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When it rains five days and the skies turn dark as night When it rains five days and the skies turn dark as night Then trouble’s takin’ place in the lowlands at night
“Backwater Blues”
Once again Blackwater is in the media and the blogs and once again the media and blogs have misread the real threat that such mercenaries pose. That threat is domestic, not international.
In order to understand why, we first need to review Blackwater’s latest transgression, their history, a bit of world history and, most of all, go inside Blackwater (now known as Xe) to understand what they really are about.
Blackwater Past Scandals Blackwater, whose name comes from the swamp that is part of its training center, seems to have a habit of getting its name in the news for questionable transgressions. It first came to the attention of the American public for its actions in Iraq, including what the Iraqi Prime minister’s office termed “deliberate murder.” At about the same time, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued its report on Private Security Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status, and Other Issues, a report that detailed many of the transgressions by Blackwater and others. The CRO also raised some fundamental questions about our use of mercenaries that demand repeating. The CRS observed:
The use of private contractors in military operations raises many questions regarding the appropriateness and practicality of entrusting private companies with duties that have been traditionally reserved for military personnel.
The CRS report noted problems with the traditional military command structure:
Commanders do not exercise “command and control” over private contractors, nor do they have the authority to amend contracts in the midst of an operation to reallocate contract employees to perform necessary tasks that fall outside the terms of the contract.
Private contractors also lie outside traditional Congressional oversight:
Many analysts claim that the U.S. government is unable to adequately oversee and control or coordinate the performance of military contractors in general and private security contractors in particular. Members are concerned with transparency issues that impede oversight by Congress, as well as control and coordination in the field.
But it is the final issue raised by the CRS report we should all ponder, especially given what has happened with Blackwater:
A third issue with foreign policy implications is the desirability of entrusting the capability to legally use force on behalf of the United States to private, including non-U.S. citizens.
With considerable pressure from the Iraqis, Blackwater was barred from the country and the U.S. military sought to distance itself from the firm. This past July Blackwater also lost its contract with the State Department. Than another scandal broke this past August. First, the New York Times and others uncovered Blackwater’s frelationship with the CIA. The Times reported
:
Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects.
As this scandal was breaking a second one surfaced in affidavits filed in a Virginia court that accused Blackwater and its founder Erik Prince of murdering, weapons smuggling, destroying incriminating evidence and even operating a sex and wife-swapping ring. One former employee known as John Doe #2 stated:
It appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered or had murdered one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct.
Complete documents on the case are available at the Center for Constitutional Rights. The Newest Scandal This past week the media have trumpeted the latest Blackwater scandal, which accuses them working with the CIA on so-called “snatch and grab” raids that targeted Iraqi insurgents, killing or kidnapping them and also playing a major role in the CIA’s drone program that targets suspected terrorists. One former CIA officer admitted to the New York Times
:
It became a very brotherly relationship. There was a feeling that Blackwater eventually became an extension of the agency.
This caused the formerly reclusive Erik Prince to give a frank–and frankly scary--interview to Adam Ciralsky in the January Vanity Fair. In the interview Prince, who bitterly states that he was thrown “under the bus,” vents his anger with the reports.
The left complained about how [C.I.A. operative] Valerie Plame’s identity was compromised for political reasons. A special prosecutor [was even] appointed. Well, what happened to me was worse. People acting for political reasons disclosed not only the existence of a very sensitive program but my name along with it.
In the article, Ciralsky reveals that Blackwater targeted Mamoun Darkazanli, an al-Qaeda financier living in Hamburg, and the infamous A. Q. Khan, the rogue Pakistani scientist who shared nuclear know-how with Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Ciralsky’s story and others initiated a denial from spokesperson Mark Corallo:
Blackwater was never under contract to participate in covert raids with CIA or Special Forces troops in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else. Any allegation to the contrary by any news organization would be false.
To show how far this scandal has spread that quote appeared in the Times of India. Blackwater’s Domestic Threat Most of the negative stories about Blackwater paint them as mercenaries whose major threat is to international security, but actually Blackwater poses a dangerous domestic threat as well. Those were first detailed two years ago but since none of the recent reports has mentioned them, it is important to review them again. That story starts with Blackwater founder Erik Prince. Prince’s father, Edgar Prince started the family Family Research Council with Gary Bauer. He is also a heavy contributor to James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association. Wildmon is the one who accused Mighty Mouse of “promoting heroin” when he sniffed a flower in a cartoon. Prince’s mother Betsy DeVos was a major Bush campaign contributor and served as a Michigan committee woman on the Republican National Committee. Prince, a former Navy SEAL, bought the swampland with the idea of starting a training center for special forces types. The business, which Prince named Blackwater, floundered until 9/11. After the start of the Iraq War, business really picked up as Blackwater became one of the major contractors assigned to a variety of tasks by a Bush Administration’s policy decision to heavily rely on mercenaries to supplement an over-extended military. As Blackwater’s role expanded, people began to look more deeply into the firm’s political leanings. Among the more interesting sources was Blackwater’s monthly newsletter which featured ads for New American Truth, a right wing publication run by Borelli Consulting which–surprise, surprise–has a contract with Blackwater. Two years ago Blackwater’s newsletter openly attacked on Congressional Democrats and included an anti-Hillary Clinton photo. But what was especially disturbing is that Blackwater’s newsletter announced the formation of a Blackwater “alumni” group. These former and present Blackwater employees constituted a private militia operating in the United States. Private security firms–domestic American militias– guard everything from shopping malls to office buildings to gated communities. One prime source of employment for these firms has been–should we be surprised–the Patriot Act. The Congressional Research Service reported
:
In 2003, approximately one million security guards (including airport screeners) were employed in the United States. Of these guards, analysis indicates that up to 5% protected what have been defined as “critical” infrastructure and assets.
