Today, the U.S. government exercised moral leadership when it argued before a full panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that private military contractors who commit torture should not be immune from civil suits.

The companion cases—Al Shimari v.CACI and Al-Quraishi v. Nakhla—were brought by 76 Iraqis who allege they were tortured and abused by U.S. private military contractors at Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-run prisons in Iraq. Among the alleged heinous acts: electric shocks, repeated brutal beatings, sleep and sensory deprivation, forced nudity, stress positions, sexual assault, mock executions, humiliation, hooding, isolated detention, and prolonged hanging by the limbs.

CACI International, Inc. and L-3 Services, Inc.—contracted to provide interrogation and interpretation services at Abu Ghraib—argued that they should be immune from civil suit. They relied on a “battlefield preemption” theory created by the D.C. Circuit in Saleh v. Titan, which held that where a civilian contractor engages in combat activities under the command of the military, a tort claim arising out of the contractor’s engagement is preempted.

On September 21, 2011, a 2-1 majority of the Fourth Circuit panel adopted that position, but in November the ruling was vacated so that a full panel could hear the case. Today, the full panel heard oral arguments from both parties as well as the U.S. government, which was invited by the Court to express its views.

In its brief, the United States says it has “significant federal interests at stake: ensuring that state-law tort litigation does not lead to second-guessing military judgments, protecting the primacy of existing tools for the government to regulate the conduct of contractors working on behalf of the United States (especially where civilian contractors work alongside service members in the military’s conduct of combat-related activities), and ensuring that military detention operations are conducted in a manner consistent with humane treatment obligations and the laws of war, and ensuring that contractors are held accountable for their conduct by appropriate means.” (emphasis added).

Taking all its interests into account, the U.S. government concludes that in circumstances where contractors have committed torture, they should not be immune from civil suits. By taking this position, not only does the United States meet its international human rights and law of war obligations but also advances its own interests. Specifically, it protects U.S. troops and civilians accompanying them abroad and bolsters national security.

Read Human Rights First’s amicus brief on Al Shimari v.CACI and Al-Quraishi v. Nakhla, and the letter HRF sent to the U.S. government’s Solicitor General regarding these cases.

The first production A-10A was delivered to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, in October 1975 and it launched 90 percent of the AGM-65 Maverick missiles.

The Department of Defense (DoD) came in the lowest in the government on competing their procurement contracts. According to the Center for Public Integrity:

While the Pentagon says its level of competition has remained steady over the past 10 years, data available through the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation, which provides competition data on federal agencies, show that the dollars flowing into single-bid contracts have almost tripled since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Nor has that trend been reversed since the 2009 Obama administration memo on competition;Defense Department dollars flowing into noncompetitive procurements continue to grow.

Over the past 10 years, the Pentagon has competed only about 60 percent of its total contract dollars, which stands in stark contrast to other large federal agencies. The State Department, for example, competed 75 percent of its contract dollars in fiscal year 2010, while the Energy Department competed almost 94 percent of its contract dollars. The U.S. Agency for International Development, which faced heavy criticism in the early days of the Afghanistan conflict for handing out sole-source contracts, competed almost 80 percent of its total contract dollars in fiscal year 2010. Even the Department of Homeland Security, which was blasted for a series of disastrous contracts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, outstripped the Pentagon on competed contracts: it competed almost 77 percent of its contract dollars in 2010.

There are several reasons that these numbers may be low. If the DoD competes an original contract, the winning contractor usually gets all the follow-on contracts, often with no new competition, and those service contracts or weapons procurement are then seen as being a competitive contract for years after the initial competition.

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It appears that Fiscal Year 2011 saw more Defense Department criminal investigations of alleged human trafficking by its contractor supply chain than in any one of the last five years, according to a Pentagon inspector general report publicly released today (it is dated January 17).

All three investigations involved or allegedly involved U.S. government contractors or subcontractors in Southwest Asia: Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan.

“While not criminal prosecutions, there have been some civil and administrative actions recently. Earlier this year, the Justice Department joined a whistleblower qui tam lawsuit that alleged that ArmorGroup North America had not reported trafficking-in-persons violations by its personnel as required by its contract. ArmorGroup North America, which had a contract to defend the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, settled the lawsuit for $7.5 million. ArmorGroup North America’s parent company said in a statement that the settlement was made “to avoid costly and disruptive litigation—and that there has been no finding or admission of liability.”

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January 17, 2012

Evaluation of DOD Contracts Regarding Combating Trafficking in Persons:
              U.S.  European Command and U.S. Africa Command
              (Report No.  DODlG-20l2-041)

See also Feral Jundi Mexican Drug War Boosts Security Business

MEXICO CITY — With the Iraq war over and the American presence waning in Afghanistan, U.S. security contractors are looking for new prospects in Mexico, where spreading criminal violence has created a growing demand for battle-ready professionals.

