The Blackwater-Pakistan Meme

Google Trends and Insight charts showing the rise of the “Blackwater Pakistan” meme. It’s what Google calls a “breakout“, i.e. a sudden increase of 5000% or more in search volume.

Update #2: Vanity Fair article “Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy” — Blackwater CEO Eric Prince recruited by CIA after 9/11.

Update #1: PMC-scribe Jeremy Scahill’s Nov-23 article in The Nation (not Pak) — Blackwater in support role for JSOC in Pakistan; Blackwater – Kestral relationship; Kestral lobbying in DC through Vision Americas/Roger Noriega/Firecreek. Here’s Scahill on GritTV Nov-25:

The meme, unsurprisingly, originates in Pakistan, and relates to these recent events:

• Frequent media reports of (mostly) US diplomats being detained with weapons and surveillance equipment.
• The suspicious raid on Inter Risk Security — a DynCorp security subcontractor for the US Embassy/Consulate — and the arrests of Ali Zaidi (founder/CEO) and Jamil Abbasi (a human rights activist); allegations of bribery; improper weapons licensing, etc… 70 weapons were seized — but pictures show they are not “sophisticated AK-47s” as reported.
• Inter Risk’s covert training camp at Rawat — where 200 ex-military were inducted into the Inter Risk / US Embassy security team — was also raided and shut down. The 200 trainees were allegedly hidden away in “safe houses.” It’s also claimed that Inter Risk and/or US security factions were/are using the Police Training College in Rawalpindi to build the ranks of local PMCs.
• Craig Davis of CAII was arrested and deported by security servces for having too much contact with local militants. [Pak Embassy in DC issued a new visa and he was returned on a private flight soon after!] CAII (Creative Associates International Inc) are a US NGO — also active in Iraq and Afghanistan — receiving funding from USAID, and are allegedly a Blackwater (“kala pani”) front based in Peshawar.
• Steven Cash, lawyer (Yale) and ex-CIA counsel — who spent time in the Directorate of Operations (covert action) — is accused of being the head of the “Blackwater” office in Peshawar, and of bribing and threatening journalists. Cash is a former Chief Counsel to US Senator Feinstein, ex-counsel/staffer on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Judicial Committee, House Select Committee on Homeland Security, etc, now “consulting” in the private sector as Deck Prism LLC, based out of a suburban address in DC (ph 301-908-3927).
• Or perhaps Matt Rosenberg, a Seattle-based writer, is the “chief operative of CIA and Blackwater in Peshawar”, as alleged in ‘The Nation’ — the source of many of the stories and rumors comprising this meme.
• Reports of foreigners entering the country on private flights and/or without clearing customs — such as the recent 4am arrival in Islamabad of PK-786 from Heathrow.
• Photos of hum-vees on trucks being transported northward towards Islamabad.
• Reports of “Blackwater check posts” around Kahuta.
• Retired General Mirza Aslam Beg suggesting to an Iranian paper that Blackwater [not Cheney's JSOC hit-team?] was behind the Benazir Bhutto assassination.
• The claim that Kestral Logistics‘ warehouse in I-9/3, Islamabad, is being used by “Blackwater” to smuggle sophisticated weapons and ammo into Pak.
• Outrage over US plans to massively expand their embassy in Islamabad’s high-security “Red Zone”. US also seeks to increase its quota of “diplomats” from 380 to over 700.
• US Ambassador Patterson arranged to have Shireen Mazari’s column in ‘The News’ suspended after she offered criticism of US policy and covered the “Blackwater” story. In 2008 she was removed from her position as director of a Foreign Office think-tank under US pressure.
• The emergence of “new” militant groups such as Jundullah, TTB — and the BLA — which are believed to enjoy US/Afghan aid and support.
• Almost every every act of terrorism targeting civilians is quickly denounced as a false-flag attack — either staged or assisted by “Blackwater” / CIA / US Embassy, etc.
• The US is also seen as intentionally inflicting excessive “collateral damage” with their drone-strikes — serviced by Blackwater contractors — reinforcing popular sentiment that US grand strategy is to create instability — “divide-and-conquer” — and that the end-game is the Balkanization of Pakistan.

