Blackwater is Soaked
Oct. 15, 2007 issue – The colonel was furious. “Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers.” He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad’s Green Zone….
I find the fact that the US government is using private companies to wage war – mercenary armies validated by US law – terrifying. The Pentagon outsources roughly half its budget, and it’s still trending upwards.
It seems like little more than a flimsy excuse to sidestep judicial oversight and public accountability. The government has certain duties to the people, and other nations; private companies do not. I suppose it’s simply an advance on the concept of “plausible deniability.” Perhaps more concerning – it’s the “military-industrial complex” brought to life. When you spend a few hundred billion a year, companies spring up to happily take some of it. They then have money to finance a lobbying organization to expand or maintain the amount spent on their industry.
Given some of the accusations leveled at Blackwater – a for-profit organization that seems to ignore both the spirit and the letter of the law when they think they can get away with it, not to mention general incompetence – I’m not comfortable letting Blackwater and similar organizations run amock.
I would prefer to live in a country where I can trust the government. Or, at the very least, where the government is intrinsically harmless.
Right now, neo-conservatives seem to be obsessed with making a minority of hangers-on and yes-men rich, at the expense of America. We are establishing organizations with a direct incentive to reduce American liberties, commit moral atrocities, lie, and steal from the public. As anyone whose taken Microeconomics – or psychology – knows, people respond to incentives.
That’s not pleasant to consider.
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