Rules of Blackwater

'Blackwater Faced Bedlam, Embassy Finds: 'First Blush' Report Raises New Questions on Shooting,' By Steve Fainaru and Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, September 28, 2007; Page A01

The Blackwater story, the more it comes out, sounds like a private security company version of that Samuel Jackson movie of a while back--"Rules of Engagement."

Comments

[Smitten Eagle]

Ironically, Sen Jim Webb, one of the most vocal men of the chattering class, wrote the screenplay for that Rules of Engagement flick.

Somehow I doubt he's in favor of a robust SysAdmin...

[J. Mooney]

I don't buy their story for one minute. That happened very near my unit's area of responsibility, and recently, such complex attacks HAVE JUST NOT BEEN HAPPENING. Perhaps a car bomb did go off . . . but Blackwater's Johnny Rambos just used it as an excuse to cause mayhem. You don't hear of US soldiers, or Iraqi soldiers for that matter, lighting up two dozen local nationals after a car bomb anymore. The only bedlam there was came from Blackwater itself.

[Tom Barnett]

The problem here is that Blackwater really is the Pinkertons of this age. If you remember the Pinkertons, they were a nasty lot who crossed plenty of lines. Over time they get reined in and cleaned up, but if we keep using Blackwater in these frontier situations, don't expect that to be fast, but rather on a case-by-case basis--as in, they wear out their welcome here, and then there, and so on.

To diminish their role is to boost the SysAdmin's uniform end-strength, and that's a big commitment--beyond the opening bid of 92k.