The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged South Park

A Bittersweet Farewell to a TWI Icon, Spencer Ackerman

By | 06.23.10 | 3:15 pm

It is with a mix of emotions that I announce the departure of The Washington Independent’s national security reporter — and in many ways the cornerstone of the site — Spencer Ackerman. Spencer joined TWI when it was still just an idea, and he’s as responsible as anyone for turning More…

Blackwater Requests a Correction

By | 03.16.10 | 4:14 pm

The private security company, renamed Xe Services, objects to my use of the verb “stole” to refer to the guns it got from the U.S. military in Afghanistan in 2008. A letter from its general counsel reads, in part:

Xe Services LLC disagrees with several statements and opinions in

More…

How to Prove Afghan Police Aren’t Corrupt? Hire Blackwater!

By | 03.12.10 | 8:39 am

The Washington Post’s Greg Jaffe has a good story about a concerted push by Gen. William Caldwell and Interior Minister Hanif Atmar, the two highest-level officials directly responsible for the training and performance of Afghan police, to rid the police force of the incompetence and corruption that remain More…

‘South Park’ to Show Eric Cartman Signing, Blackwater-like, for 500 AK-47s

By | 03.09.10 | 2:52 pm

On Feb. 23, I broke a story about how the Senate Armed Services Committee determined that Blackwater employees in Afghanistan signed for hundreds of AK-47s and pistols using the name “Eric Cartman,” evidently a reference to the popular “South Park” character.

On March 17 — which Dave Weigel tells More…

Blackwater Took Hundreds of Guns From U.S. Military, Afghan Police

By | 02.23.10 | 9:00 pm

Employees of the CIA-connected private security corporation Blackwater diverted hundreds of weapons, including more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles, from a U.S. weapons bunker in Afghanistan intended to equip Afghan policemen, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee. On at least one occasion, an individual claiming to More…