Global-Praxis

Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill of The Nation, has done it again. Providing excellent breaking coverage on the mercenary company Blackwater/Xe in Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder. Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. A recent interview with Scahill on MSNBC outlines how Erik Prince founder of Blackwater used his ultra-right ideology and right-wing connections to further unaccountable policy intentions of the U.S. government, specifically under the Bush Administration. According to sworn statement by John Doe #2–former Blackwater management employee–who must remain anonymous,

Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades. Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince’s executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to “lay Hajiis out on cardboard.” Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince’s employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as “ragheads” or “hajiis.”

While the U.S. government has repeatedly asserted that hiring private contractors is done with the intent of saving tax-payer’s money, this cannot be the case. Contractor salaries are many multiples of normal soldiers salaries while the chain of sub-contractors further eats into cost effectiveness. The true purpose of mercenary contracts is to askew congressional oversight, budget constraints and to keep the public in the dark as to just how many ‘troops’ are actually deployed in a combat zone. In a slightly less sophisticated time, the contractor to troop ratio was approximately 1:10, for example during the ‘91 Gulf War.

Now, the ratio of contractor to troop is approaching 1:1. That means, if there are 140 thousand actual U.S. armed forces deployed to Iraq, there are approximately 140 thousand contractors filling service-support or armed security roles. Previously, these service-support (cooks, bakers and candle-stick makers) and armed security roles (personal security for VIPs) were filled by the U.S. armed forces or U.S. government officials. This was inline with the U.S. constitution and kept imperial ventures subject to congressional oversight and budgetary constraints. Now, these roles are contracted out, freeing up more combat troops for a war while technically not increasing the size of the U.S. armed forces.

The bottom-line is this: the U.S. public is deceived in to believing that the overseas presence of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (among other places like Colombia) is far less than it actually is. Furthermore, the millions of tax-payer dollars used to fund this unaccountable war go directly into the pockets of men like Erik Prince and his associates.

Related articles:

• Testimony From Ex-Blackwater Staff Implicates Owner Erik Prince In Murder, Gun Smuggling Activities (crooksandliars.com)
• Private Military Firms and the Affect on U.S. Foreign Policy (Global-Praxis.com)
• 2 ex-Blackwater workers accuse founder (cnn.com)
• Private contractors: 250,000 mercenaries fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (isiria.wordpress.com)
• The Privatization of “Obama’s War” (Guest Voice) (themoderatevoice.com)