Note that there is no evidence which definitively proves the rumour of “Blackwater/Xe” in Pakistan. If true, the assumption is that they operate through secret subsidiaries and subcontractors, and with the assistance of local proxies — companies like Inter-Risk and Kestrel Logistics/SPD. Just remember that 70% of the official US intelligence budget goes to private firms.

WAZIRISTAN TALIBAN AND WESTERN “GOOGLE SCHOLARS”

Farhat Taj in ‘TheNews‘ (Jang) asks the educated people in Waziristan to speak out publicly about local Taliban. He contrasts the reaction of the educated class in Swat Valley, who are “better integrated” and were more able to “interact with the media to highlight the brutal Taliban occupation of Swat.” He also lambasts Western researchers who clumsily use sensationalistic OSINT to create irrelevant content:

Because the educated people of Waziristan are silent, people around the world and in Pakistan have provided their own answers to questions like those raised by Ayaz Wazir [Pak Foreign Ministry, Afghan affairs - TC]. The answers are not only baseless but also ridiculous. Bizarre ideas have been attributed to the people of Waziristan by writers in western countries, who, in the words of a cynical Pakhtun, are engaged in “Google scholarship” to understand Waziristan. This means they Google Waziristan and write a whole book or research papers on the area. [...] The “Google scholars” hardly pay any attention to research ethics when attributing notions to people and culture of Waziristan. They could never assign such bizarre ideas to people in western countries with the same ease with which they do in the case of the people of Waziristan, because in the west research ethics applies to researchers.

Continuing, he outlines the mainstream mythology of the Taliban in Waziristan [bullets mine]:

The other group of people who spread lies about Waziristan are armchair analysts, and pro-establishment and right-wing journalists and writers in Pakistan. The lies and the Google-scholarly notions are:

• the tribes of Waziristan back the Taliban, actually the tribes are the Taliban,
• the tribes have given refuge to Al Qaeda terrorists under the tribal code of Pakhtunwali,
• Talibanisation in Waziristan is a reaction to US drone attacks in the area,
• the Taliban are Pakhtun nationalists,
• Talibanisation is an indigenous movement for social justice,
• the people of Waziristan are attacking Pakistan because the state is seen as siding with the US,
• the people of Waziristan are fiercely autonomous and abhor integration in a modern state structure, etc.

A PHANTOM ENEMY?

An article by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad in LeMonde Diplomatique describes the situation in the Peshawar area:

[...] Now, many Afghans are leaving because Afghanistan feels safer. There are checkpoints all over the city, many kidnappings, and in the past month, there have been at least three suicide bombings and four rocket attacks, most targeting Hayatabad.

[...] On the bus to Peshawar I’d met a youth, studying English literature at the University of Punjab, who was returning home to evacuate his family from the Khyber Agency. I asked him who the Taliban were, and he replied dryly “we all are”. A taxi driver showed me the flood of refugees from Khyber’s Bara region, and said the Taliban were a “phantom enemy” invented by the Pakistani establishment to justify foreign aid. He warned the government’s actions were actually creating the enemy that it claims it is at war with.

[...] Public opinion is incensed: according to an August 2009 Gallup poll, 59% of Pakistanis see the US as the biggest threat, compared with 18% for traditional rival India. Only 11% see the Taliban as the biggest threat (although that number is growing). While the poll also revealed 41% support for the military operation in Swat, a higher number (43%) favoured a political resolution. The insecurities of the Pakistani defence establishment are worsened by US assistance to India, including the transfer of advanced military and nuclear technology.

[...] The morning after the rockets [Hayatabad] I walked to the local market to buy tanoori bread. Once sold for Rs 2, it now sells for Rs 15. Wages have stagnated and inflation and unemployment are high. On the street there was no talk of the threat to lives. Everyone complained about the impossible cost of living.

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/pentagon-intimidate-journo-blackwater/