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tragicmushrooms's review against another edition
4.0
overall pretty dry, fact-based reporting, but the story itself is very engrossing and chilling, and has only gotten worse since this book was published. blackwater remains one of the most sinister and terrifying corporations in the entire world.
atripp277's review against another edition
This book is 600 pages of terrifying and infuriating information. It's a brilliant piece of work, but I'm pretty sure I'm on a government list now just for buying it.
rickyblue's review against another edition
3.0
It really is a fascinating and horrifying story but I'm not sure the dashing Mr. Scahill is really cut out for this kind of writing. I would agree with some of the other reviews that sometimes it's hard to focus on what's important because every tiny detail gets the full treatment. It's almost like a catalogue of data. It's clear that he's not in it for the storytelling anyway. Sometimes it's not quite easy to tell what his point is. Like, okay, this seems a little odd, but explain to me the ramifications. Otherwise, while I do agree with his suspicion of many an American christianity, his big dramatic punchline will be that some guy invoked god at some official event. Yeah, it kind of creeps me out when military people start talking about god like they're on some kind of a holy crusade but it seems to me it's relatively commonplace.
That being said. There is a lot in this book to be concerned or even outraged about. Whether it's private contractors circumventing the law, cronyism in government bleeding our country dry in a wasteful and destructive manner, or armed mercenaries patrolling the streets of an American city. One prays that the military industrial complex will get so large it will implode into itself. And I guess that's what I would have liked to see more of, context in the broader picture.
Don't get me wrong, there is a heap of fascinating information here and several interesting characters. And I wouldn't quite say the writing is bad; his writing is fine. It just doesn't seem like he's trying to engage you in a narrative.
That being said. There is a lot in this book to be concerned or even outraged about. Whether it's private contractors circumventing the law, cronyism in government bleeding our country dry in a wasteful and destructive manner, or armed mercenaries patrolling the streets of an American city. One prays that the military industrial complex will get so large it will implode into itself. And I guess that's what I would have liked to see more of, context in the broader picture.
Don't get me wrong, there is a heap of fascinating information here and several interesting characters. And I wouldn't quite say the writing is bad; his writing is fine. It just doesn't seem like he's trying to engage you in a narrative.
redsg's review against another edition
3.0
Blackwater is a book I had been very interested in reading for some time now, due to a couple of reasons: 1) the Nisour Square Massacre was a prominent political event that was as fascinating as it was horrifying and 2) the author, Jeremy Scahill, is someone I consider to be one of the greatest journalists working today.
Alas, I probably should have taken a look at the publication date before I jumped into the text. Blackwater was published in early 2007, in fact, a full 7 months before Nisour Square even happened. What this means is that it's scope wasn't borne out of this tragic massacre but instead was borne out of Scahill's growing concern about the use of mercenaries in the U.S. war machine. It's not that this makes the book bad, it's that it makes it more concerned about the larger picture than the smaller personal events that were the result of this bureaucratic move, which in turn results in a dense work that isn't as engaging as it should be.
Let me put it this way- rather than show the effects of mercenaries and contractors on the ground, Scahill is more interested in talking about how those forces got to the position that they were (are?) in, with civilian casualties and victims treated like pure statistical information. To be fair, I did read the 2008 updated version of the book, which included a new introduction by Scahill that recounted Nisour Square in relative detail, but it feels very tacked on, which in turn makes sense given that the civilian side was never the focus of Scahill.
I know there are plenty of people who will have no problem with this, believing the macro picture to be far more important than the micro affairs that adorn the Middle East post-US invasions. And I agree in principle: we have to work on changing the sociopolitical machinations that lead to the emergence and proliferation of war profiteers and war criminals. However, it wasn't a mutally-exclusive decision: Scahill could have had a healthy balance of general history with anecdotal accounts, and I cite Jim Frederick's Black Hearts as a pristine example of someone pulling this off.
In Black Hearts (you can read my review for it here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2468103205?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1) Frederick succeeded in incorporating the greater historical changes whilst still keeping the focus on the individuals who were directly involved in the causes/effects of the Iraq War. Now of course, Frederick's topic of choice was much smaller in range than Scahill's, but I strongly believe Scahill could have done more to make things more, for lack of a better term, idiosyncratic to the people of Iraq (to be fair, he does this once when he recounts the USMC's Sieges of Fallujah, but that is a small part in the grand scheme of the novel). Instead what you get is chapter after chapter about profits and contracts reaped by these mercenary groups whilst they continue to operate in these foreign countries unaccountable.
