Rent: Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Revised and Updated]

so once you get past all the liberal propaganda and Scahill's obvious distaste for anything related to the american right, there's actually a generous amount of interesting info here.

Government contracts with Blackwater are changing the way this country deals with foreign conflicts and this book is a very eye opening account of some of the shocking things that are being done in Iraq under the name of the American people.

I did however have a problem with the book. even though it does present a lot of facts about Blackwater USA, the whole mercenary theme becomes a back drop for what turns into a bashing of the "corrupt" Bush Administration and how bad they've allegedly screwed the pooch with the war on terror. Now that things are actually looking up in Iraq, most of Scahill's leftist quips are ignorable but no less annoying.


definitely a good read, but be careful about believing all the words written here

This book has a pretty blatant political agenda. The opinions expressed are strongly against mercenary companies doing business and replacing traditional military functions. That said, there is a wealth of information here difficult to find in the mainstream media. I suggest backchecking the references used to obtain even more information on the subject over the web. If you want to know more about this important subject and get a taste of what may happen in the future, I recommend you read this book and others.

The best book on the inside scoop of what's going on with subcontracting military.

Very well written, intriguing, complete and very informative.

The book lists random facts in a very disorganized fashon. I found it very hard to pay attention while reading.

Far too few Americans know the story of the aborted attempt by a small group of America's leading industrialists to promote a military coup in 1934, an attempt to oust control of the U.S. Government from FDR that may only have been prevented by the democratic integrity of General Smedley Butler, the man they sought to lead their revolt. Americans naively believe that rebellion is a left wing predisposition, that military-backed coups only happen in Third World countries and are impossible here. As Jeremy Scahill makes abundantly clear in BLACKWATER, the same situation in the hands of Erik Prince, the founder and chairman of America's largest private army, would very likely not turn out the same way.

BLACKWATER is, on every level, a truly disturbing book, one that should be read as a wake-up call to the rest of America that isn't messianically (and militantly) right wing. Author Scahill traces the dual histories of Erik Prince and his eponymous company from Mr. Prince's early days in Holland, Michigan as the undistinguished scion of a paternalistically wealthy, ultra-right wing Christian industrialist. His father's conservative connections, combined with a stint in Hillsdale College, ranked America's most conservative in 2006, landed young Erik with Pat Buchanan's Presidential campaign before joining the Navy SEALs. Eirk's inheritance from his father's company provided more than ample startup capital for the military training center in North Carolina that would ultimately spawn Blackwater. Of course, as Scahill points out, not all of Blackwater's success can be traced to young Mr. Prince, and the company's true growth trigger was 9/11 and Bush's declaration of war in Iraq.

Mr. Scahill follows Blackwater's evolution chronologically, building from the widely reported deaths of four Blackwater mercenaries in Fallujah to the hiring of such well-connected individuals as former CIA director Cofer Black. The author describes the build-up of Blackwater's military capabilities, their repeated legal efforts to be held harmless for any misdeeds directed at foreign citizens, their insinutation into the Republican military policy-making machine, and the largesse they received from multiple no-bid contracts. Along the way, the families of Blackwater employees killed in action are marginalized or outright ignored whenever grieving parents have sought to learn more about the circumstances of their sons' deaths.

At times, Mr. Scahill regretably falls victim to the depth and extent of his own research, displaying an authorial propensity to "use it all" just because you have it. As a result, his writing occasionally bogs down in minutiae that slow the pacing and encumber the reader with more information than he or she needs or can even digest. In addition, the book lurches occasionally from Erik Prince and Blackwater to lesser characters like Jose Miguel Pizarro and Joseph Schmitz that could have easily been shortened without losing their relevance to the overall Blackwater story.

All else aside, the real story in BLACKWATER is the astonishing manner in which the United States government has turned over formerly military functions to companies and individuals who, regardless of their contentions to the contrary, are nothing more than mercenaries, soldiers for hire. These companies operate in a legal netherworld, seemingly free to sell their services to anyone they choose and to operate with impunity and reckless disregard for the lives of others. Scahill shows how companies like Blackwater are staffed with GI Joe wannabes now free to feed their most violent war fantasies at the expense of, for example, innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children. All the worse, Scahill's story of Blackwater's role in post-Katrina New Orleans should give pause to at least the few remaining moderate Republicans that bands of heavily-armed mercenaries can literally invade an American city in crisis and establish their own brand of martial order. Executives from Blackwater and similar companies insist they are not mercenaries, but as the saying goes and Scahill makes clear, "You can't put lipstick on a pig." Or to paraphrase Shakespeare in Hamlet, "Methinks they doth protest too much."

If Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novelistic predictions from IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE ever come to pass in the U.S., they will find their source in the same fascistic right wing elements Lewis attributed in his book. Events of America's last decade have certainly increased the odds, as have the formation and elevation of militantly Christian, right wing mercenary organizations like Blackwater. Sinclair Lewis warned us in 1935, Eisenhower warned us in 1961, and Jeffrey Scahill is warning us again in 2007. Is anybody listening?

so once you get past all the liberal propaganda and Scahill's obvious distaste for anything related to the american right, there's actually a generous amount of interesting info here.

Government contracts with Blackwater are changing the way this country deals with foreign conflicts and this book is a very eye opening account of some of the shocking things that are being done in Iraq under the name of the American people.

I did however have a problem with the book. even though it does present a lot of facts about Blackwater USA, the whole mercenary theme becomes a back drop for what turns into a bashing of the "corrupt" Bush Administration and how bad they've allegedly screwed the pooch with the war on terror. Now that things are actually looking up in Iraq, most of Scahill's leftist quips are ignorable but no less annoying.


definitely a good read, but be careful about believing all the words written here

This book is vague and redundant. It is not scholarly in the least. I want facts not vague and nebulous attacks on the founder of BlackWater. Let's just say the book sucks.

Wait two months and you can get this book for 2 bucks.

This book has a pretty blatant political agenda. The opinions expressed are strongly against mercenary companies doing business and replacing traditional military functions. That said, there is a wealth of information here difficult to find in the mainstream media. I suggest backchecking the references used to obtain even more information on the subject over the web. If you want to know more about this important subject and get a taste of what may happen in the future, I recommend you read this book and others.

The best book on the inside scoop of what's going on with subcontracting military.

Very well written, intriguing, complete and very informative.

The book lists random facts in a very disorganized fashon. I found it very hard to pay attention while reading.