American Mercenaries Were Hired To Assassinate Politicians In The Middle East

[neohippie]

Source: Buzz Feed

The revelations that a Middle East monarchy hired Americans to carry out assassinations comes at a moment when the world is focused on the alleged murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia, an autocratic regime that has close ties to both the US and the UAE. (The Saudi Embassy in the US did not respond to a request for comment. Riyadh has denied it killed Khashoggi, though news reports suggest it is considering blaming his death on a botched interrogation.)

Golan said that during his company’s months-long engagement in Yemen, his team was responsible for a number of the war’s high-profile assassinations, though he declined to specify which ones. He argued that the US needs an assassination program similar to the model he deployed. “I just want there to be a debate,” he said. “Maybe I’m a monster. Maybe I should be in jail. Maybe I’m a bad guy. But I’m right.”

Spear Operations Group’s private assassination mission marks the confluence of three developments transforming the way war is conducted worldwide:

Read more: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/aramroston/mercenaries-assassination-us-yemen-uae-spear-golan-dahlan

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Trump was installed by global oligarchs to reign in the US position as a former leader for human rights, democracy and justice, he's been tearing up our institutions and weakening our positions across the globe.

He's realigning the US relationships with trusted allies, and trying to establish new relationships with autocrats and dictators.

We're witnessing the normalizing of corruption

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

1. You can't

legalize something thats illegal by memorializing it in a contract, or by making a corporation especially for it....or can you?
Corporate reform needs to happen badly. BADLY.

[Javaman]

13. you can if you have judges and a supreme court that will look the other way. nt

[neohippie]

2. Trump What's an ally?

Trump is attacking our trusted allies, like the European Union

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/10/donald-trump-60-minutes-ally/573019/

Donald Trump’s tangles with America’s traditional friends—on trade, military spending, handshaking—are well known. But on Sunday, in an interview with 60 Minutes, the American president distilled his revolutionary view of the country’s alliances in Europe, Asia, and North America, which have formed the foundation for U.S. foreign policy for decades, to its essence. Asked by Lesley Stahl about the tariffs he’s threatened to impose on allies such as Canada, Japan, and the European Union, Trump responded, “I mean, what’s an ally?”

American leaders have long clashed with allies. Yet Trump is unique in casting these allies not as occasionally problematic partners, but as direct threats to the United States—threats that, in many cases, are actually more dangerous than America’s customary enemies because they drain the country of its vitality while masquerading as a friend.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

11. They send soldiers to fight w us. That sounds like a friend.

Especially when the war is all wrong. (Iraq.) I don't care for don ivans definition of anyone or anything.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. Not good. How long before they become guns for hire in the U.S.?

Edited to add: See how easily I fell in that crack in believing that there's nothing we can do about those who are doing it overseas.

[Dopers_Greed]

4. American mercenaries?

Trump will try to spin this as creating American jobs.

[Botany]

5. I hope the assassins wind up alone in some village in the middle east and the ...

.... locals get to meet and spend some quality time with them.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. BuzzFeed's "murky legality" is "obvious illegality"

In any country, murder is illegal.

For months in war-torn Yemen, some of America’s most highly trained soldiers worked on a mercenary mission of murky legality to kill prominent clerics and Islamist political figures.
...
The mercenaries’ plan was to attach a bomb laced with shrapnel to the door of Al-Islah’s headquarters, located near a soccer stadium in central Aden, a key Yemeni port city. The explosion, one of the leaders of the expedition explained, was supposed to “kill everybody in that office.”

Mass murder, at that. Golan is a terrorist.

[KPN]

7. When we are back in control of the Congress

and WH, we as a nation should make it illegal for Americans to provide this kind of “service” and then go after Golan and others like him. We should also eliminate contracted security services in war zones and reconstitute the draft to really make our nation great again.

Until we do that, we will always be the target of terrorism aimed at ending our military dominance and empire.

[FakeNoose]

9. Yep!

We lost our "moral high ground" long ago and the world knows it.

[47of74]

10. And make it punishable by death by public hanging.

I'm to the point where I think life imprisonment is no longer enough and that the death penalty is good and proper in some cases.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

12. Life imprisonment? These guys are getting less jail time than someone caught

w a bag of weed. Treason must be punished ruthlessly. REGARDLESS of how we feel. The line has to be drawn somewhere, else nobody is afraid of taking a chance and selling out their birth country.

[Mrs. Overall]

8. K & R

[Javaman]

14. if the mercs become so influential will that give rise to our own praetorian guard?

I know eric prince would squee with delight over that.

[elmac]

15. American Mercenaries have been around for Decades

did the dirty work for the US (South, Central America mostly, Iraq, Afghanistan) and big biz, for Foreign govs as well. The big diff today is that they now are part of companies that trade on the stock exchanges, big biz.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

27. I think you're confusing these guys with the CIA.

[elmac]

29. nope, no confusion here, the CIA help supply the arms, the money

and the misinformation campaign, they were never used as soldiers or assassins.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

30. May I direct you to a book written by Wayne Simmons,

Career CIA Field Officer. They did indeed "remove" people.

