I've just finished reading Master of War by Suzanne Simons, HarperCollins Publishers, 2009.
Ms. Simons, an executive producer at CNN, exposes our controversial use of private military contractors in the Middle East by tracing the rise and fall of Erik Prince and his Blackwater USA.
Blackwater has been the most prominent of the 170 private companies employed by the Department of Defense and the State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan. At its high point, the 160,000 civilian "soldiers of fortune" in Iraq equaled our deployment of G.I.s. Over 40% of taxpayer dollars spent on the Iraq war has gone to private contractors.
Simons's tale of the Blackwater saga is well-written and balanced. She lays out the good, bad, and ugly about Blackwater and lets the reader conclude whether Erik Prince is a simple patriot, as he claims, or a reckless mercenary bent on exploiting our involvement in the Middle East for huge profits.
It should be noted that the State Department, under Hillary Clinton, still relies heavily on private contractors for its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2 comments:
Blackwater. Doesn't the name give you the warm fuzzies? Now, let me understand.... is that privatization or outsourcing? Whichever, the convenient thing for them is that they're exempt from a lot of laws our reglar servicemen aren't. Like rape & murder of occupied civilians and in some cases of their own employees! Is Blackwater a publicly traded company? Can I buy stock in it? All kidding aside, companies like BW make it possible for dickheads like Bush/Cheney to start wars without a draft, thus circumventing blowback from middle and upper classes.
The outsourcing of war is just another national disgrace in the Bush legacy.
By the way, The Iraqi government banned Blackwater from its country on Jan.1 of this year, causing Erik Prince to resign as CEO and turn the company over to his second in command. He blamed the downfall of Blackwater on the "left leaning media."
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