It's not that this information isn't interesting; quite the contrary, Scahill does a remarkable job of breaking down the behind-the-scenes negotiations, corruption, and tactics that resulted in massive political changes for mercs- these are all things that the American (and worldwide) public should be blatantly aware of. However, because it's more about reiterating events of the past, discussing business deals, and pointing out minutiae details about MANY individuals, you do get a text that is more dense than normal and consequently less engaging to non-academic readers. I personally found myself putting down the book for days at a time because I was not able to get caught up in the narrative Scahill was weaving, which is sad given how ridiculous and aggravating the prominence of contractors and private industries in the war effort are.
Not helping Scahill are three unfortunate critiques I have: one, he just isn't as gifted a writer as the aforestated late, great Jim Frederick or fellow journalist Matt Taibbi. Scahill's sentences are more interested in packing some new fact or observation than giving you breathing room, building up the tension, or fleshing out existing ideas...all things that go a long way towards retaining intrigue. He also overuses the word "lucrative" when describing contracts (seriously mate, wasn't there a thesaurus on hand?) and I flat-out hated the way Scahill would incorporate in-text quotes. 9 times out of 10, it wouldn't feel like a continuation of a sentence he started, but instead a haphazard merge between something he was saying and something the other person had said, which irked me since it was an easy fix!
Here's a small example of what I mean from a paragraph in Chapter 3: "Clark says during training sessions he 'gave everybody everything I had when I had them.'" - Scahill starts off in third person, then intermixes a quote from the first person. How do you make such an obvious syntactic mistake? You could've easily fixed it by setting up the quote instead of trying to unnaturally fit itn with your ongoing sentence i.e.. "Clark said of the training sessions 'I gave everybody everything I had....'"
The second critique is that the book not put together well. It's as though Scahill and the editor could not decide how to organize the sheer amount of data present in their research and so made the last-minute choice to flip between three variations: chronological, topical, and historical. Seriously, sometimes you'll be reading about a train of sequential events, only for the next chapter to switch gears and talk about a specific sect of the industry only for the follow-up to then speak about some black ops action years ago only for the next section to RETURN to a single thing that was mentioned in that first part. It's not anthological and it's not divided cogently. Blackwater could have been much better had it been edited in a way that was consistent.
The third is that, too often, Scahill puts his own personal biases against Blackwater (now called Academi) and other security contractors at the expense of more powerful arguments that would have gone a long way towards having universal appeal. Keep one thing in mind- we need bipartisan support if we are to do a massive overhaul of the military-industrial complex, and by bipartisan I don't mean representatives of political parties I mean the political demographics of the American people. Whether you are conservative, liberal, libertarian, moderate, progressive, etc....you will be pissed off at how billions of dollars of your taxpayer money are being funneled into a system of contracts that lack oversight and are consequently exploited by mercenary firms to reap even more coin from Uncle Sam (aka your pocketbook): all this is going on whilst the American people are denied basic services like national healthcare. THAT is the fact that will rile up the masses and get them united against this lobbying group.
And yet, Scahill rarely puts that at the forefront of any of his exposés. It's often a tangential detail that is meant to be implied than directly stated (i.e. "company X won a $15 billion contract...", not "company X stole $15 billion of taxpayer money...."). No, instead what gets the limelight are details meant to alienate/scapegoat particular right-wing groups. Scahill frequently makes the case that it's purely the Republicans who are to blame for the rise of privatization, scantily mentioning that privatization began major initiatives under the Clinton Administration. He conveniently ignores all but one time that, once the Democrats won back Congress in 2006, they didn't do anything to curb the progression of contractors outside of getting more public documentation/disclosures from committees that the GOP had tried to hide- information that they then preceded to do nothing with. It's also beyond amusing to see him prop up then-Senator Obama as this major anti-merc figure at the end given that Obama would go on to not only utilize Blackwater, but further expand the # of contractors in U.S. areas of conflict (though I understand Scahill couldn't have predicted the future).
Look, I'm not trying to act like there isn't a difference between the two parties in terms of how they viewed the rise of private armies- Scahill gives enough evidence and verbatim statements from politicians from both parties that indicate the Democrats at least somewhat care about accountability compared to the insane zealotry of the Republicans. But when the Democratic effort is pathetically weak, you should be providing EVEN HARSHER criticisms given that they're supposed to be the OPPOSITION. “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”- But no, Dems just get a small slap on the wrist and are paraded around by Scahill as civil liberties champions whose voices were stifled by the big bad government (never mind the media power the Dems had at the fingertips courtesy of establishment network giants like CNN and MSNBC). You aren't getting any conservatives on your side this way.
