happened in Fallujah where two days before that, the American army shot many many people, women and children, on the streets, and --- in a bizarre shooting incident that was unjustified, killing many people.

Fallujah has been a place where the US Army has actually used brutal force to suppress the people there, including using the F-15s, and F-16s to attack villages and place where they think the resistances are, which is unjustified to use high explosives against individuals. This resulted in many, many casualties in the province. Added to it, they have detained, for 50 or 60 days, hundreds of people on and off, which alienated the people against the American forces and the American contractors or the American security contractors, which are really a private army, uncontrollable by the US. This is part of the privatization of the war.

Two days ago, three days ago, there was a similar incident in Mosul, where two contractors were killed, under electricity. They were going to the electricity generating plant. The important -- the thing that I know is in the media says that the contractors were involved in protecting the food supply. This is the food supply for the US Army, not to be confused with providing help to the local population or anything. It's just a routine US convoy that may have food and may have on other occasions, armaments or anything. So, the resentments of the people of Fallujah are justified.

What happens to them is -- it's a sad thing, but you know, brutality breeds brutality, and violence breeds violence, and he who started first should take the responsibility, and I think the US army has used an unjustified force against the people of Fallujah, and they have brutalized the people of Fallujah to the point where they had to respond with the same brutality."

[Gin]

41. There is a fund set up for the families....no cash..just checks

One of dead got 20,00 a month...60k for 3 months...that's the hook and not patriotism...and if they had big insurance policies why do they need a fund?