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Topic: Blackwater mercenaries:Jeremy Scahill interview

contrarianna
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13058

posted 31 March 2007 10:35 AM

Interview with Jeremy Scahill author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army,”

"....Now, as you say, there’s some 100,000 contractors—I actually think there are probably more than that. That’s a strangely round number. But the fact of the matter is that we know from internal government audits that were done on the Iraq occupation that there are some 48,000 employees of private mercenary companies operating in Iraq right now. And what these companies do is they give the Bush administration extraordinary political cover. Their deaths don’t get counted, their injuries don’t get counted, their crimes don’t get reported, they don’t get investigated, they don’t get prosecuted. The fact of the matter is that with 100,000-plus contractors in Iraq, there’s only been one indictment of a contractor for a crime or violation committed in Iraq. And that contractor wasn’t even a mercenary contractor. It was a private contractor doing support work for the U.S. military. So what we see is a sort of revolving door. The mercenaries provide the Bush administration with the ability to bloat the occupation forces—effectively double the number of occupation personnel on the ground—and then in turn the Bush administration has given them almost total free-for-all environment where there’s no accountability, there’s no oversight, there’s no effective laws governing their presence there. And it’s interesting that Blackwater USA and its executives are heavy funders of the campaigns of President Bush and his Republican allies, and that these are the very individuals that have essentially created a Wild West environment for these contractors in Iraq...."

One to one ratio of mercenaries to US gov. soldiers in 2nd Iraq war:

Wikipedia:
"In the late Roman Empire, it became increasingly difficult for Emperors and generals to raise military units from the citizenry for various reasons: lack of manpower, lack of time available for training, lack of materials, and, inevitably, political considerations. Therefore, beginning in the late 4th century, the empire often contracted whole bands of barbarians either within the legions or as autonomous foederati."

Truthdig

From: here to inanity | Registered: Aug 2006 | IP: Logged

jester
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11798

posted 31 March 2007 02:55 PM

Interview with Mr. Scahill on the CBC here

The founder of Blackwater, Eric Prince, is a scion of a strict Calvinist right-wing fundamentalist family with a 1.5 billion dollar fortune. He left the Navy Seals in 1995 to start Blackwater.

They fund missionaries in Sudan to convert Africans to Christianity while simultaniously, Topher Black,VP of Blackwater is lobbying to have his company hired for peacekeeping in the region.

Blackwater is Bush's Praetorian Guard, earning in excess of $750 million dollars for providing diplomatic security in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Blackwater can mobilise 20,000 mecenaries at a moment's notice, each earning up tp more than a $1,000 per day.

Very interesting interview by Anna Maria Tremontie on the Current. Especially after recently reading Charlie Wilson's War.

US fundamentalists who need to find someone to fight with in the name of patriotism and "security".

There was a great interview with Molly Ivins before she passed away recently where she stated that Bush always uses the terms "security" "terrorism" "defense" etc but never "concilliation" "respect" or "negotiate".

When one links the mounting evidence from such a wide variety of sources,one can conclude that this element is truly defining themselves a modern day Crusaders.

From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006 | IP: Logged

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