Has anyone thought of the men themselves? And that they, everyday, may come under fire and will give their lives for their principals? Would you rather have a highly trained operative protecting you, who had to FIGHT for the privelege to get there?
Blackwater and others like them leave our men and women in the armed forces to do the jobs they need to do. The soldiers have enough to do without having to babysit diplomats.
It may not be perfect, but it isn't on Blackwater, it is a systematic failure.

Those beeps on Scahill's line were clearly THE MAN trying to keep the truth from getting out.

Please, can we get an answer somewhere?
If the employee gets $650 per day, how much do we pay Blackwater?
Thanks.

Support our privatized, outsourced and mercenary troops!

Brian:

Please ask Mr. Scahill what seems to me to be the obvious question:

Does Blackwater, as a sub of the US State Dept. in Iraq, have diplomatic immunity as would any other security detail for foreign embassies in any country?

Thank you.

I wonder if part of the rise of companies like blackwater is partly borne out of the neutering of our armed services? Along the same lines I guess this war more resembles viet Nam and Algieria which is a huge contrast to Korea and WWII.

A friend in the Swedish special forces was in Sierra Leone a couple of years ago, and he said that Blackwater was helping to protect the human traffickers that they were there to stop. Any word on the accuracy of that?

It troubles me that since the mercenary forces transport and supply food, gasoline, fuels, and many other support services, the armed forces can no longer do these tasks themselves, making them utterly dependent on these private contractors. Clearly, we will be responsible for evacuating all 180,000 of them as well as our soldiers, and the complications inherent in this relationship that enfeebles our armed forces are stupefying to contemplate.

They should kick out Blackwater as a signal to all groups like BW that consequences exist. It is time to make of example of them.
Iraq would be smart pursue this till the end.

Sounds like the Iraqi Gov. is talking 'Iranese' -
Gov'mt is known to be infiltrated and Iran leaning.

Author is a Sophomore - never been in Iraq with a Unit ? Don't talk 'girlie' talk.

Roman history buff here :)

Before 9/11 we did not imagine we wold be attacked at home.

Are we also nieve about a military coup in the US?
We are financing the mercinary army wing of the far right.

Does Mr Scahill see this as a threat?

Mr. Scahill's comments are very interesting.

(1) In light of these events, what is to be done?

(2) Is there no one from Blackwater or another private contractor that was willing to speak on your show to give us a little more context?

Good call Robert.

Any Roman history buffs listening?

I'd always thought I would end up like Boethius...

Exhibit A that blackwater is reckless is the trophy video made a while back, where they can be seen shooting for fun at random cars:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/17/blackwater-is-part-of-bremers-legacy-the-trophy-video/

Robert,

Yes.....historically that is true. This trend toward using mercenaries is really a bad sign of things to come on so many levels

All of this reminds me of the film "The Wages of Fear", and its slightly-lesser remake, "Sorcerer".

Blackwater sounds like a Crusader army....mercenaries, former soldiers culled together by a religious zealot

great....

If the fact that there is ANY question that the Iraqi government has the authority to throw Blackwater out doesn't prove the complete and utter hypocrisy of the Bush administration's rhetoric for our continued involvement in the war, then nothing will

We are supposedly building up his government to be a sovereign government..."when the Iraqi's stand up, we'll stand down.." Well they are trying to stand up now and act like a government and throw out a bunch of mercenaries who are killing and abusing their citizens....and we're going to block that??????

Unbelievable....

Hasn't history taught that the use of mercenary armies is a sign of the decline of nations?! You have to pay outside groups to fight wars and "maintain order" (huh!) and they aren't under any real control of the nation who pays them rather the folks who run these armies control them. This is a sign of decay as much as the current administration is a sign of decay.

Military Outsourcing is not going away but killing Blackwaters contracts would make it clear to all these competing groups that they will be held accountable for screw-ups.

What's the point of having a puppet government in Iraq if the U.S. can't do what it wants to do?

Naomi Klein discusses like issues in her book, "Disaster Capitalism".

Do we know how much Blackwater is being paid?

If a Blackwater employee is paid $650 or more
per day, then what is our daily payment to
Blackwater?

Was Blackwater represented on Secretary Rumsfeld's advisory board, as was Booz-Allen, and Richard Perle's company, and others supplying staff to
Justice, Homeland Security, and the Defense Department?

See my various PREVIOUS discussions about

* UN-Privatizing the Military
* National Talk like a Pirate day (9/19/07)

here

http://markbnj.blogspot.com/2006/05/politics-rebuild-us-military-around.html
and
Here (shudders to think he actually points to a LYNDON LAROUCHE article)

Here,
http://markbnj.blogspot.com/2006/05/humor-lyndon-larouche-cult-visionary.html

AND HERE for talk like a pirate day....

http://markbnj.blogspot.com/2007/09/humor-its-talk-like-pirate-day-today-9.html

How 'bout a closing hour segment on TLAPD today!

Mark Brown (unfortunately Away from a radio for oday!