Blackwater gets asses kicked in Yemen; run for their lives

Remember Blackwater? Things haven't gone well for them since they were committing war crimes in Iraq.
Blackwater became Xe Services in 2009, and then Academi in 2011, obviously trying to leave their tarnished name behind.

They did manage to get awarded a no-bid security contract with the Pentagon for work in Afghanistan. Their headquarters there is called, get this - Camp Integrity - I kid you not!
You can even buy the t-shirt if you want.
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Around this same time, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi hired them.

The crown prince of Abu Dhabi has enlisted the infamous founder of Blackwater security services to build him an 800-member private army of foreign troops for the United Arab Emirates.
According to documents obtained by the New York Times Erik Prince’s new company, Reflex Responses, was hired and paid $529 million by the prince to form a new battalion of foreign fighters to carry out special operations, destroy internal revolts and defend urban areas and oil fields from terrorist attacks.

Hired thugs. The perfect job for Blackwater.

And so it was, until last year, when UAE decided to join the Saudis in a war in Yemen.
Yemen is the place where Saudi forces are committing war crimes on a daily bases, and we support it.

Now Blackwater mercs can shoot down unarmed people with the best of them, but this is actual war. The other guys have guns too, so this might not be so easy.

A Dec. 10 report from Iran’s PressTV, citing Yemeni news sources, claimed that “15 Blackwater foreign fighters” were killed in clashes with Houthi forces, who currently control the Yemeni government. PressTV reported that “80 Saudi-led troops, including 42 Blackwater mercenaries,” were killed in a ballistic missile attack on Dec. 13. And a Jan. 31 report claimed that a “Blackwater commander,” Nicholas Petros, “was killed along with a group of mercenaries fighting for the Saudi regime in its war on Yemen.”

Blackwater was relatively silent about these claims. One of their spokesmen said that it was a different group of mercenaries getting killed.
OK. Maybe, maybe not. It's hard to say, until this happened.

The U.S. based Blackwater Group has reportedly abandoned the Ta’iz front in western Yemen after suffering heavy casualties over the last two months while fighting alongside the Saudi-led Coalition forces and the Hadi loyalists.
Local activists have reported this news after they intercepted a communication between Blackwater officers and members of the Saudi-led Coalition in the coastal province of Ta’iz.

It couldn't happen to a better bunch of murderers.
Now when it says "abandoned", it doesn't mean "an authorized retreat". It means abandoning their posts and running for their lives.
How do I know this? Because this news came out last week.

The first batch of mercenaries from the private US military firm DynCorp has arrived in the Yemeni city of Aden to replace paid militants from another American company.
Under a USD-3-billion contract between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and DynCorp, mercenaries from the company are to be deployed to Yemen, where UAE forces are fighting against the Houthi rebels on Saudi orders, Khabar News Agency quoted an official with Yemeni Defense Ministry as saying.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the first group of the mercenaries recently arrived in the port city of Aden to replace those of Academi, a notorious American group formerly known as Blackwater.

Yeh, replacing one group of hired thugs who ran when things got tough, with another group of hired thugs. That's our allies!
DynCorp was involved in a sex trafficking scandal in Bosnia in 1999, and then another one in Afghanistan in 2010, but this time while working for the Pentagon.

Just in case you are tempted to feel sorry for these mercs, I'm including their Greatest Hits from Iraq video below.

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detroitmechworks's picture

Historically Mercs have switched sides in the middle of battles based off the amount of pay they get, have taken to raiding citizens of a country when their pay hasn't been sufficient, and numerous other atrocities, based off the idea that they are beholden to no country and therefore immune from prosecution.

I would take a Penal unit on my side before I trusted a Mercenary.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

from the Roman side of the battle.
It seems early in the battle the mercenary cavalry of Hannibal switched over to the Roman side.
There was some sort of formal way to do it, so the Romans let them through their lines.

But then they switched back to the side of Carthage and attacked the Roman's from behind. It collapsed their defenses.

Tricky bastards. Who can you trust if not a merc?

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mimi's picture

can't watch it. Makes me sick.

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That was enough for me.
I guess I should have put a warning on it.

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Bisbonian's picture

DynAir Tech, later Sabre Tech, that improperly loaded hazardous cargo onto Valujet flight 592, leading to the fatal crash into the Everglades in 1996.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

thrownstone's picture

You gotta wonder about the future of a group of mercs who put the location of their hq on tee shirts and then sell them in the street.

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“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

thrownstone's picture

Hmmm...with The Donald's apparently insatiable need for adulation temporarily repressed by better organized protesters is it possible that these guys may be coming to a theater (of operations) near you sometime soon?

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“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Read "Another Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries," by Hugh MacDiarmid.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

of US Service members. I have no sympathy for them. Incompetent, moneygrubbing assholes, the lot of them. Who even went so far as to put out a video game licensed by their company to try to justify/glamorize their actions. When the Army did it, it was pathetic. When Blackwater does it, it's fucking insulting.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

snoopydawg's picture

Be reinstated.
But what galls me is the amount of money that they get paid while the military troops are living off of food stamps and can't get proper treatment at VA hospitals because the warmongers say that there isn't enough money.
Same with other social programs.
And it's not just the mercenaries that get paid huge amounts of money, it's the contractors who get a contact then sub contract it out to people from poor countries.
And many of the contractors have been found guilty of over billing, pay a small fine that doesn't touch their profits and then get more contracts.
Seriously, is the rule of law dead in this country except for poor people who get stuck in a never ending cycle of debt?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

I thought this type of activity, murder for hire, was a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Oh thats right I forgot, we dont give a shit about our Constitutional obligation to uphold treaties we sign.

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thrownstone's picture

they are treaties like the TPP and NAFTA. The reason that Reeps like these treaties is because they can put all sorts of stuff in there that cannot got enough votes in Congress. One little feature in the Obama/Clinton TPP treaty gives drug companies a 20 year extension on the copyright laws so that generics cannot replace them. The other countries balked til the very end because it was way outside the scope of a trade agreement and affected only one country. "O, well, I guess we HAVE to do it cuz its in a TREATY and we can't break a TREATY!"

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“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

thrownstone's picture

they are treaties like the TPP and NAFTA. The reason that Reeps like these treaties is because they can put all sorts of stuff in there that cannot got enough votes in Congress. One little feature in the Obama/Clinton TPP treaty gives drug companies a 20 year extension on the copyright laws so that generics cannot replace them. The other countries balked til the very end because it was way outside the scope of a trade agreement and affected only one country. "O, well, I guess we HAVE to do it cuz its in a TREATY and we can't break a TREATY!"

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“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

thrownstone's picture

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“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

thrownstone's picture

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“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

thrownstone's picture

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“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

nickydale's picture

The young folk seem to want adventure these days. Too bad so much of that impulse is being channeled these days Daesh, Blackwater, gangs, Trump rallies, and so on. We all seem to be playing out the wrong science fiction. It's scary so much of Philip K Dick and George Orwell has come to pass, let alone all the Corporate Horror genre. Maybe the rich bored people think of them as how to manuals.That's the scary part, because the really scary stories may be right around the corner.

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reborn evolved

Their life expectancy is a relatively short one.

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