About book Blackwater: The Rise Of The World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (2007)
I'd quite like to like this book. I mostly agree with what the author is trying to say, but don't like his sensationalist style. And I have this awful nagging feeling throughout this book that it’s terribly biased as Jeremy Scahill makes it quite clear from the start. It is biased along what I already opined, but I’d be much happier to see something more balanced. It is one thing to have a strong opinion, but quite another to let that brilliant idea cloud your judgment and from his style, I am rather doubtful how objective the history he's presenting is. Second, he basically summarizes the whole book in the beginning and then unravels them, often repeating himself without any more insight. Third, the title of the book is about Blackwater, but many of the chapters are quite irrelevant. But let me try to be more lenient on this book. In all fairness, it is quite an interesting and informative book. Among other things, what disturbs me the most about private companies is that they can commit any crime, including murder or use of illegal weapons, with impunity. They are exempt from the US Uniform Code of Military Justice because they are "civilians", and much worse, no law can touch them at all. They can refuse to provide information about their business conduct on grounds that the contracts contain proprietary information. It is rather concerning that a (arguably) democratically-elected government is sending an army that is not accountable to anyone into a troubled region, which has now proven to cause disastrous consequences. The behaviour of American soldiers probably hasn’t been that impeccable in Iraq and elsewhere, but at least, you can bring them to court. That’s not the case with Blackwater. The implication for US foreign policy and American image overseas is immense. The US government is sending all over the globe huge companies whose sole purpose is to earn money, not to stabilize peace. And they can brutalize, kill, abuse the local population as much as they like, without any fear of being brought to justice. I keep thinking again and again about how Robert Fisk describes the UN forces from poor countries operating in Iraq tend to be a lot more sympathetic and humble to the local population compared to the forces from richer countries. And here we have non-peacekeeping forces with dubious credentials getting paid shit loads treating locals like dirt just to get their job done. Looks like typical arrogant imperialistic behaviour to me. Another disturbing fact about Blackwater is that they do not just disregard their enemies’ lives but their own employees’ lives too. To reduce cost and boost their profits, they cut down on security measures, pushing their employees into dangerous situations with inappropriate protection. That’s the reason why the four Blackwater men got ambushed in Fallujah in 2004. Private companies are accountable to pretty much no government for their recruitment practices. They can hire anyone, including thugs that were involved in apartheid South Africa and Chile. BW has enough manpower and force to overthrow many governments in the world, and if the military complex has manipulated the US gov to such an extent and has such military prowess, isn’t that horribly bothersome? Another thing that is quite distressing is the ideology behind BW. It is all about money, not charity, not peace, not security. They have a vested interest in destabilizing the situation in Iraq, more violence, more need for security, more contractors, more violence, the cycle goes on. I often find it extremely hard to reconcile the Christian “morality” they’re claiming with their actual practice. Jesus said nothing about patriotism or privatization, but these people with wonderful imagination can cook up all of these things, I always find that puzzling and fascinating. But maybe as my friend said, this ideology is made up by people who don’t think at all. Sending fundamentalist Christians who want to kill off as many Muslims as possible into Iraq is probably a sign that my friend is correct. The privatization of the US military initiated by Rumsfeld and Cheney et al has created a huge opportunity for private security companies like BW to flourish, at the expense of chaos, violence and a huge human cost. if there's one argument against privatization then I think this would make one of the strongest cases. to me it seems, war no longer serves as a means to pursue national interests but an ends in itself, driven by the powerful special interests that are vested in the private military companies. In the process, America is letting private companies undermine the principle of democratic accountability. Usually, if a president wants to increase the size of the military forces or send troops abroad, he has to seek approval from Congress. Decisions about contracts for private security are made exclusively by the executive branch, and very inaccessible to the public. Private companies are not held accountable to the public and very hard to be monitored by journalists or non-governmental organizations, unlike the US military. And by excluding their casualties from the official figure, the government practically tells a lie about the war. At this point, the free market people would balk and say despite all of its shortcomings, privatization is more efficient. but who's to say that it is? who discloses and monitors the costs? literally no one. Government frequently curtail competition to preserve reliability and pay service to particular companies that had contributed to their campaigns. I wonder how that efficiency argument can hold if it is repeatedly stressed in the book that private contractors are paid 3 times as high as a US military personnel. In an interview with PBS on frontline a spokesperson of KBR repeatedly dodged the question about the cost of the operation. I think the one point that is quite weak about this book is his argument against using private companies in peacekeeping forces. The private forces could have helped halt the atrocities in Rwanda in no time. He didn't seem to have a convincing argument against that. another interesting book on US militarism that is worth looking at is Political Economy of US Militarism by Ismael Hossein zadeh.
