Why Are You Scaring Me, I Barely Know You

Thanks PortInExile, just when my ignorance was about to turn into sweet sweet bliss I had to go and read this at your house.

"Despotic movements need paramilitary forces that operate outside the law, forces that sow fear among potential opponents, and are capable of physically silencing those branded by their leaders as traitors. And in the wrong hands, a Blackwater could well become that force. American taxpayers have so far handed a staggering $4 billion to “armed security” companies in Iraq such as Blackwater, according to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.)."

"Erik Prince, who founded and runs Blackwater, is a man who appears to have little time for the niceties of democracy. He has close ties with the radical Christian Right and the Bush White House. He champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. His employees, in an act as cynical as it is dishonest, take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. But what he and his allies have built is a mercenary army, paid for with government money, which operates outside the law and without constitutional constraint."

You know what really sucks, $4,000,000,000.00 would have gone a long way to help the families of the US ARMY soldiers fighting in Iraq. I wonder what the difference in pay is between a regular Army troop compared to one of Erik's rent-a-troop. Oh and didn't Bush just oppose a 3.5 percent pay raise for U.S. soldiers and a $40/month increase in benefits for military widows. CHENEY ME!!!

Original by Chris Hedges here.