Antony Loewenstein

Who says a company causing death and destruction should be a barrier to securing US deals?

Never mind the dead civilians. Forget about the stolen guns. Get over the murder arrests, the fraud allegations, and the accusations of guards pumping themselves up with steroids and cocaine. Through a “joint venture,” the notorious private-security firm Blackwater has won a piece of a five-year State Department contract worth up to $10 billion, Danger Room has learned.

U.S. Businessman: Blackwater Paid Me to Buy Steroids and Weapons on Black Market for Its Shooters.

Seriously.

Yesterday I wrote about Jeremy Scahill’s explosive revelations that Blackwater are operating covertly in Pakistan and a reliable journalist contact who spends considerable time in the country passed this on:

You know there’s a heavily guarded pub in Peshawar called the American Club where these Blackwater dudes hang out. No one else goes there, they’re too scared shitless. Mind you the pub is like heavily fortified, I mean it’s like crazy over the top fortified. Nevertheless, the paranoid mercenaries keep their cars running while they’re having a beer in case they need to bail out in an emergency. Very American.

Jeremy Scahill, The Guardian, July 23:

It seems that executives from Blackwater Worldwide, the Bush administration’s favourite hired guns in Iraq and Afghanistan, are threatening to pack up their M4 assault rifles, CS gas and Little Bird helicopters and go back to the great dismal swamp of North Carolina whence they came. Or at least that’s how it is being portrayed in the media.

Shame on journalists for not recognising the noble work of the gallant heroes and patriots (who happen to be paid much more than US troops and have not been subjected to any system of law and who can leave the war zone any moment they choose) and forcing Blackwater to consider abandoning its (very profitable, billion-dollar) charitable humanitarian campaign in Iraq. Remember, according to Blackwater, it is not a mercenary organisation. It is a “peace and stability” operation employing “global stabilisation professionals“.

Human rights preservation, Washington-style:

Out of the dozens upon dozens of reports of abuses by private contractors as part of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, only one prosecution of a contractor has taken place.

This, says a new report from Human Rights First, epitomises the woefully insufficient response by the U.S. government to hold private contactors accountable for abuses against local nationals.

The Bush administration is also fond of torturing “terror” suspects on home soil.

US military contractor Blackwater are a rule unto themselves (as I discussed some months ago.)

Now further evidence that its actions in Iraq are akin to a rabid dog off the leash.

- Former UN chief Boutros Boutros Ghali blames Israel for the lack of peace in the Middle East.

- Blackwater expert Jeremy Scahill challenges the US Congress to get serious about military contractors in war zones.

- The latest on impeachment proceedings against Dick Cheney.

- While Israel remains a nuclear power, they aren’t too keen on other Middle East nations acquiring the same technology. Bit late for moralising, lads.

-  Who said the Iraqi government truly has any control over its own country?

Jeremy Scahill, Huffington Post, October 30:

Apparently there is one set of rights for Blackwater mercenaries and another for the rest of us. Normally when a group of people alleged to have gunned down 17 civilians in a lawless shooting spree are questioned, investigators will tell them something along the lines of: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” But that is not what the Blackwater operatives involved in the September 16 Nisour Square shooting in Iraq were told. Most of the Blackwater shooters were questioned by State Department Diplomatic Security investigators with the understanding that their statements and information gleaned from them could not be used to bring criminal charges against them, nor could they be introduced as evidence. In other words, “Anything you say can’t and won’t be used against you in a court of law.”

The latest Blackwater news is here (including the encouraging sign that the Iraqis want to remove the immunity granted to mercenaries.)

My latest New Matilda column discusses the role of Blackwater in Iraq:

Writer Naomi Klein calls Baghdad’s Green Zone ‘a heavily armed Carnival Cruise ship parked in a sea of despair,’ and the tag fits. The fantasy, pushed by neo-conservatives and war profiteers alike, was that Iraq would be a free-market laboratory to spread the utopia of the market across the Middle East. Blackwater is at the forefront of this assault. Erik Prince has made no secret of his desire to institute a theo-conservative holy war led in part by his own personal army.

Scahill and others have estimated that there are more than 160,000 private contractors in Iraq, a shadow force capable of protecting, cleaning and cooking for US forces. During the debate about possible withdrawal dates, the presence of these individuals is rarely acknowledged. Former Marine colonel Jack Holly has argued that because of public pressure to reduce the US footprint in Iraq, private military contractors will fill the gap. ‘People want a shrinking military presence,’ he says, ‘but the needs and mission don’t shrink.’

Consider these comments by Cofer Black, the company’s Vice Chairman and former counterterrorism chief at the CIA (and current senior advisor on national security to Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney). Addressing a convention of mercenaries in Jordan in 2006, Cofer floated the idea of establishing a Blackwater brigade, ready to be deployed anywhere in the world, for the right price . ‘It’s an intriguing idea from a practical standpoint because we’re low-cost and fast,’ he said. ‘The issue is: who’s going to let us play on their team?’

My New Matilida archive is here.