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)

Could have been better.

Technically: chapters are mislabeled.
Subject: seemed to spend too much time on background w/ out a proportional time spent on Blackwater during much of the book.
Narrator: way too much mouth noise...once you hear it, it’s impossible to not hear it. Took nearly 3x as long for me to complete this audio book vs. many others simply because of the mouth noise.

Stunning

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.

Scary

Would you listen to Blackwater again? Why?

although we hear less and less about the privatization of the American military, this books provides a great reminder of what is going on behind the scenes.

A view changer

It gives one an idea of what really goes on behind the events that one cannot make sense of.eye opener.

Blackwater and other war profiteers

Mr. Scahill offers an insight into the entire war profiteering business inside and outside Washington. I found it to be very informative.
It is interesting to see the decline of Blackwater in the days that followed the publishing of the book and I don't know that that there is a cause and effect relationship here. One thing I know is that Blackwater overreached and probably tumbled because of that!
I found it to be interesting that both Jeremy Scahill and Naomi Klein reference each other's books (Blackwater and Shock Doctrine) respectively from within their books. I guess it suggests they were collaborating while writing their books which is not unheard of in the business of writing books.

absolute must read

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

one of the best books ever

Jeremy Scahill is one of the greatest writers of our time. I highly recommend all of his books.

Truly frightening

As most folks know, Blackwater has been much in the press during the fall of 2007. Journalists tended to say little is known about Blackwater. Maybe they hadn't been doing much reading.

In early 1987 Scahill wrote this investigative book laying out the backstory about the rise of this band of mercenaries and its entanglement with the establishment neocons and what is often called the "radical religious right."

One's reaction to this book will likely be determined by the reader's political point of view. The further to the political left the reader is, the greater the anger the book will spark. The further to the right, the more scepticism the tale will surely fire. But I suspect, for most readers, the tale will be viewed as horriffic-if-true.

This story may not bode well for the direction our government/culture/country is headed.

I can't stop without mentioning the narrator who reads the text with the deep scarey theatricality so stereotypic of movie trailers. That's a pity as it unnecessarily creates a sense of danger, something the text itself is plenty able to do.

BLACKWATER IS TERRIFYING AND UNTOUCHABLE!

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.

...

While I don't agree with the authors political or religious view, I enjoyed the listen. The narrator was great and I liked the back ground stories about those involved with Blackwater and was able to get my own supportive impression on them.