Mercenaries to drop Guitar Hero, X360s over Afghanistan (Blackwater)

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/8487-mercenaries-to-drop-guitar-hero-x360s-over-afghanistan/


Video games to aid in recruitment



It pays to be a mercenary, folks, it pays in games. The controversial private military/security contractor/mercenary company (whichever you prefer) Blackwater Worldwide is getting its recruiters to distribute consoles and popular games among American forces in Iraq to 'spread good will.' Evidently former military personnel make up the majority of Blackwater employees.

As an Associated Press profile (fascinating in itself) on the company shows:

Blackwater recruiter James Overton is working on packing a Microsoft Xbox video-game console, modem, TV projector and "Guitar Hero" video game into a kit that can be kicked out of a Blackwater cargo plane and dropped to troops in Afghanistan.

"When I was in Baghdad, we'd bring soldiers over to our camp over there, and we'd play this thing for hours on end," Overton said. "Every (military) place I've ever been to overseas, they've got like backgammon and Parcheesi and chess, and they're all gathering dust. But this is the stuff they play at home. And any semblance of home we can give them is best."

"Schedule for today: kill Iraqis all day, play Guitar Hero all night. Sleep. Repeat." Oh dear.



Background

Blackwater is based in the U.S. state of North Carolina, where it operates a tactical training facility that it claims is the world's largest. The company trains more than 40,000 people a year, from U.S. or foreign military and police services, as well as other U.S. government agencies. The training consists of military offensive and defensive operations, as well as smaller scale personnel security. Technologies used and techniques trained are not limited by U.S. domestic law, although it is unclear what legal status Blackwater operates under in the U.S. and other countries, or what protection the U.S. extends to Blackwater operations globally.

[noamnety]

1. So basically

We give soccer balls to the Iraqi children whose families we've killed to win their hearts and minds, and the contractors give guitar hero to our troops to win their hearts and minds after electrocuting them.