Jeremy Scahill has an ax to grind and a certain amount of bias shows through in this expose of Blackwater's corporate army. That said, the book is well-researched, reasonably well-written and will definitely switch your paranoia on.The book takes you through the creation of Blackwater and the background of its CEO, Eric Prince, a neo-conservative Evangelical Christian who believes that he is fighting the Crusades. It's clear that Scahill believes that Blackwater is evil and I can't say that I disagree with him. I'm pretty uncomfortable with the notion of outsourcing wars and mercenary armies make me think uncomfortably of the Italian city states in the 10th to 15th century and their constant state of warfare funded by citizens and waged by mercenary bands.I do have some quibbles with this book. The focus is almost entirely on Blackwater's involvement in Iraq with a few ancillary chapters on their involvement in other localities. I would have liked a broader view of the company and its activities. While his chapter on Blackwater's man on the ground in Chile is interesting, Scahill misses an incredible opportunity to trace the history of US involvement in Central and South America and the teaching of torture at the Academy of the Americas and frankly doesn't do a good enough job of explicating these mercenary's ties to the Pinochet government and why that is problematic. There is another missed opportunity in the chapter on Blackwater after Katrina - to observe that we had boots on the ground with guns on the Gulf Coast before there was humanitarian aid is disturbing, but again I would have liked more information about this and an analysis of how outsourcing is impacting our disaster relief efforts. Lastly, I found myself wishing Scahill was a business reporter - I think there's a big story in where the money is coming from and where it's going and I don't think this is explored well.Overall this is an interesting book, but very topical. Three years after its publication it is beginning to show its age and in another three years it'll be creaky. I think Scahill has done a great job of investigative reporting, but less well on contextualizing his subject matter.
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First, a little background on my own biases: I saw September 11th with my own eyes, and fully supported a military response (of whatever form necessary) to capture Osama bin Laden and break up Afghani training camps for Al-Qaeda. I opposed the invasion of Iraq from day one, though was happy to see one less dictator in the world who had committed genocide against a portion of his own population. I used to subscribe to The Nation, but eventually found its "reporting" to be wildly simplistic, dogmatic and plain uninteresting. I have interned for the UN in Rwanda, and read widely about international affairs.This is a book on a fascinating topic, written moderately well. The question at its center - are we comfortable with the increasing privatization of our military, and all the attendant questions it raises - is a good one. Unfortunately, the author's answer is a foregone conclusion from page one, and the reader is expected to agree from the same starting point. This was frustrating, and this book did not answer my questions, merely emphasizing them. Often, the author cites DoD officials, leaders in the "private security contracting" industry, and political supporters as if the points they raise are so ridiculous they speak for themselves. If the reader is not beholden to a specific political agenda, but genuinely curious about these issues, I think s/he will find many times that these individuals will raise a good point. Scahill needed to argue clearly and concisely why the things they were saying were so offensive. Lots of research done for this book, but it did not quite up to the damning conclusion the author reaches.If anything, the disaster in Iraq should prove that the world's emerging security threats cannot be solved through traditional military solutions. Many of the cases cited in the book, from Sierra Leone, to car bombings in the Middle East, to the ravages of Darfur, prove that the worst cases require new answers - more mobile, more efficient, more versatile forces, buoyed by more in-depth intelligence.There are many questionable aspects to the rise of mercenary forces in the "war on terror." The fact that they sit outside of any legal jurisdiction for their actions is perhaps the most damning, especially when so many of these soldiers come from countries with notoriously bad human rights records. The amount of connections Blackwater (specifically) has with curious, secretive government initiatives (such as the readying of military bases all along the Caspian border countries) should get anyone's inner conspiracy theorist buzzing. The extreme religious outlook of its leaders, given the places its troops are primarily active, should give one pause as to the true motives of this company.But like I mentioned, the overall effect of this is to raise some big questions - ones that the author assumes are answered from page one. In short, The Nation choir will sing its praises, but comes far short of claiming the conclusions it stakes out at the end. Still, it's well researched, dives deep into many of the questions at play, and should be read as a means of provoking discussion on an important topic.
—Chad Walker
Seemed to run out of steam toward the end when it shifted from recounting of major events to personnel profiles. My major issue with this book was that it was a bit of a disjointed read. From a literary perspective, there were odd tense-issues, the pacing was off, and I did not come away with a clear feeling of the narrative. From a message/content perspective, the juxtaposition of the inundation of fact with the author's entirely subjective tone was weird for me. But, even though it took forever to get through, this was definitely worth the read.
—Cara
This book is full of double standards and petty fault finding. I do believe there is an issue with rampant government contracting, but Scahill picks at Blackwater like a sibling annoyed with his little brother-- EVERYTHING they do is WRONG.He condemns Eric Prince for being a "theocon" who wants to make God have more of a roll in government, but then sees nothing wrong with Iraqi's praising God and talking about how God will kick the Americans out. The feeling I go is that religion is okay in a society that has been oppressed and kept ignorant, but not in the elite country of the US with all it's education.Another point that was laughable was when he talked about Blackwater's "dubious" business practices. He stated they would pay soldiers 600 a day, but charge 800. That organization would charge 1200, and that organization would charge 1500. True, that's a lot of subcontractors, but charging more than your actual, physical costs is not "dubious", it's good business. If you only charged what it cost you, you would never make any money. Scahill has so little understanding of how a business actually works and makes money, it's laughable. I would have preferred a book that examined the problem more objectively, and less vindictively.
—Todd
