On September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad's Nisour Square leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled "Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide.
This is the explosive story of a company that rose a decade ago from Moyock, North Carolina, to become one of the most powerful players in the "War on Terror." In his gripping bestseller, awardwinning journalist Jeremy Scahill takes us from the bloodied streets of Iraq to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans to the chambers of power in Washington, to expose Blackwater as the frightening new face of the U.S. war machine.
* Winner of the George Polk Book Award * Alternet Best Book of the Year * Barnes & Noble one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007 * Amazon one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007
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.
