Blackwater: Bush's private army

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In the news today: what passes for the Iraq government has banned the operations of Blackwater USA, a secretive private army based in North Carolina, after a violent attack that left 8 Iraqis dead. Blackwater is one of several "security firms" operating in Iraq on a no-bid U.S. Government contract from the Bush administration.

Blackwater: the name has the same slightly chilling Kafkaesque quality that "Homeland Security" has. Their website brags they are "the most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world."

Okay, let's call a spade a spade: they are the largest mercenary army in the world.

Mercenaries: guns for hire. You got the money, we got the muscle.

Drug lords know all about this shit.

So did the Nazis. Hitler's Stormtroopers, least we forget, were a private paramilitary organization.

Army officers swear an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution against against all enemies, foreign and domestic. To whom do members of the modern corporate army swear allegiance?

The stockholders?

Comments

Dan Brekke said…
Not the stockholders -- this outfit is privately held. So the CEO. And God, naturally. And to each other, of course; which, disturbingly, seems to have become the controlling ethic of the regular military, too, despite all the lip service given to defending our rights to complain and shop.
1:27 PM
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