“We don’t want to have anything to do with Blackwater,” he added, mentioning the charges that Blackwater operatives recklessly killed civilians in Iraq. “We need help, but we don’t want mercenaries.”
••• The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia wants people to believe that it was unaware the private army it hired to chase pirates were, in fact, “mercenaries”—until The New York Times said so.
Well with all of the news of Saracen International in Somalia, or Erik Prince’s supposed involvement, to me the other interesting story that everyone is missing is the logistics side of this operation. That SKA was listed along with Saracen International for contracts in Somalia.
••• Not only that, they’re looking for a sea port manager in Mogadishu.
I have in no way been associated/involved with Saracen International since 1997 or indeed even had contact with the company since then
••• On his blog, Executive Outcomes founder Eeben Barlow attacks journalists who “lie for a living.”
It’s interesting to note that the major powers don’t do much about the pirates. I guess it’s professional courtesy from the big pirates to the small timers.
••• Video of the recent South Korean anti-piracy raid hits YouTube. Comments ensue.
Nine milimeter MP5 submachine guns are what the special forces used to subdue the pirates.
••• Triumphalism.
Last year in Virginia, guns with high-capacity magazines amounted to 22 percent of the weapons recovered and reported by police. In 2004, when the ban expired, the rate had reached a low of 10 percent. In each year since then, the rate has gone up.
“Maybe the federal ban was finally starting to make a dent in the market by the time it ended,” said Christopher Koper, head of research at the Police Executive Research Forum…
••• Police stats suggest the US assault weapons ban was working.
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After the failed sobriety test, Tampa police arrested Bennett, who had a 380-caliber semi-automatic pistol and a 357-magnum revolver. In his car, police found concealed weapons permits for Utah and Virginia, as well as a loaded handgun, three more knives, four throwing stars, a large machete, a collapsible baton, a slingshot with BBs and pepper spray.
According to an e-mailed statement from Booz Allen Hamilton, Bennett no longer works at the firm, “and the incident was not in any way related to his employment with us.”
••• That’s a relief?
In April 2008, MI6 asked for one of the Royal Navy’s nuclear Trident-class submarines to track a floating arsenal of weapons and bombs dispatched by the Beijing regime in China on board a rust-stained freighter, the An Yue Jiang, to President Robert Mugabe’s pariah state of Zimbabwe…
“On board were 1000 rocket-propelled grenades, 2000 mortar rounds, and three million rounds of ammunition. MI6 agents in South Africa believed the arsenal was intended to further cow Zimbabwe’s starving population…
••• I can’t decide whether it’s more interesting that Zimbabwe buys weapons from China, or that expensive nuclear submarines are used for relatively small-time surveillance?
Europe’s leading defence companies have formed a business group in Japan to encourage collaboration with domestic industry on military procurement programmes. The European Business Council (EBC) Defence and Security Committee was launched on 14 January and includes BAE Systems, EADS, Finmeccanica, Rolls-Royce, Safran, Thales and Arianespace.
••• So says a subscribers-only report by Jane’s Defence Weekly.
Mr. Clarridge pushed a plan to prove that the president was a heroin addict, and then confront him with the evidence to ensure that he became a more pliable ally. Mr. Clarridge proposed various ideas…[such as] finding a way to collect Hamid Karzai’s beard clippings and run DNA tests.
••• Duane Clarridge’s “private CIA” sometimes works at cross-purposes with the White House. As opposed to the regular CIA…