Griper Blade: Firing Blackwater USA

A few days ago, Blackwater USA CEO Erik Prince wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. The gist of it is that the mercenary corporation is absolutely wonderful and we should just go ahead and ignore the fact that five guards were charged in an atrocity that left 17 unarmed Iraqis dead and involved a rocket-propelled grenade fired into a girls' school. These guys face a possible 47 years in prison for crimes ranging from weapons charges to voluntary manslaughter.

We're told Blackwater employees are "putting their lives at risk each day to protect U.S. Department of State officials and other civilians working in the country. Yet somehow that role and the part they play in this war have been grossly misunderstood." Unfortunately, Prince doesn't really explain why Blackwater is protecting that diplomatic corps. And no one else can either. Before the Bush administration, State Department employees were guarded by US Marines and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security -- an agency similar to the Secret Service. After Bush, Marines and federal cops were somehow not good enough anymore -- we had to hire rent-a-cops with machine guns. But it's the Bush administration, it doesn't have to make any sense. It just is. The fact that Prince and his family were significant donors to the Republican party and Bush's campaigns probably had nothing at all to do with it. Replacing US Marines with Blackwater employees was absolutely necessary because... Well, just because. Remember, if there's any possible way to privatize something, then Bushies go ahead and privatize it. The idea that government is hopelessly incompetent and wasteful extends even to the US Marine Corps. Way to support the troops, George.

But it turns out that Prince realized he had a bit of a public relations problem on his hand. Blackwater employees -- who have been regularly described as "thugs" -- didn't have the shiniest public reputation and that rep needed a little buffing. "What he says is less important that the fact that he's saying it at all," wrote Daniel Schuman for Mother Jones. Erik Prince, normally willing to shut up and let the Bush administration to all the Blackwater apologism, was forced to make his own case. Bush administration officials weren't rushing to the company's defense... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]