And if you have the support of the royals there, which he clearly does, and he's supporting them--you know, it's a marriage of convenience and love, apparently--then he has very little to worry about from them. Despite the fact that this Crown Prince can sit with President Obama one day and then be hatching mercenary plots with Erik Prince the next day, is a stunning commentary on how little things have changed from Bush to Obama on this issue of mercenaries.
AMY GOODMAN: And John Ashcroft, the former attorney general?
JEREMY SCAHILL: You know, John Ashcroft has been named--I mean, you can't make this stuff up--has been named the chief ethics officer for the new Blackwater, that's actually being run by Bobby Ray Inman, who, you know, was a major figure under the Clinton administration, was picked to take over as defense secretary for Les Aspin, and his nomination was broiled in controversy.
AMY GOODMAN: And he was national security adviser.
JEREMY SCAHILL: And he was the former national security adviser. So they're sort of trying to rebrand Blackwater. But, I mean--
AMY GOODMAN: New name, Xe, X-E?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, you know, it changes every day. It's Xe, or it's United States Training Center. I mean, there's--
AMY GOODMAN: USTC.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, there's--I mean, Blackwater has all these shadow entities around the world. I mean, we've seen--a new one pops up every day. Now it's Reflex Response now, R2, Paravant, Greystone. I mean, I could list probably--I could sit here for 10 minutes listing their various shell companies for you.
But, I mean, putting John Ashcroft in charge of ethics at Blackwater is like asking the fox to take care of the baby chicks, you know, on a farm somewhere and hoping everything is going to be fine. I mean, he's going to devour the very idea of ethics. If you look at his track record when he was attorney general, I mean, this is not an ethical man and not anyone that has any business overseeing the ethics of a notorious mercenary firm.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Nisoor Square, the latest on it, the killings by Blackwater forces in Iraq?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. I mean, the five Blackwater guards, as they're called, were indicted by the federal government for the shooting at Nisoor Square, and the case was dismissed largely on technical grounds and because of malfeasance on the part of prosecutors. The government--of federal prosecutors. The government appealed that decision. And recently, there was--excuse me--there was a ruling favorable to the government. And so, that case very well could move toward settlement, because the guards probably don't want to stand trial, or it could go to trial, in which case there is going to be a question of how secret it's going to be.
There is one civil case still remaining against Blackwater, that we've covered extensively on Democracy Now!, brought by the father of the youngest victim of the Nisoor Square shootings, the nine-year-old boy named Ali Kinani. That case has been moving forward quietly and could very well go to state court in North Carolina, where if it hits trial, there would be no cam on damages that could be awarded. So that really is the wild card to watch. It could be the one place where there's any accountability for Blackwater at Nisoor Square.
AMY GOODMAN: And to sum up, this issue of no Muslims in this force that UAE has contracted Erik Prince for, this idea of a private Christian militia in the Middle East?
JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. I mean, you know, I do not need to wax on my opinion about this. We can look at documents submitted in federal court cases from Prince's own former employees, who say that he is--he views himself as a Christian crusader whose role in the world is wiping out Muslims and Islam in general. They said that he set a tone at Blackwater that rewarded the taking of Muslim life, viewed the operations in Iraq as, quote, "payback for 9/11," even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So the idea that he would implement a policy that had at its core that Muslims would not fire on other Muslims, if they were working for this kind of a force, is consistent with everything we've heard out of Blackwater about Mr. Prince's worldview regarding religion and the supremacy of Christianity over Islam.
It's very dangerous, Amy, when you have these kinds of forces in such volatile environments, with all of the uprisings happening. The last thing that region needs is a Christian crusader force that appears to have the legitimacy or backing of the United States government, regardless of if it actually does. You know, it's incendiary, and it's just--it's dousing an already burning fire with gasoline. And it's very, very dangerous. The Obama administration, if they're not supporting this, they need to do something about it. If they are, well, then that's serious, and they need to answer questions about what on earth they're doing continuing this business with Erik Prince's Christian crusader force.
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