President Donald Trump has pardoned four former government contractors convicted by a jury
of killing over a dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007. Brigida Santos joins me now to talk
about that story. Brigida, what company did these contracts, who did they work for and
what crimes did a jury look at? I mean, this wasn't a, you know, this was, they had all
the evidence in front of them. The jury looked at the facts and they said, yeah, you're,
they convicted them. So give me, give me the background on this a little bit.
Sure. Well, at the time the contractors were working for Blackwater, which is the private
military security firm founded by Erik Prince, brother of US education secretary Betsy DeVos.
Three of the Blackwater guards were sentenced to 30 years in prison and a fourth received
a life sentence each for their roles in killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and injuring 17
others. Their actions against civilians, murder, involuntary and attempted manslaughter, are
war crimes. The Nisour Square massacre sparked international outrage over the use of private
mercenaries in war, but that didn't stop the US government from paying Blackwater over
$1 billion to protect US interests anyway. Or now from pardoning, these mass killers.
How has the United Nations, I mean, they must be just outraged, but how have they responded
to these pardons? I mean, any, when you look at the facts, we don't have time to go through
all the intricacy of the facts, but it was the defense was gee whiz, it was exigent circumstances.
We had to respond quickly and they, they didn't. They, they, it was clearly murder. But how
is the UN responding to these pardons? Well, a group of United Nations experts with
the office of the high commissioner for human rights have issued the following statement.
They say, "The Geneva conventions obliged States to hold war criminals accountable for
their crimes, even when they act as private security contractors. These pardons violate
US obligations under international law and broadly undermine humanitarian law and human
rights at a global level." The UN experts are now calling on all parties to the Geneva
conventions to condemn president Trump's pardons. Well, you know, the ugliest part about it
is there's so many of these contractors and so many soldiers over there play completely
by the rules. They, they, these folks were put under the same conditions that so many
American troops are put under. And, you know, you don't hear these kinds of stories taking
place every day. It's not like this, this was so exceptional. It was fairly normal.
It's what the typical American soldier is confronted with when they're in a situation
like that, or typical contractors are confronted with. So people that are saying, oh gee whiz,
this is, this was just an exceptional circumstances. Take a look at the facts before you go there.
The US increasingly outsources military operations to the private sector and I'm, I'm wondering
has this affected the trend, when did this trend start?
Well, this has been going on for a really long time. You know, the Nisour Square massacre
took place during the presidency of George W. Bush. and since then, the trend of relying
on private defense contractors in war zones has only continued. Back in 2016, under president
Obama, more private military contractors died in Iraq and Afghanistan, than all US troops
deployed to those countries, which basically means that mercenaries were the silent majority
of the military at that time. And during the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 under president
Trump, US central command has reported over 50,000 contractors in the USCENTCOM area of
responsibility. You know, it's no secret that Erik Prince has been behind the scenes working
as an unofficial figure in the Trump administration, where he's been recommending that the US replace
its military troops with paid private contractors in Syria and Afghanistan. So we really can't
be fooled when president Trump says, he's bringing home the troops. US wars are not
over, they're going corporate. And what we're seeing with this perfect example is that by
outsourcing military operations, the US can basically circumvent its obligations to follow
international laws and treaties. That's what we saw here.
Yeah. And these folks are paid 10 times what the typical troop is, trooper over there that
has to, you know, same soldier has to confront the same situation. These folks are paid 10
times as much and you don't hear stories like this every day. This isn't, this is not the
norm. Take a look at the, I mean, if you have any doubts, take a look at the facts behind
this story, and it's, it's very, very troublesome. Thank you for joining me.