Ex-Blackwater Guards Arrested In Afghan Murders: Journalist Jeremy Scahill Predicts More Violence (VIDEO)

Two former employees of a subsidiary to the security company formerly known as Blackwater were arrested Thursday for the murder of two Afghan civilians last May.

The accused, Justin Cannon, 27, and Chris Dortleff, 29, were employees of Paravant LLC, a subsidiary to Xe Services, the company formerly known as Blackwater. Cannon and Dortleff were in Afghanistan to train the Afghan National Army. They have since been terminated by Xe. Both men have told the Associated Press that they believe they were justified in opening fire on a vehicle that caused an accident in front of their vehicle, then turned and sped towards them. The contractors were carrying weapons despite a U.S. military documents prohibiting them from carrying firearms. A third Paravant contractor who was there when the shooting occurred was terminated after the incident and accused by the company of drinking before the shooting.

The Nation's Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army believes that as President Obama escalates the Afghanistan War, "we are going to see more of these incidents with more of these trainers when they engage with the Afghan civilians."

Brave New Foundation interviewed Scahill for their video series "Rethink Afghanistan"

WATCH

Comments

[Loretta Callahan]

01:44 PM on 01/12/2010

I'm waiting for the list!!

[Enrique M]

09:50 PM on 01/10/2010

The entire organization deserves to be dismantled and investigated.

[Mekarri]

07:42 PM on 01/10/2010

I'm glad the someone from black water or XE will be held accountable. Maybe next time they will think about their own self interest when they go to other countries and kill their citizens. I hope they make an example out of this psychopath. Being rich and white doesn't matter in other countries, welcome to our world @ $$ hole.

[toxicbrainpoison]

05:49 PM on 01/09/2010

They are insane. Lock these overpaid sociopaths up!

[cycle3man]

05:11 PM on 01/09/2010

I don't know why, but mercenary killer
pops into my mind when I look at this money hungry punk!

[Balzac]

08:58 AM on 01/10/2010

You're the punk.

[pjaybazaar]

04:59 PM on 01/09/2010

I said this yesterday, but I will say it again today...WHY DOES THE MEDIA CONTINUE TO CALL THEM BLACKWATER...when it's XE. It's important to know this and I apologize for the caps, but I am having a real hard time with a liberal post either intentionally muddying the waters or just careless journalism. There is a reason WHY Blackwater changed it's name..because it would lose FUTURE CONTRACTS BASED ON IT'S POOR REPUTATION... Like this: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100109/ap_on_bi_ge/us_blackwater_afghanistan

Can we connect the dots here so we don't let XE - BLACKWATER get away with it?? Make sure YOU USE BOTH NAMES in articles.

[Bitsko]

04:12 PM on 01/09/2010

What does Jeremy Scahill's comment have to do with this story?

[groovylib]

05:16 PM on 01/09/2010

I think it is the much needed tie in so as to put some kind of blame on President Obama, in story that is meant to be about Xe/Blackwater employees.

[Balzac]

09:01 AM on 01/10/2010

Wrong.

[TheBMChief]

02:55 PM on 01/09/2010

Eric Abdullah Prince al Kalifa really should be in jail. The good news is that their shady ways are being exposed more and more to the point where we aren't going to stand for them anymore. If you ask me, training a foreign police force is a joke. The Russians couldn't do it, but I say if they really want to play over there, let them fund themselves and we can bring our boys home.

[TheBMChief]

03:02 PM on 01/09/2010

And let the slaughter begin! Yeepieeeee

[abouttime]

03:09 PM on 01/09/2010

"Our boys"?

Get real.. As a human I say this: All children belong to us as "our boys" regardless of culture, arbitrary boundaries or money.!!

The USA is a base for corporate hegonomy and is reponsible for children dying at home and overseas.
Blackwater mercenaries or US troops are adults twisted into believing they pull the trigger with no regard for why.

Our boys do not kill for money or truth.

[wittgene]

02:29 PM on 01/09/2010

He makes more than marines, army soldiers, sailors, and airmen so bring him down!

[Stilts9]

12:45 PM on 01/09/2010

Absolutely.