Worse is when Scahill attempts to make the case that there is a Crusader-esque, Racial Holy War being waged by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and co. against the Middle Eastern residents of Iraq. He spends a whole chapter (and makes repeated throwbacks to) Prince's (and other right-wing figures') Christian upbringing, associations with uber-religious figures, and own words regarding the role Christianity plays in these international actions, and I just couldn't help but shake my head regarding this narrative. Is part of it true? Of course, whose education and cultivation DOESN'T influence them? But does anyone for a second think these guys are doing it more for religion than money? You'd be crazy to say no. The Iraq War was just an opportune time for these mercenary scumbags to exploit their way up the food chain. Being a country of Muslims may have been good in terms of generating propaganda, but you could have had any other country and Prince would've garnered the same success. Vietnam, which is frequently compared to Iraq in terms of U.S. military actions, is a country of mostly irreligious folks, the second biggest demographic there being Catholics- does Scahill believe that Prince would've ignored a war profiteering opportunity in Vietnam because Islam wasn't the governing religion? Preposterous to waste space and text on a notion that does not speak to the primary truth and that only alienates potential allies in the anti-mercenary movement. To add salt to the wounds, because he goes down this route, Scahill sometimes can't decide how he wants to paint the actual enlisted "soldiers" of Blackwater- are they stereotypical, gung-ho Americans that want to make money while spreading democracy to the Middle East, or are they working-class individuals who saw an opportunity to provide a greater living for their family than what their current job was giving? There's a jump between these two extremes, and one that Scahill only does when it's convenient to the narrative that he's telling at any given time (i.e. speaking about family reaction of slain members vs. members who are defending a U.S. compound against an Iraqi rebellion- the former is meant to draw sympathy for victims of Blackwater's defensive measures whilst the latter is meant to inspire rage against private forces fighting against the citizenry standing up for their beliefs).
Listen, I know I've been raving nonstop here, but there's a reason I gave Blackwater a solid 3/5 (meaning I recommend you read it)- the sheer amount of facts and knowledge Scahill has compiled into a single piece of literature is an achievement unto itself. No matter the strange way things are arranged, you WILL learn everything there is to know about private militaries and mercenaries: their marketing propaganda, their structure, their history, their lobbying, their actions (public and private), their future plans, etc....Blackwater was an eyeopener, not only of the eponymous company but of the industry at large that it has helped pioneer. When we think of the military-industrial complex, we generally limit ourselves to defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, completely ignoring mercenaries or whatever rebranded label they oblige by. They are very prominent, very active, and very dangerous in our current political sphere and the War on Terror, and Scahill deserves a lot of credit for creating a digestible, encyclopedic text on this matter.
There's no denying that it could've been a lot better in terms of scope, but as it stands, Blackwater is recommended reading to anyone even a little bit interested in where their taxpayer dollars are REALLY going. This is one of those titles, though, wherein I feel the follow-up would be more interesting a read, especially given the rebranding of Blackwater to Xe Services and Academi and Trump's pardon of the Nisour Square murderers.
Alas, I probably should have taken a look at the publication date before I jumped into the text. Blackwater was published in early 2007, in fact, a full 7 months before Nisour Square even happened. What this means is that it's scope wasn't borne out of this tragic massacre but instead was borne out of Scahill's growing concern about the use of mercenaries in the U.S. war machine. It's not that this makes the book bad, it's that it makes it more concerned about the larger picture than the smaller personal events that were the result of this bureaucratic move, which in turn results in a dense work that isn't as engaging as it should be.
Let me put it this way- rather than show the effects of mercenaries and contractors on the ground, Scahill is more interested in talking about how those forces got to the position that they were (are?) in, with civilian casualties and victims treated like pure statistical information. To be fair, I did read the 2008 updated version of the book, which included a new introduction by Scahill that recounted Nisour Square in relative detail, but it feels very tacked on, which in turn makes sense given that the civilian side was never the focus of Scahill.
I know there are plenty of people who will have no problem with this, believing the macro picture to be far more important than the micro affairs that adorn the Middle East post-US invasions. And I agree in principle: we have to work on changing the sociopolitical machinations that lead to the emergence and proliferation of war profiteers and war criminals. However, it wasn't a mutally-exclusive decision: Scahill could have had a healthy balance of general history with anecdotal accounts, and I cite Jim Frederick's Black Hearts as a pristine example of someone pulling this off.
