Just picked up a book on blackwater tonight. Was wondering what everyone thought about the Blackwater. Do you think its the future of national and global security?

I read the inside cover at the store which is what made me buy the book, it seems quite interesting, especially since they're based in North Carolina.

5/22/2007 10:29:26 PM

no. i think the future will still be based on the military at least national.

5/22/2007 10:40:58 PM

you mean national military vs. corporate military? Cause Blackwater is still a military, and considering the Bush administration is largely responsible for its formation...they also carry out many government issued assignments.

another thing I found interesting is the fact that those 'American civilians' they showed years ago on TV that were killed, burned, and hung from a bridge in Iraq that the news played out to be attacks on civilians, were infact soldiers from Blackwater.

20,000 troops is a lot for a private army.


[Edited on May 22, 2007 at 10:46 PM. Reason : fda]

5/22/2007 10:43:05 PM

I am not particularly a fan of groups like Blackwater. This whole ridiculous ruse of the Bush administration to outsource government functions to private contractors is undermining legitimate government institutions. We are not reducing the size of government. We are outsourcing our critical governmental functions to private contractors at several times the cost and with no recourse or oversight. If we have a shortage of capacity in our military infrastructure, we should expand the size of our military.

For example, we should have military supply units providing food, water and laundry for our troops, not Kellog, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton. Do you know we pay them $100 per bag of laundry? Its very possible that the influence of such organizations helped push us into this war in the first place.

5/22/2007 10:58:25 PM

^i agree, that is also part of the argument in this new book. It boils down to, private 'armies' like Blackwater, threaten democracy and American way of life. They have the financing and the power to keep those they want in power.

5/22/2007 11:00:55 PM

^
Which is exactly why campaign finance reform is the most underrated and misunderstood yet fundamental issue to maintaining a democratic nation. I actually liked some of the things Mitt Romney had to say and then I saw a clip of him where he vowed to repeal the McCain-Feingold Act if elected. Evidently, corporations not being able to directly buy politicians is a violation of free speech?

[Edited on May 22, 2007 at 11:08 PM. Reason : .]

5/22/2007 11:06:46 PM

So what was the Bush Administration's motivation to start relying so heavily on contractors?

It's doesn't really make much sense, other than to make the war seem smaller than it is

5/22/2007 11:31:50 PM

well the man who runs blackwater is also the man who 'funds' bush

5/22/2007 11:33:15 PM

the manchurian candidate

5/22/2007 11:36:41 PM

Quote :

"So what was the Bush Administration's motivation to start relying so heavily on contractors?"

oh i dont know, how the fact that our military was (and is) completely overextended.

5/22/2007 11:36:54 PM

That's not sinister enough.

What other explanations are there?

5/22/2007 11:38:51 PM

Private contracted security groups can be hung out to dry and it will reflect more upon the contracted group rather than the government. The government can always just claim that the group was hired only to carry out, say, standard security patrols in a city, and not operate death squads or something like that. Then they can launch a full investigation and look like the good guys, while setting up another security group to go out and do the same thing.

5/22/2007 11:49:31 PM

The Prince
by Niccoló Machiavelli (1469-1527)

Chapter XII
HOW MANY KINDS OF SOLDIERY THERE ARE, AND CONCERNING MERCENARIES

HAVING discoursed particularly on the characteristics of such principalities as in the beginning I proposed to discuss, and having considered in some degree the causes of their being good or bad, and having shown the methods by which many have sought to acquire them and to hold them, it now remains for me to discuss generally the means of offence and defence which belong to each of them.

We have seen above how necessary it is for a prince to have his foundations well laid, otherwise it follows of necessity he will go to ruin. The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws. I shall leave the laws out of the discussion and shall speak of the arms.

I say, therefore, that the arms with which a prince defends his state are either his own, or they are mercenaries, auxiliaries, or mixed. Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but if war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe; which I should have little trouble to prove, for the ruin of Italy has been caused by nothing else than by resting all her hopes for many years on mercenaries, and although they formerly made some display and appeared valiant amongst themselves, yet when the foreigners came they showed what they were. Thus it was that Charles, King of France, was allowed to seize Italy with chalk in hand;* and he who told us that our sins were the cause of it told the truth, but they were not the sins he imagined, but those which I have related. And as they were the sins of princes, it is the princes who have also suffered the penalty.

* With which to chalk up the billets for his soldiers.

I wish to demonstrate further the infelicity of these arms. The mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not; if they are, you cannot trust them, because they always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their master, or others contrary to your intentions; but if the captain is not skilful, you are ruined in the usual way.

