One Sick Biz: American Guns for Hire in GAZA w/ former Blackwater Contractor Morgan Lerette

Trip the Beltway Fantastic With Kelley Vlahos and Friends

According to the UN this week, some 1054 civilians have been killed trying to get food in Gaza since May. Some 766 of them were killed at food distribution points operated by the Global Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is backed by the U.S. and Israel and uses private military contractors for security.

These contractors are beginning to come forward with horror stories about their colleagues using live ammunition, stun grenades, and pepper spray in crowd control and may be responsible for shooting civilians. This is vehemently denied by the GHF and the American contracting companies — Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions — but the the reality is that armed American mercenaries are working alongside Israeli military in a combat zone and in a situation in which scores of civilians, desperate for food, are being shot at with guns, tanks, pepper spray and tear gas.

So whatever gave the U.S. government the idea that sending U.S. contractors to do this would be a good thing? While hired guns had been an integral part of U.S. policies in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Global War on Terror, and have worked with governments across the globe on humanitarian and rescue missions, even humanitarian work, this feels different. Biden and now Trump have vowed to keep U.S. military boots off the ground in Israel-Gaza, so is this a way to keep that pledge while assisting Israel directly in its military aims? Does that still make us co-beligerents? What happens if these contractors get hurt or killed while they are there, what if they kill Palestinians? What happens then?

Here to talk about all of this and more this week is Morgan Lerette, a former Blackwater contractor who worked for the company during its infamous time in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and later went back to Iraq as a commissioned Army intelligence officer. Lerette has since written a critical memoir called “Guns, Girls, and Greed: I Was a Blackwater Mercenary in Iraq”

#USmilitary #USmilitarycontractors #Gaza #Israel #GHF #foodaidGaza #MiddleEast #foreignpolicy #nationalsecurity #Blackwater #IDF