A scathing article by Jeremy Scahill, author of the definitive book on the mercenary company once known as Blackwater, has appeared in The Nation, called Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan. The criminally-run firm is also waging war against Afghanistan and - this information is newly public - Uzbekistan.War has become immensely profitable for Blackwater, and its owner, Erik Prince, wants to destroy Islam. His firm, according to Scahill, is involved in all sorts of questionable operations in central Asia. His war - paid for by U.S. tax dollars - was so compartmentalized under the Bush administration, that the President didn't even know about it. That may have continued up until publication of the article.
The fact that Obama's administration has widened the role of incredibly expensive mercenaries in Iaq, Afghanistn, Pakistan and elsewhere has long troubled me. Some of my Lower 48 blogging friends are preparing to bring the new revelations about the illegality of Blackwater's secret operations to the attention of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, upon which Sen. Mark Begich sits.
Here's Jeffrey Scahill on Grit TV today:
And here is Scahill on MSNBC's Morning Joe:
The increasing evidence that President Obama is expanding illegal or questionable war policies of the Bush administration is troubling, to say the least. Here's Glenn Greenwald's view on what it all seems to be adding up to:
So, to recap: we have indefinite detention, military commissions, Blackwater assassination squads, escalation in Afghanistan, extreme secrecy to shield executive lawbreaking from judicial review, renditions, and denials of habeas corpus. These are not policies Obama has failed yet to uproot; they are policies he has explicitly advocated and affirmatively embraced as his own.
Here's a new film by Robert Greenwald that touches upon aspects of this problem:
