Blackwater
Ratings3
Average rating4.3
15
Ratings3
Average rating4.3
On September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad's Nisour Square leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled "Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide. This is the explosive story of a company that rose a decade ago from Moyock, North Carolina, to become one of the most powerful players in the "War on Terror." In his gripping bestseller, awardwinning journalist Jeremy Scahill takes us from the bloodied streets of Iraq to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans to the chambers of power in Washington, to expose Blackwater as the frightening new face of the U.S. war machine.
Reviews with the most likes.
You go into the book thinking Erik Prince is Darth Vader.
He's not. He's more akin to Director Krennic: a manipulator of corrupt institutions that simply don't value life.
The real shock of Scahill's excellent coverage is just how banal the evil of the mercenary business is. Much like imperialist and colonial military dogma, the expansion of the private security contractors–mercenaries–boils down to exploitation and indifference. Exploitation of government policy to procure highly suspect security contracts and indifference towards the lives of the foreign populations affected by private militaries that are not beholden to account for war crimes.
Not sure that this one needs my review but here goes. Do you want to scare yourself silly with the notion that there is an openly religious far right private army operating with relative impunity and mass amounts of public funding? If so, this one is going to be the book for you. Are you interested in corporate history and looking for the history of Blackwater? This one might not really be your jam. Don't get me wrong, there is history in there but it's feels like this book was really meant to drive home the point that this situation is dangerous.
It wasn't an unpleasant read but the tone and style have already aged.
