Blackwater

The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

By: Jeremy Scahill

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

A largely untold facet of the war on terror is the widespread outsourcing of military tasks to private mercenary companies. Accountable neither to the citizenry nor to standard military legal codes, these largely unregulated corporate armies are being entrusted with ever-greater responsibilities on behalf of the nation.

Meet Blackwater USA, the most secretive, most powerful, and fastest-growing private army on the planet. Founded by fundamentalist Christian mega-millionaire Erik Prince, the scion of a conservative dynasty that bankrolls extreme-right-wing causes, this company of soldiers is now being sent "to the front lines of a global battle, waged largely on Muslim lands, that an evangelical president, whom Prince helped put in the White House, has boldly defined as a 'crusade'."

Ranging from the blood-soaked streets of Fallujah to Washington, D.C., where they are hailed as heroes, this is the dark story of Blackwater's rise to power.

©2007 Jeremy Scahill (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"A crackling expose." ( New York Times Book Review)
"Jeremy Scahill's Blackwater would be a masterpiece of the genre of futuristic sci fi were it not so regrettably real....It's got all the twists and turns and secret corners of a Hollywood thriller....[A] horrifying but necessary read." ( Daily Kos)

Reality by Tom Clancy

Readers of Brad Thor and Tom Clancy would love the world of this Apocalypse Now. Check out Erik Prince's side of the story as well in Citizen Soldiers. It's all fascinating.

Informative and Timely

Jeremy Scahill's examination of Blackwater and the privatization of war is an important contribution to understanding the profiteering involved in the recent actions of the U.S. around the world. Along with the proliferation of violence, the growth of for-profit services to military operations is consuming our tax dollars and our global reputation. One of the most interesting sections of the book, highlights the role of Blackwater in responding to the desperate needs of the people of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. This book is a troubling examination of the growth of mercenary "services" for profit. Highly recommended reading.

Embarrassing

I bought this book hoping that the reviews were wrong. This is blatant anti-American propaganda. The character voices (which I hate to begin with) of Americans sound like Gomer Pile while things told from the Liberal, War-fearing, Military-hating perspective are in the narrators normal voice.

Save your money and your time.

Should have been a good book

The author works too hard on making political statements and uses many third party sources...the subject deserved better.

Un-listenable

The worse piece of c**p set down on tape. Don't waste your credits on this one.

Liberal Lies

I truly struggled to finish this book based on the simple fact that this author was not interested in providing the truth. But perpetuating the rumors and untruths surrounding Blackwater. The men who joined this company were not simply civilians. But highly trained and patriotic men who knew their mission was not over. This book was simply a waste of time to start.

Wandering with an awful narrator

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.

Don't waste your time or your money

This book has little to do with Blackwater. Within the first half hour of the book the author compares Blackwater workers to Nazi Brown shirts and never recovers his composer for the rest of the book. It's a poorly written rant about republicans and Christianity with made up "facts." Imagine a 14 hour adolescent temper tantrum and you can imagine the shear torture of trying to listen to this book.

Absolutely terrible book

This is an absolutely terrible book. This book was written by an author with a chip on his shoulder. At one point he quotes a part time electrician employee of Blackwater about operations in Iraq. The electrician worked in Moyock NC. This book is filled with a lot of hear say and accusations that are not backed up by any type of facts or sources. Read Civilian Warriors by Erik Prince instead of this poorly written agenda tainted crap.

Bowled Over by the Bias - Awful, One-sided Account

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I'm not sure I've ever encountered such a one-sided account of any story in my life. According to this author, Blackwater and the Bush Administration did EVERYTHING wrong. If the author knew which side of the bed George W. Bush slept on, he could have spent an entire chapter on telling you why that was wrong. If you're looking for an account of what's gone right and what's gone wrong in one book...this is not the book for you; it only tells half the story.

Has Blackwater turned you off from other books in this genre?

I would never purchase another book by this author. He clearly has an agenda and it's not being as factual and honest as he can be.

Any additional comments?

I became so overwhelmed by the bias that I had to stop listening about half-way through. I just found it hard to believe anything I was hearing.