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Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
by Jeremy Scahill
by Jeremy Scahill
Teton County Library Call No: 355.354 SCAHILL
Kevin's rating: 5 stars
The United States has involved itself in two major wars in the Middle East since 1991. Both conflicts witnessed a host of changes away from the more traditional methods the US had historically employed to fight its battles. Stealthy technology, cruise missiles, “smart” weaponry, unmanned drones, satellite communications, and real-time intelligence gathering all made the Iraq battlefields substantially different from those in Vietnam, Korea, or during the two World Wars. In his book, Blackwat...more The United States has involved itself in two major wars in the Middle East since 1991. Both conflicts witnessed a host of changes away from the more traditional methods the US had historically employed to fight its battles. Stealthy technology, cruise missiles, “smart” weaponry, unmanned drones, satellite communications, and real-time intelligence gathering all made the Iraq battlefields substantially different from those in Vietnam, Korea, or during the two World Wars. In his book, Blackwater : the rise of the world’s most powerful mercenary army, Jeremy Scahill introduces his readers to yet another subtler difference: outsourcing.
Thoroughly researched and extremely well documented, Scahill’s Blackwater traces the origins of outsourcing, the contracting of various traditional government and military war-time responsibilities to private businesses. Many of the jobs outsourced to companies like Blackwater, the main “antagonist” in Scahill’s work, include providing security for “high value” diplomatic personnel working in or visiting a war zone, establishing security for key installations, transporting supplies within a war zone, escorting convoys between destinations, etc. These tasks once fell within the jurisdiction of the US military or a particular US government agency like the FBI or the US Secret Service, but no longer if firms like Blackwater continually have their way.
Scahill examines the origins of outsourcing, concepts and ideas first explored by senior officials of the Presidential administration of George H. W. Bush (including then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney) prior to the Persian Gulf War of 1991. Scahill demonstrates how their concepts of outsourcing grew in popularity during the Clinton years, and he shows his audience how outsourcing came into wide scale practice during the Iraq war from 2003- present, giving purpose for the existence of Blackwater and its competitors.
Proponents of outsourcing claim that private enterprise can perform certain jobs and complete many tasks in a more efficient, timely and concise manner than can a bureaucracy like the US State Department or the US military. Blackwater, as Scahill shows, was at the forefront of these efforts, an industry leader that was awarded dozens of US Government contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, many of them given to Blackwater with no-bid provisions. Scahill provides his readers numerous examples of situations where the US government opted to privatize an aspect of the Iraq war and turned the responsibility over to companies like Blackwater in an effort to save time and money and, as Scahill claims, often at the expense of the safety and effectiveness of Blackwater employees.
Scahill’s work follows the development and creation of Blackwater by its founder, former Navy SEAL Eric Prince, from its humble beginnings in rural North Carolina, to its first contracts with the US Government in Iraq. The culminating event in Scahill’s story is the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater contractors following an ambush on their inadequately protected supply convoy as it traveled through the Iraqi city of Fallujah in March of 2004. The subsequent publicity given to Blackwater after the incident gave the company’s name household recognition, and it will forever be linked to the Bush Administration’s War on Terror.
Blackwater is nothing less than a sweeping indictment of outsourcing, the Blackwater firm and its competitors, Eric Prince, and the “contractors” or mercenaries (many of them foreign nationals with questionable backgrounds and qualifications claims Scahill) operating within the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan on behalf of the US government. The Pentagon’s practice of outsourcing key war making practices to private companies is setting a dangerous precedent claims Scahill, one that will continually blur the line that should exist between private enterprise and the federal government, the so called military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned the nation about in his farewell address almost 50 years ago.
This was a great read. Sometimes I couldn’t put it down. Scahill does have his share of prejudices and axes to grind, and they will become readily apparent to any reader. Nevertheless, Scahill tells a very interesting story, one that at times will leave you amazed, angry, and surprised. I’d recommend it to any fan of military history or to anyone with an interest in political science.