In Black Hearts (you can read my review for it here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2468103205?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1) Frederick succeeded in incorporating the greater historical changes whilst still keeping the focus on the individuals who were directly involved in the causes/effects of the Iraq War. Now of course, Frederick's topic of choice was much smaller in range than Scahill's, but I strongly believe Scahill could have done more to make things more, for lack of a better term, idiosyncratic to the people of Iraq (to be fair, he does this once when he recounts the USMC's Sieges of Fallujah, but that is a small part in the grand scheme of the novel). Instead what you get is chapter after chapter about profits and contracts reaped by these mercenary groups whilst they continue to operate in these foreign countries unaccountable.
It's not that this information isn't interesting; quite the contrary, Scahill does a remarkable job of breaking down the behind-the-scenes negotiations, corruption, and tactics that resulted in massive political changes for mercs- these are all things that the American (and worldwide) public should be blatantly aware of. However, because it's more about reiterating events of the past, discussing business deals, and pointing out minutiae details about MANY individuals, you do get a text that is more dense than normal and consequently less engaging to non-academic readers. I personally found myself putting down the book for days at a time because I was not able to get caught up in the narrative Scahill was weaving, which is sad given how ridiculous and aggravating the prominence of contractors and private industries in the war effort are.
Not helping Scahill are three unfortunate critiques I have: one, he just isn't as gifted a writer as the aforestated late, great Jim Frederick or fellow journalist Matt Taibbi. Scahill's sentences are more interested in packing some new fact or observation than giving you breathing room, building up the tension, or fleshing out existing ideas...all things that go a long way towards retaining intrigue. He also overuses the word "lucrative" when describing contracts (seriously mate, wasn't there a thesaurus on hand?) and I flat-out hated the way Scahill would incorporate in-text quotes. 9 times out of 10, it wouldn't feel like a continuation of a sentence he started, but instead a haphazard merge between something he was saying and something the other person had said, which irked me since it was an easy fix!
Here's a small example of what I mean from a paragraph in Chapter 3: "Clark says during training sessions he 'gave everybody everything I had when I had them.'" - Scahill starts off in third person, then intermixes a quote from the first person. How do you make such an obvious syntactic mistake? You could've easily fixed it by setting up the quote instead of trying to unnaturally fit itn with your ongoing sentence i.e.. "Clark said of the training sessions 'I gave everybody everything I had....'"
The second critique is that the book not put together well. It's as though Scahill and the editor could not decide how to organize the sheer amount of data present in their research and so made the last-minute choice to flip between three variations: chronological, topical, and historical. Seriously, sometimes you'll be reading about a train of sequential events, only for the next chapter to switch gears and talk about a specific sect of the industry only for the follow-up to then speak about some black ops action years ago only for the next section to RETURN to a single thing that was mentioned in that first part. It's not anthological and it's not divided cogently. Blackwater could have been much better had it been edited in a way that was consistent.
The third is that, too often, Scahill puts his own personal biases against Blackwater (now called Academi) and other security contractors at the expense of more powerful arguments that would have gone a long way towards having universal appeal. Keep one thing in mind- we need bipartisan support if we are to do a massive overhaul of the military-industrial complex, and by bipartisan I don't mean representatives of political parties I mean the political demographics of the American people. Whether you are conservative, liberal, libertarian, moderate, progressive, etc....you will be pissed off at how billions of dollars of your taxpayer money are being funneled into a system of contracts that lack oversight and are consequently exploited by mercenary firms to reap even more coin from Uncle Sam (aka your pocketbook): all this is going on whilst the American people are denied basic services like national healthcare. THAT is the fact that will rile up the masses and get them united against this lobbying group.
And yet, Scahill rarely puts that at the forefront of any of his exposés. It's often a tangential detail that is meant to be implied than directly stated (i.e. "company X won a $15 billion contract...", not "company X stole $15 billion of taxpayer money...."). No, instead what gets the limelight are details meant to alienate/scapegoat particular right-wing groups. Scahill frequently makes the case that it's purely the Republicans who are to blame for the rise of privatization, scantily mentioning that privatization began major initiatives under the Clinton Administration. He conveniently ignores all but one time that, once the Democrats won back Congress in 2006, they didn't do anything to curb the progression of contractors outside of getting more public documentation/disclosures from committees that the GOP had tried to hide- information that they then preceded to do nothing with. It's also beyond amusing to see him prop up then-Senator Obama as this major anti-merc figure at the end given that Obama would go on to not only utilize Blackwater, but further expand the # of contractors in U.S. areas of conflict (though I understand Scahill couldn't have predicted the future).
