BLACKWATER WATCH

Blackwater: The World’s Largest Mercenary Army

“Blackwater is a company that began in 1996 as a private military training facility in — it was built near the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina. And visionary executives, all of them former Navy Seals
or other Elite Special Forces people, envisioned it as a project that
would take advantage of the anticipated government outsourcing.

Well, here we are a decade later, and it’s the most powerful mercenary firm in the world. It has 20,000 soldiers on the ready, the world’s largest private military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft,
including helicopter gunships. It’s become nothing short of the
Praetorian Guard for the Bush administration’s so-called global war on
terror. And it’s headed by a very rightwing Christian activist, ex-Navy
Seal named Erik Prince, whose family was one of the major bankrollers of
the Republican Revolution of the 1990s. He, himself, is a significant
funder of President Bush and his allies.”

— Jeremy Scahill, from an interview on Democracy Now.

Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army

Meet BLACKWATER USA, the world’s most secretive and powerful mercenary
firm. Based in the wilderness of North Carolina, it is the
fastest-growing private army on the planet with forces capable of
carrying out regime change throughout the world. Blackwater protects the
top US officials in Iraq and yet we know almost nothing about the
firm’s quasi-military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and inside the US.
Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist
Christian mega-millionaire ex- Navy Seal named Erik Prince, the scion of
a wealthy conservative family that bankrolls far-right-wing causes.

Blackwater is the dark story of the rise of a powerful mercenary army, ranging from the blood-soaked streets of Fallujah to rooftop firefights in Najaf to the hurricane-ravaged US gulf to Washington DC,
where Blackwater executives are hailed as new heroes in the war on
terror. This is an extraordinary exposé by one of America’s most
exciting young radical journalists.

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