It’s Bigger than Blackwater

 

October 9, 2007 -- Military contractor Blackwater USA may be best known for the horrific scene of contractor's burnt bodies hanging from a Fallujah bridge, the recent civilians shooting of civilians in Baghdad or as Bush's shadow army.

 

Erik Prince, the founder and CEO of Blackwater USA, was the principal target of an investigation about military contractors at a recently held Congressional Oversight Committee Hearing entitled "Private Security Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan."  Mr. Prince, with coaching from his attorney, endured either grilling or adoration, depending upon which political party was asking the questions.

 

A few facts stood out.

 

Blackwater's revenues have had an extraordinary rise, growing to one billion dollars under the Bush administration.

 

Blackwater charges $1222 per security contractor per day - $445,891 a year - approximately six to nine times the rate of U.S. Military personnel.

 

U.S. taxpayers pay for 90% of Blackwater’s revenues.

 

According to Prince's testimony, there are approximately 1000 Blackwater employees in Iraq, a small percentage of the nearly 160,000 contractors providing services. Many are doing jobs that were once the domain of the military. And, thanks to Coalition Provisional Authority Czar Paul Bremer and CPA order 17, put into effect in June of 2004, if a Blackwater - or any other - contractor killed an innocent Iraqi civilian, there was no law that applied that made the contractor accountable. No Iraqi law. No Military Code of Justice. No International Law. Bremer basically gave immunity to any contractor operating in the Iraqi theater. 

 

For the past four years, if a Blackwater employee killed an Iraqi civilian they would be fired, docked pay and asked, "window or aisle?" before they board the plane back home, free of charges or prosecution in Iraq or the United States.

 

No oversight hearings had been held to discuss these matters until the Democrats became the majority last November. As Mr. Prince sat before Congressman Henry Waxman and his Committee on Government and Oversight reform, he was asked questions like, "Do you believe more contractor oversight is appropriate? Why did your Blackwater employee leave the country after he had committed murder?  Is the use of contractors a wise use of tax dollars?” 

 

Is Erik Prince the one to answer these questions?  He runs a security - some say mercenary - business that has responded to a war culture created by a brazen, rogue administration bent on occupation, control, chaos and militarization of Mesopotamia's black gold. Mr. Prince doesn't represent the Department of Justice.   He's following the rules put down by Bearing Point, Paul Bremer, the Department of State and a host of other players who determined to occupy Iraq.  The chain of command also includes an AIPAC influenced Congress along with a bevy of Christian Zionists who would like nothing more than to bomb Jesus back to earth.  (On a personal note, I believe that Jesus would rather we repent of our actions and focus more on assisting orphans, widows, the lame, maimed, blind and the poor, with a concentration on loving our enemies.)

 

During the hearing, Erik Prince described how Blackwater employees fight " the bad guys, who are out to kill us."  There's no nuance for this Christian soldier. Whatever your emotion concerning Blackwater's   business, know this; under the current administration, it's been perfectly legal, until the new laws recently issued by Secretary Rice.  I wonder if they will retrofit this law to indict the Blackwater employees who gunned down seventeen Iraqis in al-Nissor square in Baghdad this past September.

 

This was the shooting that prompted Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to demand that Blackwater leave the country.  But Mr. al-Maliki doesn't run Iraq.  We do, with the assistance of 160,000 civilian contractors, including Blackwater.  And they are staying put for now. 

 

Brookings Institute fellow Peter Singer has written extensively about military privatization and contends we are missing the larger conversation, which is "whether it makes sense to have civilians in such an inherently governmental role in the first place." Singer concedes that, "The war in Iraq would not be possible without private military contractors."   This engenders a much larger context.

 

While I am appreciative of Congressman Waxman's hearings and extensive investigations of Blackwater, the individuals who should be answering these questions are those who manipulated the U.S. into war. Erik Prince and Blackwater are tragic pawns in our new “post 9/11” paradigm.

 

 I say dig deeper.  We can start with a new completely  independent investigation of what really happened on September 11, 2001.   These truths, not new laws on how to reign in contractors, have the power to set this nation free.