And if it be urged that whoever is armed will act in the same way, whether mercenary or not, I reply that when arms have to be resorted to, either by a prince or a republic, then the prince ought to go in person and perform the duty of captain; the republic has to send its citizens, and when one is sent who does not turn out satisfactorily, it ought to recall him, and when one is worthy, to hold him by the laws so that he does not leave the command. And experience has shown princes and republics, single-handed, making the greatest progress, and mercenaries doing nothing except damage; and it is more difficult to bring a republic, armed with its own arms, under the sway of one of its citizens than it is to bring one armed with foreign arms. Rome and Sparta stood for many ages armed and free. The Switzers are completely armed and quite free.

Of ancient mercenaries, for example, there are the Carthaginians, who were oppressed by their mercenary soldiers after the first war with the Romans, although the Carthaginians had their own citizens for captains. After the death of Epaminondas, Philip of Macedon was made captain of their soldiers by the Thebans, and after victory he took away their liberty.

Duke Filippo being dead, the Milanese enlisted Francesco Sforza against the Venetians, and he, having overcome the enemy at Caravaggio, allied himself with them to crush the Milanese, his masters. His father, Sforza, having been engaged by Queen Johanna of Naples, left her unprotected, so that she was forced to throw herself into the arms of the King of Aragon, in order to save her kingdom. And if the Venetians and Florentines formerly extended their dominions by these arms, and yet their captains did not make themselves princes, but have defended them, I reply that the Florentines in this case have been favoured by chance, for of the able captains, of whom they might have stood in fear, some have not conquered, some have been opposed, and others have turned their ambitions elsewhere. One who did not conquer was Giovanni Acuto,* and since he did not conquer his fidelity cannot be proved; but every one will acknowledge that, had he conquered, the Florentines would have stood at his discretion. Sforza had the Bracceschi always against him, so they watched each other. Francesco turned his ambition to Lombardy; Braccio against the Church and the kingdom of Naples. But let us come to that which happened a short while ago. The Florentines appointed as their captain Paolo Vitelli, a most prudent man, who from a private position had risen to the greatest renown. If this man had taken Pisa, nobody can deny that it would have been proper for the Florentines to keep in with him, for if he became the soldier of their enemies they had no means of resisting, and if they held to him they must obey him. The Venetians, if their achievements are considered, will be seen to have acted safely and gloriously so long as they sent to war their own men, when with armed gentlemen and plebeians they did valiantly. This was before they turned to enterprises on land, but when they began to fight on land they forsook this virtue and followed the custom of Italy. And in the beginning of their expansion on land, through not having much territory, and because of their great reputation, they had not much to fear from their captains; but when they expanded, as under Carmignola, they had a taste of this mistake; for, having found him a most valiant man (they beat the Duke of Milan under his leadership), and, on the other hand, knowing how lukewarm he was in the war, they feared they would no longer conquer under him, and for this reason they were not willing, nor were they able, to let him go; and so, not to lose again that which they had acquired, they were compelled, in order to secure themselves, to murder him. They had afterwards for their captains Bartolomeo da Bergamo, Roberto da San Severino, the Count of Pitigliano, and the like, under whom they had to dread loss and not gain, as happened afterwards at Vaila, where in one battle they lost that which in eight hundred years they had acquired with so much trouble. Because from such arms conquests come but slowly, long delayed and inconsiderable, but the losses sudden and portentous.

* As Sir John Hawkwood, the English leader of mercenaries, was called by the Italians.

And as with these examples I have reached Italy, which has been ruled for many years by mercenaries, I wish to discuss them more seriously, in order that, having seen their rise and progress, one may be better prepared to counteract them. You must understand that the empire has recently come to be repudiated in Italy, that the Pope has acquired more temporal power, and that Italy has been divided up into more states, for the reason that many of the great cities took up arms against their nobles, who, formerly favoured by the emperor, were oppressing them, whilst the Church was favouring them so as to gain authority in temporal power: in many others their citizens became princes. From this it came to pass that Italy fell partly into the hands of the Church and of republics, and, the Church consisting of priests and the republic of citizens unaccustomed to arms, both commenced to enlist foreigners.

