Blackwater and the Slatten Pardon on Can’t You Read
Blackwater and the Slatten Pardon
A Brief Look at Blackwater by J. Scahill
Today’s quotation comes from one of the most important books to come out of U.S. Iraq War and Occupation journalism, “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army” – written by journalist Jeremy Scahill, who is now a founding editor at The Intercept; a publication I reference often in my work.
On the surface it may seem a curious decision to reach back in time to review a book originally published in 2007 and about a company (Blackwater) that in theory (and only in theory) no longer exists. That surface appearance however is precisely why it’s a shameful tragedy that Scahill’s excellent work has largely fallen down the memory hole in America – because Blackwater isn’t really gone, the U.S. still makes extensive use of largely unaccountable private mercenary corporations to enforce the interests of Western elite capital abroad, and governments throughout the Pig Empire continue to subsidize these private mercenary corporations with public money. Although the prosecution of a select few Blackwater war criminals remained something of a political football during the early portions of the Obama presidency and Erik Prince’s recent attempts to privatize the forever war in Afghanistan created a moderate amount of controversy in the mainstream media, the once impassioned resistance to accepting government-employed mercenaries as a consequence of empire has largely dissipated in “the West.”
This is unfortunate because at its heart Scahill’s “Blackwater” is more than an investigation into founder and now “former” owner Erik Prince’s infamous private mercenary army and its role in the Iraq war. The book is also about the terrifying and then-rapidly expanding (now, fully entrenched) role of private mercenaries in the Pig Empire’s permanent war economy.– mercenaries employed in volatile combat, assassination and security roles, both abroad and domestically in America. From deployment as a modern “Praetorian Guard” serving high level American officials in Iraq, to acting as an ad hoc private army for the wealthy in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and including ongoing training and even war zone contracts with various Western governments, Scahill lays out a virtually unassailable argument that private mercenary forces are simply unregulated thugs in the service of the American imperial project – an argument that now appears to be largely mainstream, if still rarely articulated thinking.
In terms of writing style, Scahill has the instincts of a war correspondent and the meticulous attention to detail of a prosecutor; useful traits for documenting what amount to war crimes, massive levels of bribery and direct protection for Blackwater employees provided by the Bush administration. This has led some commentators to critique Scahill’s writing in Blackwater as lacking an overall “narrative” flow, but personally I didn’t find that to be the case at all. Sure, you can argue that Blackwater lacks the casual storytelling of say Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone” but by that same measure, Scahill’s book is vastly more consequential. Frankly if you can read (Scahill’s friend and colleague) Seymour Hersh, you should have no problem following along with and enjoying Blackwater’s supposed “bombardment” of facts. Blackwater is, and remains both a rewarding and a monumentally important book in terms of exposing the inner workings of Pig Empire conquest and colonialism.
Mercenaries, Erik Prince and the Swine Emperor
All of which brings us to Downmarket Mussolini’s recent musings about possibly pardoning a number of accused American war criminals as a way of honoring veterans for Memorial Day; an objectively insane and monstrous idea Trump apparently decided not to go through with, at least for the moment. While much of the mainstream media coverage has (rightfully) focused on Herr Donald’s politically motivated potential pardon of depraved and murderous ex-Navy Seal Edward Gallagher, there was another curious name Trump was ruminating over – former Blackwater mercenary Nicholas Slatten.