Kevin's rating: 5 stars
The United States has involved itself in two major wars in the Middle East since 1991. Both conflicts witnessed a host of changes away from the more traditional methods the US had historically employed to fight its battles. Stealthy technology, cruise missiles, “smart” weaponry, unmanned drones, satellite communications, and real-time intelligence gathering all made the Iraq battlefields substantially different from those in Vietnam, Korea, or during the two World Wars. In his book, Blackwat...more The United States has involved itself in two major wars in the Middle East since 1991. Both conflicts witnessed a host of changes away from the more traditional methods the US had historically employed to fight its battles. Stealthy technology, cruise missiles, “smart” weaponry, unmanned drones, satellite communications, and real-time intelligence gathering all made the Iraq battlefields substantially different from those in Vietnam, Korea, or during the two World Wars. In his book, Blackwater : the rise of the world’s most powerful mercenary army, Jeremy Scahill introduces his readers to yet another subtler difference: outsourcing.
Thoroughly researched and extremely well documented, Scahill’s Blackwater traces the origins of outsourcing, the contracting of various traditional government and military war-time responsibilities to private businesses. Many of the jobs outsourced to companies like Blackwater, the main “antagonist” in Scahill’s work, include providing security for “high value” diplomatic personnel working in or visiting a war zone, establishing security for key installations, transporting supplies within a war zone, escorting convoys between destinations, etc. These tasks once fell within the jurisdiction of the US military or a particular US government agency like the FBI or the US Secret Service, but no longer if firms like Blackwater continually have their way.
Scahill examines the origins of outsourcing, concepts and ideas first explored by senior officials of the Presidential administration of George H. W. Bush (including then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney) prior to the Persian Gulf War of 1991. Scahill demonstrates how their concepts of outsourcing grew in popularity during the Clinton years, and he shows his audience how outsourcing came into wide scale practice during the Iraq war from 2003- present, giving purpose for the existence of Blackwater and its competitors.
Proponents of outsourcing claim that private enterprise can perform certain jobs and complete many tasks in a more efficient, timely and concise manner than can a bureaucracy like the US State Department or the US military. Blackwater, as Scahill shows, was at the forefront of these efforts, an industry leader that was awarded dozens of US Government contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, many of them given to Blackwater with no-bid provisions. Scahill provides his readers numerous examples of situations where the US government opted to privatize an aspect of the Iraq war and turned the responsibility over to companies like Blackwater in an effort to save time and money and, as Scahill claims, often at the expense of the safety and effectiveness of Blackwater employees.
Scahill’s work follows the development and creation of Blackwater by its founder, former Navy SEAL Eric Prince, from its humble beginnings in rural North Carolina, to its first contracts with the US Government in Iraq. The culminating event in Scahill’s story is the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater contractors following an ambush on their inadequately protected supply convoy as it traveled through the Iraqi city of Fallujah in March of 2004. The subsequent publicity given to Blackwater after the incident gave the company’s name household recognition, and it will forever be linked to the Bush Administration’s War on Terror.
Blackwater is nothing less than a sweeping indictment of outsourcing, the Blackwater firm and its competitors, Eric Prince, and the “contractors” or mercenaries (many of them foreign nationals with questionable backgrounds and qualifications claims Scahill) operating within the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan on behalf of the US government. The Pentagon’s practice of outsourcing key war making practices to private companies is setting a dangerous precedent claims Scahill, one that will continually blur the line that should exist between private enterprise and the federal government, the so called military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned the nation about in his farewell address almost 50 years ago.
This was a great read. Sometimes I couldn’t put it down. Scahill does have his share of prejudices and axes to grind, and they will become readily apparent to any reader. Nevertheless, Scahill tells a very interesting story, one that at times will leave you amazed, angry, and surprised. I’d recommend it to any fan of military history or to anyone with an interest in political science.
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