The first who gave renown to this soldiery was Alberigo da Conio, a native of the Romagna. From the school of this man sprang, among others, Braccio and Sforza, who in their time were the arbiters of Italy. After these came all the other captains who till now have directed the arms of Italy; and the end of all their valour has been, that she has been overrun by Charles, robbed by Louis, ravaged by Ferdinand, and insulted by the Switzers. The principle that has guided them has been, first, to lower the credit of infantry so that they might increase their own. They did this because, subsisting on their pay and without territory, they were unable to support many soldiers, and a few infantry did not give them any authority; so they were led to employ cavalry, with a moderate force of which they were maintained and honoured; and affairs were brought to such a pass that, in an army of twenty thousand soldiers, there were not to be found two thousand foot soldiers. They had, besides this, used every art to lessen fatigue and danger to themselves and their soldiers, not killing in the fray, but taking prisoners and liberating without ransom. They did not attack towns at night, nor did the garrisons of the towns attack encampments at night; they did not surround the camp either with stockade or ditch, nor did they campaign in the winter. All these things were permitted by their military rules, and devised by them to avoid, as I have said, both fatigue and dangers; thus they have brought Italy to slavery and contempt.

5/22/2007 11:49:58 PM

^are we supposed to skip over your post? or is that supposed to be a thread killer? or did u forget to include your insight on what you just posted? Its late and i'm sure no one feels like reading a bunch of words.

5/22/2007 11:54:14 PM

it's from THE PRINCE, asshat

read and learn

5/22/2007 11:54:57 PM

I do read, I saw it was from the Prince, and I do learn. What I don't do, is read posts on the wolf web that exceed a certain length mainly because The Wolf Web is NOT learning 9 times out of 10 and thus i don't like wasting my time.

IF you were to say "Read _______ because ________" and then gave us a reason on why we should read it, then i'd probably go look it up myself and read it.

[Edited on May 22, 2007 at 11:56 PM. Reason : fda]

5/22/2007 11:55:58 PM

well, i didn't

i wanted to post the entire thing, right there

because I CAN

for effect

5/22/2007 11:57:26 PM

oh ok

5/22/2007 11:57:43 PM

Quote :

"Its very possible that the influence of such [private mercenary and logisitics] organizations helped push us into this war in the first place."

ya think???

5/23/2007 1:29:45 AM

the accounting firm i interned with audited blackwater. my friend got placed on that audit. they let him go out on the range and fire guns for inventory tests. also gave him live demos of anti-tank explosives and artillery iirc. those guys are hardcore.

5/23/2007 1:39:43 AM

yeah, i'll bet they are.

just think: all the training and hardware that the US military has, with none of the accountability to government oversight or controls.

5/23/2007 1:43:04 AM

im fine with not maintaining a huge army and letting contractors take care of some of the duties. blackwater is a big organization but the majority is performing service roles. i think more oversight is needed so our taxpayers or troops arent getting screwed over, but there is definitely a place for private military firms.

5/23/2007 5:56:26 AM

^ where pray tell?

5/23/2007 7:55:40 AM

Mercenaries and private armies have been prominent throughout history, it's unsuprising that they are used today.

Quote :

"just think: all the training and hardware that the US military has, with none of the accountability to government oversight or controls."

Accountability and oversight huh? Aren't you one of the people here that keeps going on about how the Abu Garib incident is an example of corruption running through the entire chain? What good is oversight if your overseers are just as corrupt?

Quote :

"^ where pray tell?"

To suplement a regular army for one.

5/23/2007 8:26:05 AM

Sorta reminds me of the Sturmabteilung

5/23/2007 8:41:43 AM

^Then you're an idiot

5/23/2007 8:45:44 AM

Quote :

"To suplement a regular army for one."

When does our Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force need supplementing? And what do the Reserves and the National Guard do?

5/23/2007 8:55:23 AM

I'd much rather not have the contractors, and have less rules of engagement for our regular soldiers.

5/23/2007 10:50:22 AM

^ I can agree with that


as for Blackwater, they also train civilians and LEOs

they are not strictly paramilitary

5/23/2007 10:51:17 AM

Quote :

"less rules of engagement"

can't begin to imagine how many soldiers lives that would save. not to mention how much more effective the military would be.

5/23/2007 10:58:57 AM

yeah, we need to fix the rules of engagement

5/23/2007 11:00:12 AM

Quote :

"When does our Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force need supplementing? And what do the Reserves and the National Guard do?"

Well, for example, you could use private armies for regular patrols within non combat zones, freeing up more of your regular army for use in combat zones. Not saying it would ever happen, but surely you could see the usefulness in using mercenaries for things like the armed guards that follow our politicians around on their Iraq sight seeing tours rather than pulling regular soldiers from their normal posts.

