Blackwater -- Jeremy Scahill: A Book Review

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

Jeremy Scahill

Nation Books, 2007

There once was hard working man who built a small empire on the sales of car accessories.  This man had a son who was trained in the art of war.  The son inherited many things from his father: a strong sense of nation, patriotism, conservative politics, Christian morals, hard work ethic, and entrepreneurialship.  The son would take some of the millions of dollars created by his father's company, invest it in local and national politics, invest it in a small company created to train security experts and operatives, and see the day when the money invested in both would provide dividends of lucrative contracts, a hand in nation building, an open door to the highest office of the land, and seeing his company become the world leader in security training and contract placement. 

That man is Eric Prince.  That company is Blackwater.  Their story is one of unbridled and unchecked faith-based passion in pursuit of manifest destiny.  Their's is the modern success story of the American mercenary soldier.  Jeremy Scahill paints a disturbing picture of company-building, of faith-based decision making in high government positions, of shady government contracts and questionable government policy, of men more interested in money and power than in the political and humanitarian ideals espoused publicly.  Blackwater: The Rise Of The World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army is an indictment of the mishandled foreign policy of the Bush administration (particularly in Iraq)and the misapplied decision of placing an unprecedented number of "contractors" under government pay, or under contract to companies holding contracts with the U.S. government and/or the various Iraqi organs of government since the Iraqi conflict began.

Scahill delivers a tour de force of information about the David-become-Goliath military contractor and how questionable protocols led to the deaths of four "contractors" in a hostile Fallujah, Iraq, the perceived atrocities committed on the bodies of those men, thus precipitating public outcry in the United States that would ultimately lead to the American military action of beseiging and taking the city where the U.S. military suffered its worst casualties of the war.  And it is an important work.  In a time when everything the U.S. does is under microscopic scrutiny, when everything that occurs on the international stage is suspect, Scahill gives us reason to worry.  The United States government has allotted state contracts to mercenaries who are exempt from U.S. military legal oversight and civilian legal authority in Iraq (L. Paul Bremer, the Civilian Provisional Authority's head in Iraq, signed this into law just hours before he left Iraq).  For the first time in history, mercenaries a being paid to protect state department officials, a duty traditionally reserved for U.S. military personnel.  Schahill also gives us reason to doubt the efficiency and the wisdom of privatizing a huge portion of American security interests in a war zone.

Everyone should read Blackwater.  And every American should be a little frightened of the image Blackwater presents to the international community.  And every American should be even more frightened of the faith-based initiatives and decisions being exercised by a reckless and ill-advised administration, decisions that undoubtedly will have pertinent and far-reaching repercussions in the Muslim world where they have been actualized.