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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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December 6th,
2007 - Blackwater’s Business |
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By Jeremy Scahill The Nation December 6, 2007 Gunning down seventeen Iraqi
civilians in an incident the military has labeled "criminal."
Multiple Congressional investigations. A federal grand jury. Allegations of
illegal arms smuggling. Wrongful death lawsuits brought by families of dead
employees and US soldiers. A federal lawsuit alleging war crimes. Charges of
steroid use by trigger-happy mercenaries. Allegations of "significant
tax evasion." The US-installed government in Iraq labeling its forces
"murderers." With a new scandal breaking practically every day, one
would think Blackwater security would be on the ropes, facing a corporate
meltdown or even a total wipeout. But it seems that business for the company
has never been better, as it continues to pull in major federal contracts.
And its public demeanor grows bolder and cockier by the day. Rather than hiding out and
hoping for the scandals to fade, the Bush Administration's preferred
mercenary company has launched a major rebranding campaign, changing its name
to Blackwater Worldwide and softening its logo: once a bear paw in the site
of a sniper scope, it's now a bear claw wrapped in two half ovals - sort of
like the outline of a globe with a United Nations feel. Its website boasts of
a corporate vision "guided by integrity, innovation, and a desire for a
safer world." Blackwater mercenaries are now referred to as "global
stabilization professionals." Blackwater's 38-year-old owner, Erik
Prince, was No. 11 in Details magazine's "Power 50," the men
"who control your viewing patterns, your buying habits, your anxieties,
your lust. ... the people who have taken over the space in your head." In one of the company's most
bizarre recent actions, on December 1 Blackwater paratroopers staged a
dramatic aerial landing, complete with Blackwater flags and parachutes - not
in Baghdad or Kabul but in San Diego at Qualcomm Stadium during the halftime
show at the San Diego State/BYU football game. The location was interesting,
given that Blackwater is fighting fierce local opposition to its attempt to
open a new camp - Blackwater West - on 824 acres in the small rural community
of Potrero, just outside San Diego. Blackwater's parachute squad plans to
land at the Armed Forces Bowl in Texas this month and the Virginia Gold Cup
in May. The company recently sponsored a NASCAR racer, and it has teamed up
with gun manufacturer Sig Sauer to create a Blackwater Special Edition
full-sized 9-millimeter pistol with the company logo on the grip. It comes
with a Limited Lifetime Warranty. For $18, parents can purchase infant
onesies with the company logo. In recent weeks, Blackwater
has indicated it might quit Iraq. "We see the security market
diminishing," Prince told the Wall Street Journal in October. Yet on
December 3 Blackwater posted job listings for "security
specialists" and snipers as a result of its State Department diplomatic
security "contract expansion." While its name may be mud in the
human rights world, Blackwater has not only made big money in Iraq (about $1
billion in State Department contracts); it has secured a reputation as a
company that keeps US officials alive by any means necessary. The dirty open
secret in Washington is that Blackwater has done its job in Iraq, even if it
has done so by valuing the lives of Iraqis much lower than those of US VIPs.
That badass image will serve it well as it expands globally. Prince promises that
Blackwater "is going to be more of a full spectrum" operation. Amid
the cornucopia of scandals, Blackwater is bidding for a share of a five-year,
$15 billion contract with the Pentagon to "fight terrorists with drug-trade
ties." Perhaps the firm will join the mercenary giant DynCorp in
Colombia or Bolivia or be sent into Mexico on a "training" mission.
This "war on drugs" contract would put Blackwater in the arena with
the godfathers of the war business, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop
Grumman and Raytheon. In addition to its robust
business in law enforcement, military and homeland security training,
Blackwater is branching out. Here are some of its current projects and
initiatives: - Blackwater affiliate
Greystone Ltd., registered offshore in Barbados, is an old-fashioned mercenary operation
offering "personnel from the best militaries throughout the world"
for hire by governments and private organizations. It also boasts of a
"multi-national peacekeeping program," with forces "specializing
in crowd control and less than lethal techniques and military personnel for
the less stable areas of operation." - Prince's Total
Intelligence Solutions, headed by three CIA veterans (among them Blackwater's
number two, Cofer Black), puts CIA-type services on the open market for hire by
corporations or governments. - Blackwater is launching
an armored vehicle called the Grizzly, which the company characterizes as the
most versatile in history. Blackwater intends to modify it to be legal for
use on US
highways. - Blackwater's aviation
division has some forty aircraft, including turboprop planes that can be used
for unorthodox landings. It has ordered a Super Tucano paramilitary plane
from Brazil, which can be used in counterinsurgency operations. In August the aviation
division won a $92 million contract with the Pentagon to operate flights in
Central Asia. - It recently
flight-tested the unmanned Polar 400 airship, which may be marketed to the
Department of Homeland Security for use in monitoring the US-Mexico border and
to "military, law enforcement, and non-government customers." - A fast-growing maritime
division has a new, 184-foot vessel that has been fitted for potential
paramilitary use. Meanwhile, Blackwater is
deep in the camp of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Cofer Black is
Romney's senior adviser on counterterrorism. At the recent CNN/YouTube
debate, when Romney refused to call waterboarding torture, he said, "I'm
not going to specify the specific means of what is and what is not torture so
that the people that we capture will know what things we're able to do and
what things we're not able to do. And I get that advice from Cofer Black, who
is a person who was responsible for counterterrorism in the CIA for some
thirty-five years." That was an exaggeration of Black's career at the
CIA (he was there twenty-eight years and head of counterterrorism for only
three), but a Romney presidency could make Blackwater's business under Bush
look like a church bake sale. In short, Blackwater is
moving ahead at full steam. Individual scandals clearly aren't enough to slow
it down. The company's critics in the Democratic-controlled Congress must
confront the root of the problem: the government is in the midst of its most
radical privatization in history, and companies like Blackwater are becoming
ever more deeply embedded in the war apparatus. Until this system is brought
down, the world's the limit for Blackwater Worldwide -and as its rebranding
campaign shows, Blackwater knows it. External link: http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20071224&s=scahill |