Is
Blackwater A Black Hole?
By Stan Moody
25 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
As
private security force, Blackwater, breaks into the news with the recent
killing of 11 Iraqi civilians and accusations of illegal arms smuggling,
a little-anticipated feature of the War on Terror surfaces. Refer to
this feature as "collateral damage" if you will, but the bottom
line is that engagement in war produces effects that ripple down through
the innocents for generations.
I believe that we will be
tasting the stagnation of Blackwater long after our troops return from
Iraq and Afghanistan. We are creating a revolutionary force in America,
founded on the principles of patriotism but answering to no other authority
than the Almighty Buck.
Blackwater exists today because
we simply do not have enough troops to prosecute our engagement in the
Middle East. It is beginning to appear in hot spots in America, such
as Katrina-devastated New Orleans, under the guise of keeping order.
It is the privatization movement run amok. It is perfectly legal.
The great irony is that while
our nation is engrossed in a campaign to disband militias funded by
Syria and Iran, it is doing so with our own private militias –
some 180 or more of them operating in the Iraq theatre. Their strength
in Iraq is estimated at from 20,000 to 50,000 contract soldiers, although
the numbers and their mission are kept from the scrutiny of Congress.
How many and what they are doing is a matter of guesswork for those
whom we have elected to represent us.
It is not the hundreds of
millions of dollars in cost that ought to concern us. We will spend
the money either way – private or public militias. What ought
to concern us is that we are creating a monster that will impact the
lives and liberties of Americans for generations to come.
We are creating a well-trained, well-financed bootjack army available
to the highest bidder. On the Blackwater web site, it is claimed that
some 50,000 have gone through their training regimen and stand ready
for the call. Those who insist that, "It is better to kill them
over there than to have them kill us over here," will find that
we will bring our killers back home, ready and eager for new assignments.
Spread that over the 180
or more "private security firms" already in operation, and
it is easy to see how in the near future there will be at our beck and
call here in the United States hundreds of thousands of well-trained
killers available to squelch one of our most treasured rights –
the right of free speech and peaceful protest. These contract killers
are not restrained by such inconveniences as the Military Code of Justice
or the constitutional limitations on search and seizure imposed on our
public police forces. Their indiscretions can be quickly followed by
a public apology.
These soldiers of fortune
are hired, not by the Defense Department, but by our State Department,
under an obscure program called Wordwide Personal Protective Service
(WWPS), formed to provide protection to our diplomats. With 50,000 or
more of these contract soldiers now engaged in Iraq, one has to wonder
how many diplomats we have there who need protection. 5,000? 10,000?
Diplomacy not appearing to play a significant role in the outcome, is
it possible that these contract civilians are being hired for one mission
but being assigned to another?
Blackwater's founder, reclusive
Eric Prince, is no stranger to money. The brother-in-law to Rich DeVos,
founder of AMWAY and recent gubernatorial candidate in Michigan, Prince
is a multi-millionaire in his own right, having inherited a fortune
from his entrepreneur-dad, automotive supply king, Edgar Prince. The
family has a long history of heavy involvement in conservative Republican
causes centering on privatization initiatives such as school vouchers,
tuition tax credits and charter schools. Prince is a board member of
Christian Freedom International, a non-profit group helping persecuted
Christians around the world in 47 countries but curiously missing from
one of the most oppressed regions - the West Bank of the Jordan River.
All of that is fine until
it follows the natural progression of evolving into a power base that
encroaches into the lives and liberties of Americans under the conviction
that we as a nation must be wrenched back on course.
When patriotism and political
ideology contract for government services, what is created is a monster
for power and control, the antithesis of liberty.
Blackwater is well-named.
You cannot see beyond its surface. What lies beneath the surface, however,
can be fatal.
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