Hacker News Reader

Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

It's very strange. There's really nothing to indicate what they were there to do.

All the theories about motivation make the whole operation seems kinda clumsy and weird.

We do know that these "contractors" do sometimes carry out missions that the military wants performed, but either needs to be kept at arms length to maintain plausible deniability on the world stage, or is used to implicate some other group. There have been a few exposes on these types over the years and their stories are pretty interesting.

I'm not sure this op was clumsy though. They are probably used to operating in regions where the police force is less effective.

Yeah, but contractors could be hired by anyone, hard to really know who hired them.

This is all very weird.

USA knows. Even if State Dept or CIA didn't approve it, once caught they'd spill the beans...when told of the multiples felonies they committed and decades in Fed prison.

Are there any particularly interesting exposes that you'd recommend? I'm curious to read more about this sort of thing.

The case of Raymond Davis[0] is probably the most mind-boggling in recent memory: A private contractor with a cover story as a cultural attache at the US embassy in Pakistan sees he's being followed by a couple guys on motorbikes while driving through Lahore, thinks he's going to get assassinated by Pakistani security forces, and shoots and kills both of them. He's arrested shortly thereafter with IR cameras, magazines full of bullets, and other espionage-related gear.

The US ultimately negotiated a payment to the families of the men Davis killed and secured his release.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Allen_Davis_incident

Reply on news.ycombinator.com