Aegis is run by a former British soldier and a one-time member of the Scots Guards, Tim Spicer, who made a sum of money violating a UN arms embargo in Sierra Leone and touching off a coup in Papua New Guinea. Spicer is apparently so good at what he does—apparently including randomly murdering Iraqis—the Pentagon awarded him a $293 million contract to have his hired thugs act as bodyguards (or maybe we should call them what they are—spree killers).

Spicer has a bad habit of rubbing elbows with cutthroat psychopaths. For instance, in Belfast in 1992, two men under Spicer’s command killed an unarmed teenager and father of two children, Peter Mc Bride. Mark Wright and James Fisher were charged with the murder and sentenced to life, but thanks to campaign led by the Daily Mail and with help from the British Ministry of Defense, the men were released after serving three years (see Brief introduction to the case of Peter McBride September 1992 - April 2005 and Barry McCaffrey reporting for the Irish News). A British Army review board eventually reinstated Wright and Fisher, probably because they really have no problem with their soldiers killing unarmed Irish civilians.

According to one Dr. Alexander von Paleske, head of the department of oncology at the Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, Botswana, Spicer “worked with Anthony Buckingham, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, in a company called Sandline,” according to Ray O’Hanlon of the Irish Echo. “Buckingham’s worldwide business dealings included an oil deal with the now unemployed Saddam Hussein,” von Paleske wrote for the Zimbabwe newspaper the Standard last year. As it turns out, Spicer worked with Buckingham in a company called Sandline, a PMC, or “Private Military Company,” and Sandline was neck-deep in the coup in Papua New Guinea in 1997.

Enter the “honorable sir” Mark Thatcher, the rich playboy who “is suspected by South African police as being a moneyman behind the alleged plot to overthrow the Equatorial Guinea regime.” So outraged are the bluebloods in Britain, Gordon Prentice, a Member of Parliament, has demanded “sir” Mark be stripped of his baronetcy. Had a commoner been convicted of such a crime, no doubt he would be wasting away in a jail cell somewhere in Africa. Due to his station and a plea bargaining agreement, Thatcher pleaded guilty to negligence, was fined $500,000, and received a three year suspended sentence (meanwhile, British SAS officer Simon Mann, suspected of leading the mercenaries, was jailed for seven years in Zimbabwe for illegally trying to buy weapons). “Both Thatcher and Spicer belonged to a gang of English white guys out to plunder Africa,” Sean Mc Manus, President of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus, commented earlier this year.

Now Tim Spicer is plundering the American taxpayer while his goons shoot up Iraqi cars with Elvis Presley’s Mystery Train playing in the background. As noted at the outset, it should come as no surprise high-paid mercenaries are killing innocent Iraqis. “Foreign mercenaries make up the third biggest ‘coalition partner’ in Iraq after the United States and Britain,” writes Aaron Glantz. “Many of them are from former secret police agencies of since-overthrown police states like Pinochet’s Chile and apartheid South Africa. These mercenaries guard contractors working for international firms like Halliburton and Bechtel.” In fact, these mercenaries are so out of control they not only shoot Iraqis, but take pot shots at U.S. troops, according to Iraq’s interior ministry. “The marines say one of their combat teams came under fire from guards in a convoy of four-wheel-drives belonging to Zapata Engineering, a firm based in North Carolina that is involved in reconstruction projects,” the UK Telegraph reported. “The Zapata employees have admitted firing at civilian vehicles but deny targeting marines.”

In other words, according to Zapata Engineering, it’s okay to kill innocent Iraqi civilians. “The Army Corps of Engineers says that Zapata is doing an outstanding job on a dangerous and urgently needed mission,” Kevin Begos and Phoebe Zerwick wrote for the Winston-Salem Journal on February 13th, 2005. “But the shift to private contractors has raised complicated questions about accountability.”

Obviously, if there was accountability, the sadistic goons of Aegis wouldn’t be killing Iraqi motorists and Tim Spicer wouldn’t be pocketing $293 million of American taxpayer money.

It can be argued, however, Spicer and crew are doing precisely what the Pentagon hired them to do—kill and terrorize Iraqis and send them a message: resistance to the Bush Borg Hive of Faux Democracy will not be tolerated.

Read - From Loooking Glass News
Shooting Iraqi civilians for fun?
http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=3716