Tuesday, February 21, 2006

This Scares Me

Feel threatened? Have a lot of money? Call these guys:
Blackwater choppered in twenty-six special ops–trained mercenaries on September 2, the next day. The operatives would secure all three Starwood properties in New Orleans—the Sheraton and two W hotels. They had originally planned to land on the roof of the Sheraton, but Katrina's hundred-mile-per-hour winds had left it littered with debris. So the Blackwater team landed by the river and proceeded to the hotel on foot, carrying their standard kit: communications equipment, body armor, semi-automatic sidearms, and automatic weapons.

It would have been an ordinary, even modest, deployment in Iraq. But this mission was extraordinary in that it was staged at the request of a major American hotelier in a major American tourist destination—a rare, bold, and sadly necessary move. "We felt that the Blackwater people were the only ones who would be effective," says King.
If these guys kill someone, anyone, even a looter, do they get prosecuted? My guess is no. That scares me.

And while residents were not allowed back into their city to protect their property, these guys could land a helicopter full of mercenaries by the river and transport an arsenal through the streets of downtown to three hotels. That scares me, too.

5 comments:

jeffrey said...

They were also hired to protect private residences at Audobon Place. Currently, at FEMA's request they are guarding the front entrance of the Main Library from potential rowdy patrons of the FEMA Disaster Recovery Center which currently occupies half of the first floor of the building.

LatinTeacher said...

No one wants to address this question with a ten foot pole. I have heard that a large number of looters were killed (reliable sources informed me in October that there were "hundreds of body bags" at the SuperDome, but just a few were from people who were there.) Just how many looters were killed and by whom and where are the bodies and doesn't that scare you, too?

Anonymous said...

For several weeks after we returned at the beginning of November, they were still guarding the federal area on S. Peters. That area is now dismantled and they seem to have moved on.

Mr. Clio said...

latinteacher,

There was a lot of bullshit flying around in October. I'm not saying your info was part of it, but I listen to that kind of stuff skeptically, at least at first.

The point of this post is well taken, however. This is scary stuff.

Scarier still is the picture in the link you provide. That picture looks like Alec Gifford! I KNEW he was part of the whole conspiracy all along.

Schroeder said...

Talking to local law enforcment, Blackwater wasn't really doing the killing (though I'm not so sure I believe that). Instead, it was special ops guys (Green Berets), who in at least one instance reported to me, took out looters trying to break into a hotel guarded by NOPD low on ammunition who were protecting judges.