Look, I'm not trying to act like there isn't a difference between the two parties in terms of how they viewed the rise of private armies- Scahill gives enough evidence and verbatim statements from politicians from both parties that indicate the Democrats at least somewhat care about accountability compared to the insane zealotry of the Republicans. But when the Democratic effort is pathetically weak, you should be providing EVEN HARSHER criticisms given that they're supposed to be the OPPOSITION. “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”- But no, Dems just get a small slap on the wrist and are paraded around by Scahill as civil liberties champions whose voices were stifled by the big bad government (never mind the media power the Dems had at the fingertips courtesy of establishment network giants like CNN and MSNBC). You aren't getting any conservatives on your side this way.
Worse is when Scahill attempts to make the case that there is a Crusader-esque, Racial Holy War being waged by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and co. against the Middle Eastern residents of Iraq. He spends a whole chapter (and makes repeated throwbacks to) Prince's (and other right-wing figures') Christian upbringing, associations with uber-religious figures, and own words regarding the role Christianity plays in these international actions, and I just couldn't help but shake my head regarding this narrative. Is part of it true? Of course, whose education and cultivation DOESN'T influence them? But does anyone for a second think these guys are doing it more for religion than money? You'd be crazy to say no. The Iraq War was just an opportune time for these mercenary scumbags to exploit their way up the food chain. Being a country of Muslims may have been good in terms of generating propaganda, but you could have had any other country and Prince would've garnered the same success. Vietnam, which is frequently compared to Iraq in terms of U.S. military actions, is a country of mostly irreligious folks, the second biggest demographic there being Catholics- does Scahill believe that Prince would've ignored a war profiteering opportunity in Vietnam because Islam wasn't the governing religion? Preposterous to waste space and text on a notion that does not speak to the primary truth and that only alienates potential allies in the anti-mercenary movement. To add salt to the wounds, because he goes down this route, Scahill sometimes can't decide how he wants to paint the actual enlisted "soldiers" of Blackwater- are they stereotypical, gung-ho Americans that want to make money while spreading democracy to the Middle East, or are they working-class individuals who saw an opportunity to provide a greater living for their family than what their current job was giving? There's a jump between these two extremes, and one that Scahill only does when it's convenient to the narrative that he's telling at any given time (i.e. speaking about family reaction of slain members vs. members who are defending a U.S. compound against an Iraqi rebellion- the former is meant to draw sympathy for victims of Blackwater's defensive measures whilst the latter is meant to inspire rage against private forces fighting against the citizenry standing up for their beliefs).
Listen, I know I've been raving nonstop here, but there's a reason I gave Blackwater a solid 3/5 (meaning I recommend you read it)- the sheer amount of facts and knowledge Scahill has compiled into a single piece of literature is an achievement unto itself. No matter the strange way things are arranged, you WILL learn everything there is to know about private militaries and mercenaries: their marketing propaganda, their structure, their history, their lobbying, their actions (public and private), their future plans, etc....Blackwater was an eyeopener, not only of the eponymous company but of the industry at large that it has helped pioneer. When we think of the military-industrial complex, we generally limit ourselves to defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, completely ignoring mercenaries or whatever rebranded label they oblige by. They are very prominent, very active, and very dangerous in our current political sphere and the War on Terror, and Scahill deserves a lot of credit for creating a digestible, encyclopedic text on this matter.
There's no denying that it could've been a lot better in terms of scope, but as it stands, Blackwater is recommended reading to anyone even a little bit interested in where their taxpayer dollars are REALLY going. This is one of those titles, though, wherein I feel the follow-up would be more interesting a read, especially given the rebranding of Blackwater to Xe Services and Academi and Trump's pardon of the Nisour Square murderers.
jiujensu's review against another edition
2.0
Haha! I need to 1. give this book another go and 2. seriously update this review.
These are just some notes on the book so far. If I finish it, I may summarize or review it.
Edit- Didn't finish it. Don't think I will. Content is good and I'm glad he put this out there (people need to know), but I heard him every time he went on NPR, Democracy Now or any other show, so reading the book seems a little repetitive. I gave this a low rating because I couldn't get through it, not because the subject was bad or I think Blackwater/ Xe is a great company or think that government contractors operating in an abyss of lawlessness between the US and the foreign country of choice is good.
***
I found some people and some policies of confidentiality and secrecy to be reminiscent of The Family. I need to look at the foot notes to see if he references it. So far, he hasn't mentioned them in the text.
