If Joe Schmuck from down the street decided he wanted to form a small army, stockpiled weapons for this army, bought 7,000 acres on which to train this army and had extreme religious ties to boot, you might think Joe Schmuck should be expecting a Waco style raid any day now. Which begs the question, how does Blackwater legally still exist?
Blackwater has over 40,000 employees, the largest private training center in the U.S., and an air force that rivals those of many countries. And with some of their atrocities in Iraq coming to light, it seems appropriate to say that this company of mercenaries is a threat to our national security. Since 2005 they’ve fired on Iraqi police and checkpoints, killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, and according to Newsweek they actually disarmed American soldiers after a minor car accident. According to their own reports, Blackwater has fired first in roughly 80 percent of shooting incidents.
Back in September the owner of Blackwater, Eric Prince, testified before Congress. When asked if any of his employees had killed Iraqi civilians he basically said maybe, but not on purpose. He also said these things happen in war. He’s right, questionable acts do occur in war, but government-paid mercenaries in Iraq is questionable, and the legality of their entire existence is also questionable.
What’s the difference between this company and any other group of yahoos with a stockpile of weapons? Maybe if David Koresh had turned his cult into a private company he would still be alive. And maybe instead of raiding “Branch Davidian Inc.,” they would’ve given them a multi-million dollar contract.
Ninety percent of their funding comes from military contracts; yet when they go overseas to places like Iraq, they’re not bound to military rules. After they killed several Iraqi civilians last September the Iraqi government brought up the possibility of prosecuting the individuals in question. But Eric Prince made it clear that he wouldn’t let his employees be prosecuted. And it’s very apparent that our government supports Backwater’s arrogance.
Prince probably feels right at home dealing with the Bush administration. He was an intern for George H. W. Bush, and has ties to the Christian conservative movement. He has given money to both the Family Research Council and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and personally donated over $200,000 to Republican causes. So I doubt he’ll have to worry about accountability at least until after Bush gets out of office.
The big kicker to this is that these mercenaries get paid buckets of money for doing what our servicemen do for a meager wage. It’s like a slap in the face to the enlisted soldier whose job is equally dangerous, but gets paid a fraction of what these mercenaries do. It takes the idea of the million dollar hammer to a whole new level. And it’s our money that’s paying these guys. I mean if the government wants to pump millions of our dollars into an illegal operation why don’t they just support a gambling racket; at least that would make somebody happy and would be far less likely to provoke a terrorist attack.