After years of lucrative work in the Middle East and Central Asia, where their presence has been occasionally marred by incidents of excessive force and misconduct, contractors and private security firms of varying sizes and specialties are being drawn into a battle closer to home. But Mexico’s restrictive gun laws mean that foreign contractors must enter the bloody drug war unarmed as they take jobs ranging from consulting and technical training for the Mexican military to guarding business executives from kidnapping gangs and extortionists

Virginia-based DynCorp International has job openings in Mexico for aviation instructors and mechanics. The Manhattan consulting firm Kroll hires anti-kidnapping specialists to protect Mexican business executives. MPRI, a company based in Alexandria, is training Mexican soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques.

Please see the original and read the entire article here

A kidnapped American aid contractor is alive and in good health, being held by a Pakistani Al Qaeda affiliate that’s likely to use him as a bargaining chip, according to militants, security officials, and analysts.

Warren Weinstein, who was kidnapped in August from his home in Lahore, Pakistan, is in the custody of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militants in North Waziristan, a ranking Pakistani militant told McClatchy. The militant said he’d seen Mr. Weinstein last month and at that point “his health was fine.”

“He is being provided all available medical treatment, including regular checkups by a doctor and the medicines prescribed for him before he was plucked,” the militant, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said last week in an interview.

Weinstein, who’s from Rockville, Md., spent several years as the Pakistan country manager for J.E. Austin Associates, a contractor for the US Agency for International Development. Reportedly in ill health, he’d packed his bags and was within hours of leaving Pakistan for good on Aug. 13 when militants kidnapped him from his home in the affluent suburb of Model Town.

Britain’s International Development ministry in London confirmed that three civilian members of the international aid team were among those injured in the blast

McClatchy Update

Three foreign civilians who were traveling in the vehicles – which belonged to a British-led provincial reconstruction team – were injured. The teams are made up of diplomats, civilian specialists and military personnel who work on development projects

AP Update Three civilian international members of the aid team – two men and one woman – were among the wounded, said Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor. He said their injuries were not life threatening and did not know their nationalities.

Voice of America  January 26, 2012

Afghan officials say a suicide car bomber has killed four civilians in an attack on a NATO-affiliated provincial reconstruction team in southern Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the governor of Helmand province said Thursday’s attack took place in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.

Officials say the bomber hit a convoy of armored vehicles passing near the education department building.

A child was among those killed in the attack. Officials says some 31 others were wounded, including three foreigners — two men and a woman.

At least 17 civilian cars were damaged, some bursting into flames. NATO has declined to comment on the attack.

The notorious Somali paramilitary warlord who goes by the nom de guerre Indha Adde, or White Eyes, walks alongside trenches on the outskirts of Mogadishu’s Bakara Market once occupied by fighters from the Shabab, the Islamic militant group that has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda.

In one of the trenches, the foot of a corpse pokes out from a makeshift grave consisting of some sand dumped loosely over the body. One of Indha Adde’s militiamen says the body is that of a foreigner who fought alongside the Shabab. “We bury their dead, and we also capture them alive,” says Indha Adde in a low, raspy voice. “We take care of them if they are Somali, but if we capture a foreigner we execute them so that others will see we have no mercy

Despite such thug talk, Indha Adde is not simply a warlord, at least not officially, anymore. Nowadays, he is addressed as Gen. Yusuf Mohamed Siad, and he wears a Somali military uniform, complete with red beret and three stars on his shoulder. His weapons and his newfound legitimacy were bestowed upon him by the US-sponsored African Union force, known as AMISOM, that currently occupies large swaths of Mogadishu.

It is quite a turnabout. Five years ago, Indha Adde was one of Al Qaeda and the Shabab’s key paramilitary allies and a commander of one of the most powerful Islamic factions in Somalia fighting against foreign forces and the US-backed Somali government. He openly admits to having sheltered some of the most notorious Al Qaeda figures—including Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania—and to deceiving the CIA in order to protect the men. (Fazul was killed in June in Mogadishu.)

Please read the entire article here

See Also The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia

BOGOTA (Reuters) – A Colombian FARC rebel commander named six military and police captives the group pledged to free in the coming weeks and proposed a constitutional change to allow the exchange of jailed guerrillas for hostages.

Ivan Marquez, in a video released on Wednesday, called the upcoming release “an act of peace.” The bearded commander, wearing olive-green fatigues and seated at a desk in what he said were the mountains of Colombia, is a member of the drug-funded group’s seven-member governing secretariat.

The video was the latest in a series of peace messages from the nearly 50-year-old Latin American insurgent group since troops killed its leader late last year, and as President Juan Manuel Santos comes under pressure to seek an end to the war.

The six captives are some of the 11 members of the armed forces that the FARC – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – has held for more than a decade. It also holds about 300 civilians.

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