The CRS report noted that there is little regulation of these private security firms.
There are no U.S. federal requirements for training of critical infrastructure guards other than airport screeners and nuclear guards. Twenty-two states do require basic training for licensed security guards, but few specifically require counter-terrorism training. State regulations regarding criminal background checks for security guards vary. Sixteen states have no background check regulations.
In short, the frightening part of the Blackwater story is that Blackwater and its counterparts are not just operating in Iraq–they are operating HERE! Blackwater was in involved in another controversy when it supplied security after Katrina and reports linked it to undocumented killings. Blackwater’s website contains a testimonials section that indicates it has provided training to the Marine Corps, police departments and civilians who sign up for their firearms courses. It does not list any of its contracts, but its online employment section gives some indication of its ongoing activities with requests for a marksman in the “Middle East and Southeast Asian theaters”, dog handler, intelligence analyst, Arabic translator, mobile security, and a medic. The Recent Revelations The recent revelations about Blackwater have only served to heighten the paranoia about the firm’s domestic capabilities and its political agenda. One sentence from the court documents filed in Virginia leaps out:
Blackwater retains a sufficient number of mercenaries to be able to provide a willing buyer withy a private army.
The documents also detail how Blackwater was able to rise from a small company operating out of a North Carolina swamp to approaching its vision of having the “largest private army in the world.” From 2001-2006 it received over a billion–repeat BILLION–dollars in contracts from the Bush Administration. And Congressional Republicans are worried about the cost of health care legislation! But the more damaging testimony comes from John Doe #2 who states:
Mr. Prince…views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe. Mr. Price intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.
Where is Blackwater Today? A fairly good estimation of Xe’s position today can be found as easily as clicking a mouse. As usual the mainstream media has frozen fingers and dead mice. All you need to do is to navigate over to the U.S. Training Center to see what Blackwater is up to and what it thinks. Judging by the photographs that appear like a slide show, Blackwater is still heavily engaged in the private security business. But as before the most revealing peak into Blackwater comes in its weekly newsletter, which the mainstream press seams to ignore. The ad for The New American Truth is still there with a button inviting you to click to view its latest content. Most revealing are the posts in the so-called “Chaplain’s Corner.” After the Fort Hood murders, he wrote
:
Which God would you follow? His… Or mine… Or NONE???
Then there is the following passage:
Yet, even right now, or at a mere moment’s notice, I could be a quickly responding Peace Keeper… Ready and willing to do whatever needs to be done to preserve Life, Liberty and the Right to the Pursuit of Happiness… Make every effort to stop destruction, restore peace and maintain peace… And I could do all of this without using any force unless the person who needs to be controlled insists that he does not want to submit to law and allow the peace to be restored… Then I am still capable to do all of whatever it takes to restore and maintain the peace without fear, favor or prejudice as I swore to do.
The Final Word As Blackwater creates a private army beholden only to it clients, it may well be that in future years we will regard the most nefarious act of the past decade as encouraging and financing the formation of these militias with an ideological agenda. At what point do those militias become a security threat to this nation? Recent events would argue that they already have. History provides an interesting lesson. Over a thousand years ago in what is now Iraq the Abbasid caliphs who ruled Baghdad decided to strengthen their army by importing slaves from central Asia. They were known as Mamluks from the from the Arabic mamluk for “owned.” The Mamluks did not stay owned for long. In 870 a Mamluk general conquered Egypt. From then on they were a power to be reckoned with, reaching the point where they took control of much of the Middle East. In Race and Slavery in the Middle East, historian Bernard Lewis describes the Mamluks
:
Such soldiers, it was assumed, would have no loyalty but to their masters, that is, to the monarchs who bought and employed them. But their loyalty, all too often, was to the regiment and to its commanders, many of whom ultimately themselves became kings.
Note This was one of those weeks where there was so much to write about: Obama’s Nobel Speech, the ongoing health care debate, the House passing an economic bill. Given the mission of this site to provide in-depth essays, it was impossible to get through the 1200 page House bill and I had no transcript available until recently for the Obama speech. Those issues all deserve comment.
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