Mired Deep In Blackwater

In her post preceding this one,Blackwater Down (great title, girl) Tankwoman addresses a story that should have been getting far more media attention than it has before this latest event - the putative pulling of Blackwater's license to operate within the country by the Iraqi government. The story of course is the way private "security" companies have been operating in Iraq since, and perhaps even before, the beginning of the war.

Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, has given Blackwater a lot of coverage during the past year, much of it in the form of of interviews with Jeremy Scahil, author of what seems to be the definitive book on the subject, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Anyone wanting to know the whole horror of the phenomenon that is Blackwater (their training camp in North Carolina is half the size of Manhattan, imagine that!) from info about its founder, whom Bruce mentions in a comment to Blackwater Down, to its activities and intentions, might want to check out Scahil's book. People with less time on their hands can read The Nation's cover story from April second of this year: Bush's Shadow Army, an excerpt from said book. The Nation's awesome Youtube site, Videonation, has a four minute video of the same title, Bush's Shadow Army, for those with even less time for the printed word.

It's a good thing that the general public is now hearing about the sinister freedom of such mercenary "security contractors" to act outside any system of law known to other groups, and it will be interesting to see if any real consequences will be forthcoming. There seems to be some doubt on that score.

Technorati Tags: Blackwater, democracy now, Jeremy Scahil, The Nation

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