Thursday, October 18th, 2007
On Saturday, the Washington Post published a good piece on Blackwater and its owner, Erik Prince. Its interesting to see how fast the company has grown over the last ten years, and how the initial vision was adapted to leverage the political climate created after the Yemen bombing and 9/11.
Building Blackwater - washingtonpost.com
Blackwater has an airstrip and hangar filled with gleaming helicopters, a manufacturing plant for assembling armored cars, a pound filled with bomb-sniffing dogs and a lake with mock ships for training sailors.
I read a good piece in a similar vein a week back. It pointed out that one of Cheney’s last acts as Sec. Def. under Bush 1 was to commission a study on how to privatize the military bureaucracy (necessary for running large mercenary corps) that directly resulted in companies like Blackwater. I just wonder if they’re cheaper than the normal military? I’ve seen stats both ways but Americans are giant liars when it comes to issues like this (and health care) so I don’t know what to believe.
Comment by Brother Greg — October 18, 2007 @ 2:03 pm