[calimary]

16. By any chance did Eric Prince have a hand in this?

Mr. Blackwater et al...

[mithnanthy]

17. That's exactly what I was thinking....

Eric Prince.

[neohippie]

18. It doesn't appear on the surface that he was involved

In the article it states that this operation written about in the story was Spear Operations Group founded by Abraham Golan, see below:

The operation against Mayo — which was reported at the time but until now was not known to have been carried out by American mercenaries — marked a pivot point in the war in Yemen, a brutal conflict that has seen children starved, villages bombed, and epidemics of cholera roll through the civilian population. The bombing was the first salvo in a string of unsolved assassinations that killed more than two dozen of the group’s leaders.

The company that hired the soldiers and carried out the attack is Spear Operations Group, incorporated in Delaware and founded by Abraham Golan, a charismatic Hungarian Israeli security contractor who lives outside of Pittsburgh. He led the team’s strike against Mayo.

Now it may be that this is some kind of subsidiary or partner with Erik Prince but no mention of him, my guess is there are others out there in this game besides Prince

A google search didn't turn up much on Spear Operations Group

I found some lawsuit in federal court by an unpaid contractor

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4610889/elsalameen-v-spear-operations-group-llc/

[calimary]

23. These bastards are getting pretty good at covering their tracks.

Blackwater isn't called that anymore. It changed its name to the weird-ass new label Xe. And Xe isn't called that anymore, either. It's changed too - known most recently as Academi:


So much for naming your mercenary company after an obscure element from the periodic table.

Say goodbye to Xe. The company formerly known as Blackwater – the world's most infamous private security corporation – has jettisoned the name it chose in its 2009 rebrand. Now the "security solutions provider" wants to wash away the taint of the 2007 Nisour Square shootings by adopting the new name "Academi."

But the company is changing its name – not its core business. And it even wants back into the country where it ran its brand through the mud: Iraq.

"Our focus is on training and security services. We're continuing that," new CEO Ted Wright tells Danger Room. "We're not backing away from security services. The lion's share of our business today is providing training for security services and [providing] security services."If Blackwater – sorry, Academi – was a sports franchise, you'd consider 2011 its rebuilding year. A consortium of investors close to the family of founder Erik Prince bought the company in late 2010, and spent 2011 putting together its new leadership team. It brought on board former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Bill Clinton consigliere Jack Quinn and Suzanne Folsom from the insurance giant AIG. Wright came from military-services giant KBR. Notice a pattern? All have deep experience with crisis management.

https://www.wired.com/2011/12/blackwater-rebrand-academi/

Note - this article is from 2011. Heaven knows what name they're hiding behind by now.

[brooklynite]

19. "Jobs for America"?

[scipan]

20. not sure how it's different from drones

which Obama did. just more in your face killing.

[neohippie]

21. Well one difference

We command and control our drones. These guys are private killers, who kill whomever the UAE/Saudi command ask them to, so the targets may not be the bad guys we want to take out but just political rivals

As mentioned in the article

The CIA said it had no information about the mercenary assassination program, and the Navy's Special Warfare Command declined to comment. A former CIA official who has worked in the UAE initially told BuzzFeed News there was no way that Americans would be allowed to participate in such a program. But after checking, he called back: “There were guys that were basically doing what you said.” He was astonished, he said, by what he learned: “What vetting procedures are there to make sure the guy you just smoked is really a bad guy?” The mercenaries, he said, were “almost like a murder squad.”

[Blue_Tires]

22. kick

[denverbill]

24. It would be interesting if it was Americans who assassinated Khashoggi.

I wouldn't be surprised.

[neohippie]

25. Unlikely

I think the Turkish know exactly what happened, who did it, when, where, and it's been reported they have audio and possibly video to support their claims


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkey-releases-passport-scans-of-men-it-says-were-involved-in-journalists-killing/2018/10/16/f425892e-d163-11e8-83d6-291fcead2ab1_story.html


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/turks-tell-us-officials-they-have-audio-and-video-recordings-that-support-conclusion-khashoggi-was-killed/2018/10/11/119a119e-cd88-11e8-920f-dd52e1ae4570_story.html?utm_term=.86ce413280c2


And today reports that Consul was present during the execution, which may be why Consul left the country

Link to tweet

Now Trump appears to be running interference for the Saudi's and may end up being caught up in the plot

Link to tweet

[KayF]

26. this is the stuff of RW fantasies

this guy wanted to be an American mercenary

[Haggis for Breakfast]

28. You do realize that is Sasha Baron Cohen right ?

[ck4829]

31. Kick

[Puha Ekapi_2]

32. Ahem....

Might I point out a relevant date from the article?

On that night, December 29, 2015, their job was to carry out an assassination.