the fact that he says, 'Oh, we want to go and fight ISIS right now,' first of all, they want to make money off of it" ~ Jeremy Scahill re Erik Prince, founder of US mercenary outfit BlackWater

1)   Citizen Four

see also snippets of film & interview w Laura Poitras at DemocracyNow
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Starts Friday, October 31 at the Kendall Square Cinema In January 2013, filmmaker Laura Poitras was in the process of constructing a film about abuses of national security in post-9/11 America when she started receiving encrypted e-mails from someone identifying himself as "citizen four," who was ready to blow the whistle on the massive covert surveillance programs run by the NSA and other intelligence agencies. In June 2013, she and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with the man who turned out to be Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her. The film that resulted from this series of tense encounters is absolutely sui generis in the history of cinema: a 100% real-life thriller unfolding minute by minute before our eyes. Poitras is a masterful storyteller: she compresses the many days of questioning, waiting, confirming, watching the world's reaction and agonizing over the next move, into both a great character study of Snowden and a narrative that will leave you on the edge of your seat as it inexorably moves toward its conclusion. Official Web Site 2)  Blackwater Execs Remain Free as Guards Convicted for Killing 14 Iraqis in Massacre summary: A federal jury has returned guilty verdicts against four Blackwater operatives involved in the 2007 massacre at Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. On Wednesday, the jury found one guard, Nicholas Slatten, guilty of first-degree murder, while three other guards were convicted of voluntary manslaughter: Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard. The jury is still deliberating on additional charges against the operatives, who faced a combined 33 counts. The operatives were tried for the deaths of 14 of the 17 Iraqi civilians who died when their Blackwater unit opened fire. We speak to Jeremy Scahill, author of the best-selling book "Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army." His most recent article published by The Intercept is "Blackwater Founder Remains Free & Rich While His Former Employees Go Down on Murder Charges." excerpt: Scahill:  this is an extremely important verdict, because we’re talking about a mercenary industry, a war industry, that has largely operated in a Wild West atmosphere, where there’s absolutely no accountability. So, while we only have a handful of people being held accountable for what were very widespread crimes committed by Blackwater and other private military companies, this is a very important moment for the victims of Nisoor Square. And they’ve fought for many years in both civil courts and criminal courts to try to get justice for their loved ones who were killed. But let’s be clear here. Blackwater was a part of an unlawful global war that was borderless in nature, launched by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, with the support of Democrats in the U.S. Congress, and President Obama has continued to use mercenary forces. None of the people that unleashed these forces on the world, at the highest levels, are being held accountable. ...Erik Prince is a radical right-wing Christian supremacist who, from the very beginning of the so-called war on terror, viewed the role of Blackwater in the world as being neo-crusaders. And he is a radical anti-Muslim. And he hates the religion of Islam. And he—his company, basically, was allowed to operate in an atmosphere where they would kill Muslims for sport inside of Iraq. ...And, you know, the fact that he says, "Oh, we want to go and fight ISIS right now," first of all, they want to make money off of it ...

 

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