Editorial

Even the least informed of Americans by now have an understanding of how deep, murky and polluted are the political rivers of Iraq, so it seems perfectly ironic that the American company now blamed for an increasing number of Iraqi civilian deaths should be named Blackwater, USA.

There is no truly polite or politically correct way to describe the company, so it is best to simply state the truth: Blackwater is a company of mercenaries for hire.

It’s front-line staff was initially comprised of ex-Navy SEALS, U.S. Army Special Forces and Rangers, and other experienced, elite American forces who had retired out and yet were still in their prime and willing to risk themselves one more time for the greatly increased pay and, in some ways, relaxed duty; that is, the assignments were to protect U.S. State Department officials and VIP’s, not to go rooting out terrorists or insurgents from unfriendly desert towns or mountain caves.

The first year or two of Mr. Bush’s Iraq War these men largely performed as might be expected from such highly trained and experienced soldiers; that is, they did their job and were both efficient and discreet, or at least as discreet as is possible when heavily armed in a war zone.

But then the expansive plans of Mr. Bush and his neo-con officials and advisors failed to meet goals and timelines, and the original contracts of the Blackwater forces began to come up for renewal. A great many of the original hires decided they’d made some good money, giving them a boost in their personal plans for homes, businesses and if nothing else an economic hedge against the future in addition to their military retirement, and since they were still alive and healthy they simply got out and went back to their families and loved ones.

According to reports, Blackwater scrambled to try to maintain the same level of professionalism, but was hard pressed to do so at the same time that the Bush Administration’s policies increased the demand for the company’s services. Recent reports indicate that at the very point when the company was expanding to meet the needs of its client, the state department, the pool of experienced personnel was dwindling, so that in the end a variety of people with minimal if any combat or even military experience were hired and put to work.

It seems as though Blackwater was caught in the same round-robin that the neo-con ‘intellectuals’ in and around the Bush Administration found themselves. It was a trap of their own making! Increasingly it was clear there was no easy or quick way out of the Iraq morass; in fact it had begun to take on the characteristics of a quagmire.

Just like the Bush Administration, Blackwater and its executives had few options. If they wanted to keep the company alive and enjoy the lucrative contracts being offered, they had to find the personnel, period.

So in the end it seems that the recruiting door was flung wide open to virtually anyone with the scantiest credentials who was willing to carry guns and hire out for great money to fight whomever the customer wanted fought.

Currently Blackwater’s most important if not primary client remains the U.S. State Department, under Condoleeza Rice. There are of course additional mercenary groups working as private contractors for other government agencies, who have so far escaped the media spotlight, probably because they have not been quite so colorful in their wild west, cowboy behavior. It would be healthy for the American public to be made aware of all these companies and their contractual functions.

But aside from such a wishful hope that the corporate owners of the media might actually find a market advantage in allowing good investigative news coverage, the main point is whether Americans want to allow the development of mercenary armies working parallel to the traditional armed forces? This is the real issue, the true point of danger!

Can a democracy expect to remain so if it is turning over its armed forces responsibilities, and ultimately its policing responsibilities, to private firms contracted to separate elements of the government, some of which are appointed, not elected?

History is quite declarative on this point, and it provides an unequivocal, resounding answer: NO. The very idea of private military or police forces is antithetical to democracy, the concept with the small ‘d.’

The Republicans have been selling the idea of private policing, private prison management, and now private military units for more than a quarter century. Not unexpectedly they’ve justified the idea on the grounds that it will be cost effective and, striking at the comfortable hearts of all of us, not require much from us.

Of course, in the end it is far more costly, in dollars and in the corruption and undermining of the democratic concepts and principles that are embodied in the upholding of the Constitution.

Establishing private armies is one of the most insidious tactics that the GOP has ever used, and it is reflective of an increasingly arrogant yet modern plutocracy.

Lessons from the mistakes of the smug Republican plutocrat’s of the 1920’s that led to the Great Depression are lost on the current leaders of the GOP, who have expediently mixed religious zealotry with overreaching capitalism.

Blackwater, in the end, is more than a self-created rogue wave, it is a dramatic storm warning of the dismal political swamp that is likely to result from it.

It’s all too easy to forget that when capitalism overrides or is able to ignore the natural checks and balances of democracy, it becomes fascism.

10/7/07