By Jeremy Scahill

Nation Books, 452 pages, hardcover, $26.95

Reviewed by Guiding Starr, July 2008

Author Jeremy Scahill’s Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army documents the birth and growth of a recent radical change in the way the United States views its military.

From before the days of the Iraq invasion to the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina to the attacks on four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, to the most recent Congressional inquiries of Blackwater officials about the company’s finances and tactics, Scahill documents the federal government’s increased use of so-called military contractors, abroad and overseas.

These modern-day mercenaries are recruited from a variety of ex-military and intelligence officials who agree to fight in wars, serve as bodyguards to business and political officials and even act as security guards and police within the U.S. and overseas.

They are paid by private companies (Scahill’s book focuses on the most well-known of the dozen or so names), but with U.S. tax dollars in what has become an unprecedented outsourcing of jobs traditionally held by members of the armed forces.

But Scahill’s book also documents the troubles and flaws in what has become the privatization of war-, defense- and security- related personnel. One issue is the enormous discrepancy between the pay of a U.S. armed forces member and that of a military contractor, who Scahill states can make anywhere from $600-$800 a day.

Another troubling disclosure is that many contractors have been recruited from countries known for the abuse of citizens by the military, including South Africa, Chile and Colombia.

But perhaps the most frightening of all is the book’s revelations that Blackwater’s top leadership is connected to the religious right and the most radical thinkers of the neo- conservative movement.

Its founder is wealthy businessman and ex-Navy SEAL Erik Prince who, Scahill writes, established the company in 1997 and is close friends with Christian extremists, including former Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson, and Gary Bauer, a name well-known in right-wing circles, including the Project for a New American Century.

Although no referendum has been taken on U.S. citizen’s opinion on this new phenomenon of outsourcing jobs once reserved for its military, some members of Congress have taken notice.

California Rep. Henry Waxman has raised questions about Blackwater’s experiences in Iraq, particularly the attacks on the four contractors in Fallujah in March 2004.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich in July 2006 raised the issue in the halls of Congress that U.S. military members are subject to specific rules of engagement while contractors are not.

Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army is fact-filled, impeccably researched, and includes 56 pages of footnotes and an index.

Published in 2007 in hardcover, Blackwater was a New York Times bestseller. Today, it is available in a paperback version that includes updated information about the company and the current state of military outsourcing.

Every American should read this.