http://www.newsobserver.com/nation_worl … 13022.html
Ideally though I'd like to see the trend of privatizing more and more military functions stopped and reversed. This should be accompanied by increased training and pay to enable military personnel to do jobs that supposedly require the use of civilian contractors. I say supposedly because there are numerous jobs that contractors currently do that the military has done better in the past. There's no reason why it shouldn't be that way again.
More specific to Blackwater and Erik Prince; I find it laughable that he's so pro-Christian and is urging Sharia law to be applied to get out of being sued when his company has repeatedly fucked up and put coalition troops in harms way time and time again. I really hate all these bullshit con artists and their fake patriotism when the real motivation is not "God and country", but a fat piece of the government cheese.
Blackwater owner Erik Prince:To defend itself against a lawsuit by the widows of three American soldiers who died on one of its planes in Afghanistan, a sister company of the private military firm Blackwater has asked a federal court to decide the case using Islamic law, known as Shari'a.
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Erik Prince, who owns Blackwater and Presidential Airways, briefly discussed the lawsuit in a meeting Wednesday with editors and reporters at The News & Observer. Prince was asked to justify having a case involving an American company working for the U.S. government decided by Afghan law.
"Where did the crash occur?" Prince said. "Afghanistan."
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Presidential Airways argued that the lawsuit must be dismissed; legal doctrine holds that soldiers cannot sue the government, and the company was acting as an agent of the government.
Last year, a series of federal judges dismissed that argument.
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The National Transportation Safety Board has blamed the crash on Presidential for its "failure to require its flight crews to file and fly a defined route" and for not providing oversight to make sure its crews followed company policies and Pentagon and federal aviation safety regulations.
Can we fucking get rid of these assholes once and for all? This company is out of control. They want to operate without any oversight and routinely make the lives of actual military personnel more difficult. If they're going to try to operate more like the military then they should be subject to the same penalties and oversight as a DoD civilian/military personnel.Prince serves as vice president of the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation. Salon reports that "between July 2003 and July 2006, the foundation gave at least $670,000 to the Family Research Council and $531,000 to Focus on the Family"[15] headed by James Dobson. The foundation is also a major donor to Calvin College[16], a Christian institution in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Prince also serves as a board member of Christian Freedom International, a non-profit group with a mission of helping "Christians who are persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ."
Since 1998, Prince has personally donated over $200,000 to Republican causes.[17][18][19]Prince is a donor, along with beverage company Bolthouse Farms through the Bolthouse foundation, to the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal group.
Ideally though I'd like to see the trend of privatizing more and more military functions stopped and reversed. This should be accompanied by increased training and pay to enable military personnel to do jobs that supposedly require the use of civilian contractors. I say supposedly because there are numerous jobs that contractors currently do that the military has done better in the past. There's no reason why it shouldn't be that way again.
More specific to Blackwater and Erik Prince; I find it laughable that he's so pro-Christian and is urging Sharia law to be applied to get out of being sued when his company has repeatedly fucked up and put coalition troops in harms way time and time again. I really hate all these bullshit con artists and their fake patriotism when the real motivation is not "God and country", but a fat piece of the government cheese.