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Scahill: Blackwater now in the private intelligence business

by Erik Larson | August 15, 2008 at 04:42 pm

206 views | 5 Recommendations | 3 comments

In another example of the continuing fascist merger between corporations and the State, no-bid government contracts favorite Blackwater is getting into intelligence work for corporations

Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, is worried about the giant mercenary firm's latest foray into private intelligence. "They're marketing their services to not only foreign governments, but to Fortune 500 corporations," he recently told an interviewer.

The forthcoming paperback edition of Scahill's book on Blackwater, which appeared in hardcover in February 2007, will include 100 pages of new material, including a discussion of last September's shooting spree in Baghdad by Blackwater operatives -- which killed 17 Iraqi civilians but for which nobody has ever been charged.

"This is a company that has been accused of murdering Iraqi civilians," Scahill pointed out, "of shooting the bodyguard to the Iraqi vice-president, of causing blowback attacks on United States troops, of hurting the morale of the United States military -- that has cost United States taxpayers over a billion dollars for its operations in Iraq."

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slimmey

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:30 on October 25th, 2008

Erik Larson, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Approx. a year ago, I held a presentation about Blackwater based upon this book. And indeed it do scare me that there is a considerable lack of insight for a non-governmental organisation.

Erik Larson

at 16:58 on October 25th, 2008

yeah, if the government has nothing to hide, they shouldn't mind transparency and the People and Congress maintaining oversight.

As they discovered in the 60's with the exposure of COINTELPRO and Operation Mockingbird, it's better to outsource dirty jobs to unnaccountable private companies, and pay them thru black budgets.