P 16 Council for National Policy - started 1981 by Rev. Tim LaHaye to oppose Council on Foreign Relations
***Red flag- this guy is the same LaHaye of the Left Behind novels that promote the false doctrine of premillennialism. Christians would do well to take note and be careful of throwing their support behind such people just because they "appear Christian" or support other right wing causes that Christians tend to support!
Council for National Policy
-Members are told to keep when and where and who attends meetings (before or after) secret from media
-“to strategize about how to turn the country to the right” 102
***Interesting. I have had conservative friends proudly say this is a center right country. Is it that way because people have Republican leanings or because they were manipulated by this and other groups like it that may have politicized and made divisive certain issues or however else they "turned the country to the right"... ?
Erik Prince is unconfirmed as a member of this group, but he has given money to it and is close with other attendees such as: Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Ralph Reed, Holland Coors (beer), Wayne LaPierre (NRA), Richard and Dick DeVos, Oliver North, Grover Norquist, Frank Gaffney, GWB- addressed group in 1999. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bolton, Ashcroft, Dan Senor (top aide to Bremer), DeLay, Frist (given an award by them) - Many of these are in The Family...
***
P18 Chuck Colson (also influential in The Family)
Prison ministry
2002 speech - praised Erik Prince, talked of need for political and religious alliance of Catholics and evangelicals
P. 20 Colson, Richard Neuhaus and others - document Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT)
Common missionary cause “all people will come to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior”
(This doesn't sound bad- it sounds good- but I disagree strongly with where they take it.)
“The document recognized the separation of church and state, but “just as strongly protest[ed] the distortion of that principle to mean the separation of religion from public life…The argument, increasingly voiced in sectors of our political culture, that religion should be excluded from the public square must be recognized as an assault upon the most elementary principles of democratic governance.” “ (p20)
(Again, I agree that separation of church and state shouldn't mean religion is banned in public life, but I also disagree with how much and what kind of religion is put into public life and how it is done. I also take issue with branding those who disagree with the way, say Republicans, aim to use or keep religion in public life, you are un-American, undemocratic and un-Christian)
Religion is “privileged and foundational in our legal order”
Need to defend “the moral truths of our constitutional order”
(This is a religious declaration- or so I thought. What is the constitution doing in it? God doesn't care what type of government we're under. The teachings are the same. This phrase seems to put the Constitution on the level of the Bible in the minds of some or that we should legislate all Bible truth in order to be faithful.)
Abortion was a big topic in ECT- called “culture of death”
("Culture of death"?? This is Bush-style hype.)
Advocates “moral education” - giving future generations our cultural heritage, that is, Christianity and Judaism.
(Why a Christian would put Judaism on the level Christianity is beyond me. Given other moral issues they take a stand on, it seems they would want to make the Biblical distinction that Jews are in the same boat as Muslims today- they need to obey Christ. But, instead, they uphold Israel and it's war crimes as honorable and Muslims as incapable of anything good.)
“We contend for a free society, including a vibrant market economy.”
(Again, I'm fine with a religious statement. I'm not saying I'm going to endorse it, but go ahead if it reduces animosity between Catholics and Protestants. Now, what on earth does salvation have to do with the economy???)
“We affirm the importance of a free economy not only because it is more efficient but because it accords with a Christian understanding of human freedom” (also something I can’t wrap my brain around- is there some Biblical example or preference or word on type of government or economy we should advocate for?? Total garbage. The Bible is about teaches one to be faithful and teaching others about Christ) “Economic freedom, while subject to grave abuse, makes possible the patterns of creativity, cooperation, and accountability that contribute to the common good.” (Sounds like more of a nod and help to the billionaires that started The Family, CNP, etc, but putting a Biblical spin on it so everyone else can voluntarily help them stay rich at their own expense.)
“renewed appreciation of Western culture”
(Sounds like a bit of American hubris, but what comes next is much more sinister...)
“We are keenly aware of, and grateful for, the role of Christianity in shaping and sustaining the Western culture of which we are apart.”
“Multiculturalism” most commonly come to mean “affirming all cultures but our own”
(Scary as a similar sort of thing appears in white supremacist type rants. Perhaps black folks are meant to be included in "our culture", but like I said, this is unsettling. Even if this does include African Americans, I disagree with the statement and think adopting a French style culture protection is wrong- especially given that most of us aren't Native American and so don't really have the right.)
