Chris Floyd: The Real World: Mercenaries, Murder and the American Way

[laststeamtrain]

The Real World: Mercenaries, Murder and the American Way
Written by Chris Floyd
Wednesday, 05 August 2009 22:10

Who could possibly have suspected this? A Beltway-wired mercenary company hired by the American government to act as freebooting muscle in the war of aggression against Iraq has been accused -- in sworn affidavits from company insiders -- of operating a murder and gun-running racket in order to push its hard-right owner's religious extremism. Can such a thing even be contemplated? Why, the next thing you know, they'll be telling us that good, clean-limbed, all-American agents used KGB-derived torture tactics against helpless captives or something!

And yet, incredible as it may seem, insiders from the company once known as Blackwater (and now going under the brand-name disguise of Xe) have given sworn statements implicating the company and its founder, Eric Prince, in killing Iraqi citizens for God and profit (as if there were any difference between the two amongst our gilded militarists), running guns to various militant factions in the conquered country -- and murdering potential witnesses who might testify in investigations of Blackwater's nefarious doings.

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What will come of these latest sworn allegations against Blackwater? A very likely scenario is that nothing will happen: Scahill's story will be swept away by the tsunami of trivia and idiocy that swamps the American political discourse day after day, year after year, and Blackwater - or Xe, or whatever new moniker the company's PR whizzes come up with -- will continue to gorge itself on public money and innocent blood in various countries around the world.

Or who knows? It may be that Prince and his boys have ended up on the wrong side of some factional tussle in the imperial backrooms, and will be trussed up as a sacrifice -- one of the periodic burnt offerings our leaders make to make the rubes back home believe that "the system still works." In some ways, this would be unjust; after all, Blackwater was just doing exactly what it was sent to do in Iraq -- which was exactly what the American military was sent to do in Iraq: i.e., kill a bunch of "ragheads" and impose America's "unipolar domination" on world affairs. Or, as Thomas Friedman put it with his customary eloquence, to tell the Ay-rabs to "Suck. On. This." Why should Eric Prince be punished for playing such a key role in what no less than Barack Obama himself has called "an extraordinary achievement" in Iraq?

Again, it is likely that Prince and Blackwater will get away clean, or at most with a light wrist tap for some minor infractions here and there. But even if they are found guilty of these heinous accusations, it is certain that the true architects of the mass murder of more than one million innocent human beings in Iraq -- who would be be alive today if not for the American invasion and the continuing occupation -- will never pay for their vastly greater crimes.

And the system that spawned these crimes will go on and on, "surging" into new atrocities and unnecessary deaths around the globe -- even while praising itself constantly, obsessively, pathologically, as a "force for peace" in the world.

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http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1811-the-real-world-mercenaries-murder-and-the-american-way.html

[scarletwoman]

1. Thanks for posting this. I loves me some Chris Floyd...

[patrice]

2. I wonder how much our Soldiers saw of what Blackwater was up to in Iraq, double

and triple crossing all sides, provoking Sunni and Shia alike in order to have an excuse to kill both. I wonder how much our Soldiers saw that they had to swear they would never talk about or acknowledge even after they get out of the military or risk prison or worse. I do wonder . . .

[KoKo]

3. Sad...but he's probably correct. What does it mean, though, when a Citzenry doesn't believe in

Justice for Crimes committed by the wealth and powerful Military/Industrial/Media Complex..anymore.

That's not a good thing. When folks don't believe in their governments anymore they either becomes slaves or they revolt. Either way...the scenario isn't good going forward.