It's not often that I'm dying to get to the end of an audiobook. This one, however, has everything going for it. Great writing, a compelling story and, for the most part, flawless narration. My small complaint with the narration is the occasional accents he uses. His Arabic accent is downright embarassing. However, I've never heard better "voice-quoting"

The book itself is a straight-forward history of Blackwater. If you don't have a problem with a private army funded by your tax dollars that operates with no oversight and bleeds jobs away from the US Military, the book will infuriate you. If you do have a problem with it, you'll be even more infuriated. Rather than giving American troops money for armor, training and benefits, the Bush adminisistration prefers to throw money at private contractors which inflates the cost of the "War on Terror" and makes its buddies rich.

The Fallujah section boggles the mind - an understaffed group of four Blackwater mercenaries are sent to guard a shipment of utensils get killed and hung from a bridge. The media not only treats them as if they were soldiers but refers to them as if they worked for the Red Cross. And the military needs to revenge the deaths of *contractors*?

If you ever wondered why the US Military isn't good enough to guard the likes of Paul Bremer, this book will tell you why - Blackwater has better guns because the US taxpayer is getting bilked.

If you like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein or William Blum you will love this book. The link between massive corruption and privatization is shown in startling relief. Bringing extreme Christianity into the mixture is a nice addition.

I think the author forgot his point while writing this book. There is a lot of really pertinent information, and when coupled with some other really good books on the contracting issue, you start to get a really good idea of what it means to be a Libertarian or Neocon.
The book loses focus in many parts when it focuses too much on the political machinations in the Bush Administration. The whittled down objective information is enough to make you scream...even if the author's adjectives weren't in the way.
The narrator is really grimmy though. He made me want to wash my ears. I think he was trying way too hard to sound like a bad guy telling a story.

The greatest enemy to the United States is its own military-industrial complex. Add Christian fundamentalism into that brew and if a stupid president is doing the stirring, the mix is sure to lead to our own demise.

This book is not only scary, it is chilling! The author clearly has a liberal slant but it is also clear that he has done his research. He obviously knows what's going on in the world, he's a first-class investigative journalist, a crusader for the truth and I commend him for his knowledge. But and although the story is gripping and more than just a little sinister, I have to honestly say that listening to this book over the course of about a week was more of a burden than a joy. Granted this is not a joyful subject matter, I place partial blame upon the narrator, Tom Weiner, whose cold, monotone voice and nearly flat reading made it hard to get into this already complicated story. The rest of my complaint sits with the author who packed this book with fact upon fact upon fact...reinforced by supporting facts and somewhat long and convoluted digressions of even more facts. I feel the story suffers because of the excessive and never-ending facts.

Suffice is to say, this is an important book. The truth is that it is deeply disturbing how our government is semi-secretly building a corporate army (the new "Praetorian Guard" as the author calls it), to loyally serve the far right; and the fact that this army seems to be impervious to any attempt to hold it accountable for its actions, as if Blackwater is above and beyond the reach of any law. From all the frightening, alarming, horrific things this book touches upon, there is one important question. What incentive does a private, profit-driven mercenary army have to create and maintain peace and democracy, and to eradicate suffering and anarchy? It can only be the same incentive that our current government has, which is NONE...and that is a truly terrifying truth.

First word that comes to mind when finishing this book is "Horrifying".
It's not the mysterious mercenaries in black cloth and full military gear roaming the globe shooting people with no accountability. It's the government that lets them.
Refusing the idea of allowing for private armies to operate freely under no strict guiding laws seems like a no brainier to me. Yet Blackwater exists and have a booming business.
This book tells the story of how Blackwater, how it was formed, who are the main people behind it, what's their background, highlights of their work in Iraq and Afghanistan, and stories from all around the world about mercenaries involved with Blackwater.
The book tends to read like reporting rather than telling a story. This could sometimes make it a little boring if you're not really interested in the topic, especially when it comes to legal details. However, the amount of details and their importance trumps any slow down in some parts of the book.
This book is a must read for all those who heard about Eisenhower's famous phrase "the military industrial complex" as Blackwater is the leader of the industry of military.

While there's a lot of interesting material in this book, it wanders for hours and is often more a discussion of the Iraq war than about Blackwater.
And the narrator . . . awful. For the first time, I'm going write down his name to make sure I never download another title read by this man.

This book is not about Blackwater at all. It is an opportunity to make subjective statements about everything wrong about our current policies. The simplified version of this book can be expressed by the following authors conclusions:
Blackwater is a christian right organization and this is bad.
Our military is mismanaged and doing evil things around the world.
Our leaders are driven by greed and ignorance.
We are murderers and our "foes" in Iraq are "resistance fighters".
If you are looking for any real insight into "Blackwater" or organizations like this, don't bother with this book. There is no real objective insight here just an adgenda to fill.
This book is about as insightful as an islamic martyr school.

Only an informed citizenry is capable of make sound decisions about the future of our country. With the approaching presidential election, this is another of those works that should be read by all of us so that we can better judge who will lead us for the next four years. What is so wonderful about this book is that it gives the reader the background to understand what is happening in the news even as I write this review. Listen and learn. You won't regret it!

Writer seems to give the attitude of anti Christian and anti conservative.
Apparently if you are conservative it's not appropriate to not share donations with the left as well?
The author has that kinda weird attitude?

although I would have preferred better narrator it's an eye-opening book. it shows how our democracy and Constitution is raped by the same people who are there to protect it