[Johnny-Boy]

12:35 PM on 01/09/2010

Having been employed by more than one of these companies, I feel qualified to say that replacing soldiers with armed mercenaries is a bad idea. Yes, I know, I'm a hypocrite for slamming a process that I myself have engaged in, but the fact remains, we were armed better than most army platoons, such as, fully auto weapons, frag and smoke grenades, intel piped to us straigt from US intel agencies, and the best, or worst part of it was that we were totally outside of any government or regulatory agencies rules and laws.
The Army was held to the UCMJ, we were not.

When you rely on an entity who can only profit from armed conflict, I guarantee that you will then have armed conflict.

Not to mention that Prince, the BW/Xe owner, makes it clear that they are soldiers for God themselves, and that the superiority of our God must be demonstrated by killing the followers of their God.

These companies are preparing for, and have contingency plans in place, for a coup of any government that may oppose them, including this government. Think on that a while.

[mafina]

12:41 PM on 01/09/2010

But how many of them are capable of going against 300 mill plus. No, I don't believe that a few religious nutjobs can subvert the will and power of the people. Money just doesn't cut it with the power of the people.

[futate01]

03:41 PM on 01/09/2010

You are wrong. The 300 mill you speak of have just been robbed of Trillions of dollars by the banksters, and the 300 did noting in their deense. We went to war with Iraq because Prince wanted it so. An honest gov would have would have taken the 911 attackers as a criminal organization and would have proceeded accordingly not invite two countries yet the 300 mill people did nothing.

Don't you find it odd that the violence in Iraq suddenly stopped in 2007-08, just when Bush's term was up. Do you really believe that Muslims blew each other's Mosques up and suddenly now that we have a new administration the Iraqis are not blowing up each others Mosques anymore? How would XE make a profit if there wasn't constant war?

Unfortunately the 300 are asleep at the wheel. We could easily stop our gov form being a criminal entity but no one is doing a damned thing about it. You want to know what to do? Complete country shut down. If Americans want change they all, ALL 300 MILLION, need to stop going to work, stop paying mortgagees, bills, credit cards, etc. and shut this country down. YES it would be a painful thing to do, but that is the only way to flex our muscle and show the gov. we mean business.

[Riverman]

12:41 PM on 01/09/2010

Thank you for that post. I don't think learning fram and admitting to mistakes is hypocracy. It is honerable and patriotic

[TLV]

12:25 PM on 01/09/2010

The huge pay these guys get is too strong a lure.

Even civilians in the Army make a fat paycheck - at least $125,000 over their regular pay - if they go to Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Iraq for just six months. Guess who's paying for this? Is this really sustainable in the economy we are experiencing right now and with so many out of work?

[motoGpifupleez]

12:21 PM on 01/09/2010

These guys will be living the good life beck in the U.S.A. soon enough.
Eric Prince will threaten (once again) to divulge the dirt and the Obama administration will knuckle under.
Just goes to show you what you can get away with when you are a "christian extremist".
Murderfor hire, the Blackwater creed.

[aonemandog]

12:16 PM on 01/09/2010

Read the article just posted about XE being in line for a new contract to train Aghan police. And who is paving the way for XE??? our friend General McCrystal. He is reshaping policy so that he can put his XE friends into the contract. I think he is either looking at a comfy job at XE after his retirement as one of our most corrupt generals or, XE has something really good on him and he has to do their bidding. We need to write our representatives to make sure that XE is thrown out of Afghanistan before we have another massacre on our hands.

[helenwheels]

12:22 PM on 01/09/2010

It gets worse, check this out:

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2010/01/spooky-indeed-obama-colombia.html

[mafina]

12:31 PM on 01/09/2010

Great article. I too had some of those same questions. But BO seems to be an extension of both Clinton and Sr. Bush. Pacify the Am. ppl to the extent of "don't question what I'm doing" just follow along.

[mafina]

12:12 PM on 01/09/2010

Where's the logic in invading a foreign country, send in the mercs and claim the citizens are terrororists. Religious factions at work.

[helenwheels]

12:22 PM on 01/09/2010

It's all about the her0in.

[Loretta Callahan]

03:02 PM on 01/09/2010

It appears so, doesn't it? Seems our government is looking more like an episode from the Sopranos every year.