Protection of contractors and reconstruction firms is also useful. Our army is designed for fighting very specific types of fights, and are ill suited for what amounts to security guard work for the various reconstruction projects. Why waste valuble soldiers when you can hire a mercenary to do the same thing, and not have to pay for their medical bills afterwards.

Quote :

"yeah, we need to fix the rules of engagement"

Agreed, but even doing that, mercenaries would still be a part of warfare, and on a general political position, private armies are one way of keeping the government in check.

5/23/2007 11:30:18 AM

Quote :

"private armies are one way of keeping the government in check."

wrong. Private armies is one way of keeping the wrong people in power and the people oppressed.

5/23/2007 11:36:29 AM

private militias could help keep the govt in check if need be


sadly, if that happened they would probably be working for the govt instead of the people

5/23/2007 11:38:34 AM

I dated a guy who worked there. He was not allowed to talk about much of what went on there, but from what I was able to see, this is a shady operation.

5/23/2007 3:07:22 PM

Quote :

"private armies are one way of keeping the government in check."

jesus christ.

you're either completely clueless, or totally deranged.

5/23/2007 4:06:32 PM

they got any summer jobs?

5/23/2007 4:08:17 PM

Quote :

"wrong. Private armies is one way of keeping the wrong people in power and the people oppressed."

Private armies, like any other instrument of power, can be used for both good and evil. If the people are the private army, how pray tell do the people oppress themselves (in a general sense, I'm well aware that not all the people would neccesarily be part of the private army, nor would people of the private army be happy with the rules set forth)

Quote :

"sadly, if that happened they would probably be working for the govt instead of the people"

Very possible, but remember, as the quote from the long dead prince above points out, the mercenary's loyalty begins and ends at the paycheck.

Quote :

"jesus christ. you're either completely clueless, or totally deranged. "

How so? If military might is not the sole domain of the government, then the government can not easily use military might to force it's will upon the people.

I am not saying that blackwater or any other specific private army will be a tool against our government being opressive. I am saying that a private army can be such a tool.

5/23/2007 4:24:45 PM

Quote :

"Private armies, like any other instrument of power, can be used for both good and evil. If the people are the private army, how pray tell do the people oppress themselves (in a general sense, I'm well aware that not all the people would neccesarily be part of the private army, nor would people of the private army be happy with the rules set forth)"

true...except power corrupts and someone has to lead or be in charge of said armies...I'd bet my money on the fact that he won't be pro-people if he has the opportunity to empower himself or if the gov. keeps him happy via $$$

5/23/2007 4:26:28 PM

I disagree with our government's use of Blackwater and other firms for military purposes. We pay them enough money so that the company can make a profit and the soldier for hire makes a six figure income while our own troops barely make enough for their families to live modestly? THAT IS UTTERLY FUCKING RIDICULOUS!

The US government paid Blackwater over 30 million dollars for security work in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They were deputized by the state of Louisiana officially making them LEOs.
Imagine being a citizen of New Orleans and being ordered around by an out of state contractor in full paramilitary gear who is carrying an automatic weapon.

It is no surprise that the Blackwater president (Prince?) gave over $80k to Bush's campaign in 2000 and has continued to be a major backer of candidates that support his company. Why should he care? His company was bringing in over $100,000 in revenues per day off the US government for Katrina work alone. Work that is exponentially safer than the work that his contractors do in Iraq.

[Edited on May 23, 2007 at 5:49 PM. Reason : s]

5/23/2007 5:47:51 PM

So basically, Blackwater is a tool of the Jews?

5/23/2007 5:48:26 PM

^well if someone is making a lot of money off of it, must be.

5/23/2007 5:51:48 PM

Oh Blackwater, keep on rollin'! Mississippi moon won't you keep on shining on me?

5/23/2007 10:17:11 PM

There's a bathroom on the right

5/23/2007 10:19:07 PM

Wrong artist.

5/23/2007 10:42:41 PM

Quote :

"We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

5/23/2007 10:52:52 PM

A private military sounds like a bad idea, legions of the Roman empire anyone. I know they weren't private but their organization and virtual autonomy at times caused lots of problems

5/23/2007 11:33:57 PM

^reminds me of how several Caesars came to power. Having a army behind them makes them extremely 'political'

5/23/2007 11:44:48 PM

Quote :

"^ where pray tell? "

providing security for various visiting people, infrastructure support, trucking supplies, etc...

5/23/2007 11:51:36 PM

yeah with much of our national guard and troops overseas blackwater is going to go to action after dems win the 08 elections.

long live emperor bush

5/24/2007 8:16:07 AM