The document says that now is the time for Catholics and Evangelicals to be Christians together in a way that prepares the world for the coming of Christ. It is a noble enough goal, but in the context of the political and economic goals also mentioned, it really doesn’t have much to do with this goal. And another issue is the differences in doctrine between the two and more importantly, how much should we in the Lord’s body be involved with these two. Should we use them to the extent that they follow the Bible, or just blaze a new trail?
I vote for the latter since I have no use for either the Republican or Democratic party.
These are just some notes on the book so far. If I finish it, I may summarize or review it.
Edit- Didn't finish it. Don't think I will. Content is good and I'm glad he put this out there (people need to know), but I heard him every time he went on NPR, Democracy Now or any other show, so reading the book seems a little repetitive. I gave this a low rating because I couldn't get through it, not because the subject was bad or I think Blackwater/ Xe is a great company or think that government contractors operating in an abyss of lawlessness between the US and the foreign country of choice is good.
***
I found some people and some policies of confidentiality and secrecy to be reminiscent of The Family. I need to look at the foot notes to see if he references it. So far, he hasn't mentioned them in the text.
P 16 Council for National Policy - started 1981 by Rev. Tim LaHaye to oppose Council on Foreign Relations
***Red flag- this guy is the same LaHaye of the Left Behind novels that promote the false doctrine of premillennialism. Christians would do well to take note and be careful of throwing their support behind such people just because they "appear Christian" or support other right wing causes that Christians tend to support!
Council for National Policy
-Members are told to keep when and where and who attends meetings (before or after) secret from media
-“to strategize about how to turn the country to the right” 102
***Interesting. I have had conservative friends proudly say this is a center right country. Is it that way because people have Republican leanings or because they were manipulated by this and other groups like it that may have politicized and made divisive certain issues or however else they "turned the country to the right"... ?
Erik Prince is unconfirmed as a member of this group, but he has given money to it and is close with other attendees such as: Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Ralph Reed, Holland Coors (beer), Wayne LaPierre (NRA), Richard and Dick DeVos, Oliver North, Grover Norquist, Frank Gaffney, GWB- addressed group in 1999. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bolton, Ashcroft, Dan Senor (top aide to Bremer), DeLay, Frist (given an award by them) - Many of these are in The Family...
***
P18 Chuck Colson (also influential in The Family)
Prison ministry
2002 speech - praised Erik Prince, talked of need for political and religious alliance of Catholics and evangelicals
P. 20 Colson, Richard Neuhaus and others - document Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT)
Common missionary cause “all people will come to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior”
(This doesn't sound bad- it sounds good- but I disagree strongly with where they take it.)
“The document recognized the separation of church and state, but “just as strongly protest[ed] the distortion of that principle to mean the separation of religion from public life…The argument, increasingly voiced in sectors of our political culture, that religion should be excluded from the public square must be recognized as an assault upon the most elementary principles of democratic governance.” “ (p20)
(Again, I agree that separation of church and state shouldn't mean religion is banned in public life, but I also disagree with how much and what kind of religion is put into public life and how it is done. I also take issue with branding those who disagree with the way, say Republicans, aim to use or keep religion in public life, you are un-American, undemocratic and un-Christian)
Religion is “privileged and foundational in our legal order”
Need to defend “the moral truths of our constitutional order”
(This is a religious declaration- or so I thought. What is the constitution doing in it? God doesn't care what type of government we're under. The teachings are the same. This phrase seems to put the Constitution on the level of the Bible in the minds of some or that we should legislate all Bible truth in order to be faithful.)
Abortion was a big topic in ECT- called “culture of death”
("Culture of death"?? This is Bush-style hype.)
Advocates “moral education” - giving future generations our cultural heritage, that is, Christianity and Judaism.
(Why a Christian would put Judaism on the level Christianity is beyond me. Given other moral issues they take a stand on, it seems they would want to make the Biblical distinction that Jews are in the same boat as Muslims today- they need to obey Christ. But, instead, they uphold Israel and it's war crimes as honorable and Muslims as incapable of anything good.)
“We contend for a free society, including a vibrant market economy.”
(Again, I'm fine with a religious statement. I'm not saying I'm going to endorse it, but go ahead if it reduces animosity between Catholics and Protestants. Now, what on earth does salvation have to do with the economy???)
“We affirm the importance of a free economy not only because it is more efficient but because it accords with a Christian understanding of human freedom” (also something I can’t wrap my brain around- is there some Biblical example or preference or word on type of government or economy we should advocate for?? Total garbage. The Bible is about teaches one to be faithful and teaching others about Christ) “Economic freedom, while subject to grave abuse, makes possible the patterns of creativity, cooperation, and accountability that contribute to the common good.” (Sounds like more of a nod and help to the billionaires that started The Family, CNP, etc, but putting a Biblical spin on it so everyone else can voluntarily help them stay rich at their own expense.)
