Blackwater, Hot Water

[Doug]

From here.
I was watching the hearing on Iraq Reconstruction and Contractors on C-Span...in which the mothers, wives and daughters of four men killed on a convoy which was attacked and overrun (the men were shot, mutilated and hanged, their corpses then set ablaze), spoke of their struggle to gain simple answers to questions surrounding the deaths from the men's employer, the privately owned security firm known as Blackwater USA.

...the moms and wives and daughters spoke, expressing outrage in hoarse, respectful tones. They testified that they had asked Blackwater USA simple questions: how did my boy die? Why was there no planning? No protection? No help? Why were these men---some in Iraq for mere days before being killed on the mission to protect catering equipment---denied the use of maps? Of an experienced escort? Of heavy defensive weaponry? Where were their remains? Blackwater USA informed them that in order to obtain answers to these questions the families would have to sue the company. Otherwise, they were not obliged to respond. And months later, at a memorial service organized by Blackwater USA, the families were closely guarded by Blackwater USA security and prevented---prevented---from speaking with each other. So sue they did. And what was the response to the suit the grieving families launched? Blackwater USA countersued to the tune of 10 million dollars.

At the hearing, when his turn came to question the mothers, daughters and wives, California Republican Representative Darrell Issa prefaced his inquiry with his assertion that their testimony was not germane to the goal of the commission. Having gotten this matter out of the way, he proceeded with what he felt was germane: the authorship of their statement and whether a lawyer was involved in its drafting. As the term "lawyer" emanated from his lips, the specially equipped lenses picked up strong indications of a particularly agitated and opaque, darker presence perched on Issa's shoulder...

That our administration contracts private firms to do the jobs traditionally performed by our military is yet another example of the Neo-Con's ultimate aim to dismantle the beneficent mechanism of government, to ensure its failure, to create the problem and to conveniently supply the only solution, to construct a vacuum to be filled by treasure. And to turn the federal government into a privately held business, acountable only to itself.

[Dardedar]

DAR
Interesting how soldier casualties and totals are given all the time but deaths of these US gov paid mercenaries are not. I think I read somewhere that it numbers in the many hundreds as well.
All just a drop compared to the 100,000's of Iraqi's killed.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

There's an American cultural bias against mercenaries - putting them the same category as hired killers - and not noticing that a volunteer army is also a subset of mercenary army. I don't know if it's just the self-righteous christian thing coming out or the American Revolutionary propaganda about Hessians in a family fight between what Winston Churchill called the "English-speaking peoples". There's sort of a "serves them right" when mercenaries get killed, even if they were on our side. Not that I think highly of Blackwater, I don't. But I can see why there would be an appeal to some people. Mercenary companies theoretically (in the lay sense, of course) can choose which side of the fight is "right", whereas the kids who enlist in the official army are stuck with fighting even when they know their country is wrong. In practice, mercenaries fight for whoever can afford them, but the "appeal of potential" can be strong. The appeal is even stronger to the neocons - they don't have to "count" those bodies and it's all about "privatizing" the government until there isn't one anymore - or at least not a democratic republic, just a corporate oligarchy.