There is no cause to doubt that the US killed Linda Norgrove accidentally. My sorrow for her and her family is the same as that I feel for the thousands of entirely innocent Afghan and Pakistani civilians killed in US airstrikes.
Nor do I diminsih the responsibility of her captors. But nonetheless, the most worrying point of thw whole incident is the lie propagated by NATO that she was killed by a suicide vest wearing captor.
The suicide vest is of course a potent symbol of Islamic fundamentalist violence, and by invoking it NATO were not only lying about who killed Norgrove, they were reinforcing the image of her captors as religious fanatics, as opposed to local tribesmen.
Most of the Afghan resistance consists of locals motivated by ethnic and cultural factors defending their own soil. The characterisation of them all as Taliban is a bit of propaganda bought wholesale by the media. These may have been local partisans, or just ransom seekers. They may have been hiding a motivation behind a religious facade. There is no evidence I am aware of that the hostage takers wished to die themselves. That is why the “Linda Norgrove killed by suicide vest” lie is key.
So it is very important that an inquiry establishes not just the truth about who killed Linda Norgrove, but whether there was a suicide vest at all anywhere in the incident. Fabric is seldom destroyed by explosion, rather shredded and partially burnt. If the suicide vest is a complete invention, that would be an outrageous lie by NATO.
I read that they not have actually been bought. This article you found Dreoilin might be a smudge piece, clouding over the facts that they have certainly been working on some sort of working relationship.
http://redgreenandblue.org/2010/10/16/too-much-of-a-bad-thing-monsanto-did-not-buy-blackwater/comment-page-1/
dreoilin –
Life’s treating me well, just watching the rain fall (it monsoon season). There is something liberating about forced laziness =P
I think crab is right about the article. I only skimmed the original article (thenation.com/article/154739/blackwaters-black-ops) but it doesn’t say Monsanto bought Blackwater/Xe, just that Monsanto has been using Xe for intel against activists.
The stuff about The Gates Foundation appears to be correct however.
(nasdaq.com/aspx/company-news-story.aspx?storyid=201008161826DOWJONESDJONLINE000326)
(gurufocus.com/forum/read.php?1,104835,104835#msg-104835)
I think it’s a translation problem.
What’s given as, “Blackwater (now called Xe Services) clandestine intelligence services was sold to the multinational Monsanto”
should probably have been translated as, “Blackwater (now called Xe Services) sold clandestine intelligence services to the multinational Monsanto”.
The original is here I think:
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/10/09/index.php?section=opinion&article=024a1eco
An excellent weblog, I’d strongly recommend this. Mike Barker’s a good guy:
http://michaeljamesbarker.wordpress.com/
A different view of the work Dr Norgrove was doing.
Dr Linda Norgrove ?” victim of the UK’s Afghanistan policy
The lesson for Prime Minister David Cameron
By Christopher King
20 October 2010
Christopher King argues that the botched attempt by US troops in Afghanistan to rescue British aid worker Linda Norgrove, which resulted in her being killed by her American “rescuers”, should be seen as an omen for the future of London’s subservience to Washington: disaster for Britain.
Dr Linda Norgrove was a Scottish development fieldworker of incredible bravery and philosophical sophistication who was working in Afghanistan on crop and land management issues. She was doing what NATO has been unable to do ?” persuade the tribesmen to grow crops other than opium poppies within a scheme of general agricultural assistance. As you will know, following her kidnap she was killed in a botched rescue attempt by US special forces, authorized by British Prime Minister David Cameron.
http://www.redress.cc/global/cking20101020
Yvonne Ridley’s experience of being held by the Taliban and her opinion on the bungled rescue.
http://www.redress.cc/global/yridley20101021
Recall hearing on BBC some ex special forces chap on to give some supposed insights going on about these people being suicide bombers and how they were fighting for their lives. Methinks it could only be one or the other. But no one picked him up on it. Self contradictory propoganda.
Thanks for that link to Yvonne Ridley’s piece, somebody.