For those unfamiliar with the exploits of Mr. Slatten, he’s the soldier of fortune the Department of Justice has successfully argued fired the first shot at a busy Baghdad intersection on September 16, 2007, triggering the depraved American war crime that would come to be known as the “Nisour Square massacre” or “Baghdad’s Bloody Sunday” – a morally repugnant and utterly unjustifiable mass murder that lasted for up to fifteen minutes and resulted in the deaths of at least fourteen (and likely more) innocent Iraqis during the later stages of the Bush Administration. While the crypto-Crusader right wing media protests his innocence and Slatten himself declares that he‘s a “POW in his own country” the simple truth is that there is very little reason to doubt Slatten’s guilt – as noted by former assistant U.S. attorney Glenn Kirschner:
“Please bear with me for a moment while I relate some basic public facts about the Blackwater case. The defendants were US civilians (veterans) who were being paid to perform security services in Iraq. Multiple Blackwater employees opened fire on innocent Iraqis in what was a massacre in broad daylight. They killed 14 unarmed Iraqi citizens and injured 17 others in front of dozens of witnesses
“Some of the testifying witnesses were the defendants own Blackwater teammates,” Kirschner said. “Many of the fellow Blackwater members testified about how the defendants were in the wrong – they did not even attempt to defend their teammates, rather they described their teammates’ use of deadly force as being wholly unjustified and without provocation. Evidence at trial included how one defendant, Nicholas Slatten, called Iraqis ‘animals’ and ‘less then human.’ According to Slatten, Iraqi lives were worth ‘nothing.’”
On a related note, the 2008 paperback edition of Jeremy Scahill’s “Blackwater” opens with a detailed expose of the Nisour Square massacre. While Scahill doesn’t mention Nicholas Slatten by name, the updated introduction does offer a devastating account of Slatten and Blackwater’s wanton slaughter and violence; an account delivered by numerous Iraqi witnesses, including doctors, police officers and heartbroken relatives of the slain – many of whom were women and children. In light of the fact that all of this evidence has existed in the public sphere since at least 2008, I think it’s fair to say that justice has been a very long time coming for Nicholas Slatten; while justice for then-chief Blackwater corpse-farming scumbag Erik Prince, remains deferred.
This of course brings up the puzzling question of why Trump would even consider pardoning an almost certainly guilty piece of dogshit like Nick Slatten. Is the Swine Emperor indeed merely courting Fox News nation? Is he dog-whistling to a fanatically pro-Crusader, anti-Muslim reactionary right that worships at the altar of the Pig Empire “troop?”
Perhaps, but I also think it’s important at this juncture to consider Trump’s disturbingly close relationship with Erik Prince, their shared network of wealthy far right patrons and the political ramifications of a potential pardon. Prince donated at least $250,000 (and possibly more through other channels) to Trump’s election campaign, his (nearly as infamous) sister, Betsy DeVos serves as Herr Donald’s secretary of education and it certainly appears like Prince lied under oath to cover up a August 3rd, 2016 Trump Tower meeting to discuss Iran policy involving himself, Donald Trump Jr, advisor Stephen Miller, “George Nader, an emissary for the Saudi and Emirati crown princes; and Joel Zamel, the Israeli head of the rather dodgy private intelligence company Psy-Group.”
More importantly however Prince has clearly demonstrated that he has privileged access to President Trump for the purposes of pitching potential lucrative mercenary contracts – including the aforementioned proposal to privatize the war in Afghanistan, a plan to deploy a US-backed private mercenary army to Venezuela and even the creation of an “off the books” private spy network to fight Trump’s political enemies at home and abroad.
Although intense public pressure has prevented the Swine Emperor from accepting any of Prince’s offers thus far, the “Dark Prince’s” continued presence in Trump’s inner circle seems to suggest that the President certainly wants to indulge the former Blackwater founder. Unfortunately for both men, while Nicholas Slatten is no longer “a troop”, he was serving as a private military contractor employed by Blackwater at the time he opened fire and touched off the mass murder of at least 14 Iraqi civilians. Since Prince is synonymous with Blackwater, and Slatten’s endless and exceptionally high profile series of trials has made Blackwater synonymous with “war crimes” – the would-be mercenary king has found it rather difficult to convince the American people he should be entrusted with multi-billion dollar government contracts.
While a pardon for Slatten won’t make all of that bad press go away, it would provide the necessary veneer of respectability for Prince’s ongoing attempts to worm his way back into the Pig Empire’s good graces; either now, or in the future. And if there’s one thing that anyone who has watched the rise, fall and rebirth of Erik Prince can say about that twisted son of a bitch, it’s that he knows how to grease the right wheels and he’s more than happy to play the long game.
– Nina Illingworth.