“renewed appreciation of Western culture”
(Sounds like a bit of American hubris, but what comes next is much more sinister...)
“We are keenly aware of, and grateful for, the role of Christianity in shaping and sustaining the Western culture of which we are apart.”
“Multiculturalism” most commonly come to mean “affirming all cultures but our own”
(Scary as a similar sort of thing appears in white supremacist type rants. Perhaps black folks are meant to be included in "our culture", but like I said, this is unsettling. Even if this does include African Americans, I disagree with the statement and think adopting a French style culture protection is wrong- especially given that most of us aren't Native American and so don't really have the right.)
The document says that now is the time for Catholics and Evangelicals to be Christians together in a way that prepares the world for the coming of Christ. It is a noble enough goal, but in the context of the political and economic goals also mentioned, it really doesn’t have much to do with this goal. And another issue is the differences in doctrine between the two and more importantly, how much should we in the Lord’s body be involved with these two. Should we use them to the extent that they follow the Bible, or just blaze a new trail?
I vote for the latter since I have no use for either the Republican or Democratic party.
lmuth7590's review against another edition
4.0
Jeremy Scahill is one of the best national security journalists out there. His book on Blackwater, the private mercenary firm, is incredibly in-depth and meticulous. The only drawback I can mention is that because he is so detailed, sometimes you can lose the thread of events in the details/it can start to feel like information overload. So my advice is that if you're interested in the rise of private military firms and seeing the corrupt way they land government contracts, get a copy of this book and just take your time to work through it slowly. It will be worth it.
jessimuhka's review against another edition
4.0
Really interesting listen. The world of mercenaries is terrifying.
thetarantulalounge's review against another edition
2.0
I had just started my senior year of high school in September of 2001. I was eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch in front of the tv when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. I went to school without really knowing what was going on, and in every class that day the teachers had the TVs on. I remember at lunch a classmate saying, "A whole lot of people are going to be dead, now." My neighbors were Saudi and kept their kids home for a bit. Their older kid was harassed at college. Some of my friends were for the war, and some were against it. The guys I know who went overseas came back pretty different. How does a teenager make sense of all of that? Perhaps more importantly, how does a government? Enter Jeremy Scahill's Blackwater.
The book, which was originally published in 2007, was an NYT bestseller and one that I was aware of but skipped on purpose. Reading about private security contractors and their controversial dealings with the Bush administration didn't sound like fun. Since my day job involves so much of the political realm, I don't love coming home to read current events. (Hence all of the comic reviews!) However, some friends of mine recently agreed to read this one based on a Scahill interview and so here we are.
Blackwater is about Academi, which was previously known as Xe Services, which was previously known as Blackwater. The organization was in the "private security"/mercenary/training business, although if you look at their website now they highlight "managed support services" with images of a buffet, a port, and a man at a computer.
Scahil tells the story of Blackwater to tell a larger story of the privatization of what have traditionally been core government roles, such as war (Iraq), foreign policy (Sudan, South Africa), and humanitarian work (New Orleans).
While Scahill certainly understands the dangers of privatization and "theocons" and mountains of money influencing legislative behavior, I found the writing style to be simultaneously sensationalist and dry. I'd prefer a more Woodwardian style.
Don't recommend.
The book, which was originally published in 2007, was an NYT bestseller and one that I was aware of but skipped on purpose. Reading about private security contractors and their controversial dealings with the Bush administration didn't sound like fun. Since my day job involves so much of the political realm, I don't love coming home to read current events. (Hence all of the comic reviews!) However, some friends of mine recently agreed to read this one based on a Scahill interview and so here we are.
Blackwater is about Academi, which was previously known as Xe Services, which was previously known as Blackwater. The organization was in the "private security"/mercenary/training business, although if you look at their website now they highlight "managed support services" with images of a buffet, a port, and a man at a computer.
Scahil tells the story of Blackwater to tell a larger story of the privatization of what have traditionally been core government roles, such as war (Iraq), foreign policy (Sudan, South Africa), and humanitarian work (New Orleans).
While Scahill certainly understands the dangers of privatization and "theocons" and mountains of money influencing legislative behavior, I found the writing style to be simultaneously sensationalist and dry. I'd prefer a more Woodwardian style.
Don't recommend.