Read Jo's post again. He didn't say that the Black Hawks participated in the Iron Confederacy op, he said that several TBH members did. TBH doesn't work with defenders, but that doesn't stop our members from participating as a mercenary in fash bashes. There was a few TBH members (myself included, though I was representing Mariner Trench ^-^) who attended a few jumps on The Iron Confederacy as a mercenary and a few more who are piled into the region as a mercenary.
If I'm understanding Jo wrong, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