Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B000XJNDRA | Format: PDF
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army Description
A largely untold facet of the war on terror is the widespread outsourcing of military tasks to private mercenary companies. Accountable neither to the citizenry nor to standard military legal codes, these largely unregulated corporate armies are being entrusted with ever-greater responsibilities on behalf of the nation.
Meet Blackwater USA, the most secretive, most powerful, and fastest-growing private army on the planet. Founded by fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire Erik Prince, the scion of a conservative dynasty that bankrolls extreme-right-wing causes, this company of soldiers is now being sent "to the front lines of a global battle, waged largely on Muslim lands, that an evangelical president, whom Prince helped put in the White House, has boldly defined as a 'crusade'."
Ranging from the blood-soaked streets of Fallujah to Washington, D.C., where they are hailed as heroes, this is the dark story of Blackwater's rise to power.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 14 hours and 31 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
- Audible.com Release Date: October 16, 2007
- Language: English
- ASIN: B000XJNDRA
Jeremy Scahill's "Blackwater" is a passionate, if one-sided, condemnation of Blackwater USA, the military contractor firm located in rural North Carolina. "Blackwater" is the latest in a long line of books condemning the Bush administration's (mis)management of Iraq War. Scahill's book begins with a recounting of the infamous lynching of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah in 2004 and works through the company's various exploits since the invasion Iraq. The book's purpose is use the birth and evolution of Blackwater to call attention to the broader trend towards privatization of traditionally military functions. Scahill is effective in impressing upon the reader the value of Washington connections in winning Federal contracts and he focuses heavily on the lack of accountability applied to private military contractors---mercenaries--during the last several years of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
Blackwater is less an analysis of policy than a revealing piece of journalism serving as an ideological appeal for readers to oppose privatization of military functions. Just as Scahill rightly points out the weight that ideological rather than practical considerations have carried in the Iraq war's prosecution, it is important to understand the Scahill's ideological background as well. Scahill cut his teeth with leftist journalist Amy Goodman whom the LA Times referred to as "radio's voice of the disenfranchised left" ([...] In addition, Scahill mentions various independent journalism outfits in the acknowledgement section of the book. One example, the Z-magazine website which hosts a "subsite devoted to the anti-corporate globalization movement" is representative of the progressive political perspective that Scahill has adopted.
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