Blackwater...eh hem *cough* "Xe" recent developments.

Didn't notice if this news was posted yet, I looked, but saw nothing recent on the recent. (pun intended )


Seriously though.
More unsealed documents;

Two Individuals Charged with Murder and Other Offenses Related to Shooting Death of Two Afghan Nationals in Kabul, Afghanistan
Third Afghan National Wounded in Shooting That Led to Charges

WASHINGTON—Justin Cannon, 27, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Va., have been charged with crimes including second-degree murder, attempted murder, and firearms offenses while working as contractors for the U.S. Department of Defense in Afghanistan, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride of the Eastern District of Virginia, and John Perren, Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office announced today. Cannon and Drotleff were charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA).

The 13-count indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 6, 2010, and unsealed today, alleges that on May 5, 2009, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Cannon and Drotleff shot and killed two Afghanistan nationals and wounded a third. The indictment alleges that at the time of the shootings, Cannon and Drotleff were Department of Defense contractors employed by Paravant LLC, which is a subsidiary of Xe (formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide).

For Immediate - Release U.S. Department of Justice

[edit to add links]

Meanwhile, the security company’s involvement in clandestine operations with the Central Intelligence Agency surfaced this week after the disclosure that two of its employees had been killed along with five officers of the C.I.A. and a Jordanian intelligence agent in a suicide bombing at a base in Khost, Afghanistan.
NYTimes

[edit on 7-1-2010 by ADVISOR]

From my own firsthand experience in Iraq, I would not characterize these trained professionals as "clowns". If anything, they're cowboys.

And don't think that this stuff doesn't go on just as much in regular military units. But as I'm sure you can surmise, most of it gets covered up and whitewashed. The Army, for instance, has PSYOPS and the PAO (Public Affairs Office) to do it's dirty work. And the formal Chain of Command operates to conceal these kinds of incidents so that they don't result in formal investigations, sanctions, and negative publicity.

I really wonder you know how many training accidents and alleged suicides were really attributable to fratricide. Don't think that it doesn't happen anymore since Vietnam.