Monday, October 15, 2007

Contractors Don't Just Kill

All the news of gratuitous killings by BlackWater mercs has hidden the fact that military contractors don't just like killing people; they enjoy inflicting pain, too.

Re the San Diego Union-Tribune: The Marines hired a military contractor to produce a training film. Safe, you'd think, right? The plot of the training film was to demonstrate what could happen if a Marine were captured by an Arab. The contractor, Strategic Operations, Inc. (owned by film maker Stu Segall) uses "movie making magic" to simulate battlefield situations. In this production, an actor was pretending to interrogate a young Marine (eighteen year-old Lance Cpl. Jesse Klingler). The actor "repeatedly punched and kicked Klingler." Apparently tiring of that torment, the actor loaded an AK-47 with blank cartridges and fired into both of the Marine's legs, pinned the struggling youngster to the floor with a boot to his neck, and was about to cap Cpl. Klingler with a shot to the back of the head when Marine instructors intervened. Blank cartridges discharge a wadding that can be lethal at close range. According to the UT, the "actor" was formerly with the Lebanese Army and a convicted felon. Cpl. Klingler is suing.

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