U.S. Considers Using Drug Law to Prosecute Blackwater Guards

Criminal Justice

U.S. Considers Using Drug Law to Prosecute Blackwater Guards

Posted Dec 4, 2008, 05:34 pm CST
By Molly McDonough

Federal prosecutors are reportedly readying indictments for the Blackwater Worldwide guards who are alleged to have participated in the 2007 shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians. The shootings left 17 dead and strained U.S.-Iraq relations.

Now prosecutors are considering using an anti-drug law to prosecute those involved, the Associated Press reports.

Drugs were not involved in the Blackwater shootings, but the AP reports that the Justice Department is considering using the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which calls for 30-year prison terms for using machine guns to commit violent crimes of any kind, whether drug-related or not.

Blackwater has reportedly cooperated with investigators and is not a target in the case. A company spokeswoman told the AP that the company maintains that its guards were under attack and acted lawfully. "If it is determined that an individual acted improperly, Blackwater would support holding that person accountable," spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said.

The AP points out that a major hurdle for prosecutors is to convince the court that contractors can be charged for crimes committed overseas.

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Posted by B. McLeod - 1 month, 4 days, 11 hours, 8 minutes ago

“Contractors” is Bush-ese for “mercenaries,” right?
Posted by BiteTroll - 1 month, 4 days, 9 hours, 48 minutes ago

Contractors have done jobs deemed too risky for government. Think bombs/land mine clean up.

Mopping up ugly areas is ALWAYS dirty, greater good is the key. Military action is NOT surgical as LIEnobras (liberals, who support nothing but their own lies), want everything to be childish strict scruntiny.

This is divide and conquer politics that is far more dirtier than bloody soldier trying to do their crappy jobs. GRR.
Posted by B. McLeod - 1 month, 4 days, 1 hour, 43 minutes ago

How laughable. Soldiers are exactly the ones who get stuck on mine sweeping.
“Contractors” work as gun thugs (see the above article) to carry out those “missions” where no officer could give a lawful order for the conduct.
Posted by Haytham Faraj - 1 month, 3 days, 23 hours, 10 minutes ago

These mercenaries make well in excess of $130,00 and sometimes upwards of $180,000 a year while some of our service members had to live off food stamps. As a former Marine Corps officer, I found nothing more frustrating than the money we squandered on Bush’s mercs while my Marines could barely pay their bills.
Posted by Drew - 1 month, 3 days, 21 hours, 15 minutes ago

Interesting spin from the AP hacks—Charging them with the drug act count is about as “unusual” as the sun coming up in the morning. It (18 USC 924(c)) is used thousands of times every year (see http://wings.buffalo.edu/law/bclc/bclrarticles/6/2/bak.pdf). The mandatory sentence is a way to scare accused folks into making a plea.

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