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Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Revised and Updated] | ![Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Revised and Updated]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ZopVuqGsL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Author: Jeremy Scahill
Publisher: Nation Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $3.28
You Save: $13.67 (81%)
New (54) Used (26) from $3.28
Rating:  244 reviews
Sales Rank: 31996
Media: Paperback
Edition: Rev Upd
Pages: 452
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 2
ISBN: 156858394X
Dewey Decimal Number: 355.3540973
EAN: 9781568583945
ASIN: 156858394X
Publication Date: May 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
On September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad's Nisour Square leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled "Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide. This is the explosive story of a company that rose a decade ago from Moyock, North Carolina, to become one of the most powerful players in the "War on Terror." In his gripping bestseller, awardwinning journalist Jeremy Scahill takes us from the bloodied streets of Iraq to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans to the chambers of power in Washington, to expose Blackwater as the frightening new face of the U.S. war machine. * Winner of the George Polk Book Award
* Alternet Best Book of the Year
* Barnes & Noble one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007
* Amazon one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007
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| Customer Reviews: Read 239 more reviews...
 An unflinching serious work of journalism March 18, 2007
Julia K. (Washington DC)
479 out of 553 found this review helpful
I read this book in one night after hearing Mr. Scahill speak in Washington DC. The book is a remarkable and bracing wake up call about the privatization of war and how that subverts even basic notions of democracy. I find it remarkable that people criticize Mr. Scahill for using terms like "radical Christian right" - as if these terms are caricatures and ad hominem attacks. Hardly. In fact Schaill then spends hundreds of pages breaking down exactly what is so "radical Christian right" about Blackwater. He is a serious journalist who has uncovered a story that is both illuminating and frightening. It's hard to have any respect for people who say "I didn't even get to the first page" and then feel like they can write a review on its content.
Last point: As good a writer as Scahill is, he's a better public speaker. People should go hear what he has to say. These aren't easy truths to consume, but they are truths that define and explain the current calamaties unleashed on the world
A meticulously documented expose March 1, 2007
Alan B. Maass (Chicago, IL)
432 out of 508 found this review helpful
Don't believe the reviews on this page smearing this book. Jeremy Scahill has written a meticulously documented book about an all-too-real threat to democracy. And not just in war zones, where Blackwater operates in concert with U.S. forces, but without the accountability, however flawed, of the official military. They appeared, as Scahill documents, on the streets of New Orleans and around the Gulf Coast as a security force. This was in a situation where what was desperately needed was more humanitarian operations--food, rescue, emergency housing. But the Bush administration decided to devote funds to their colleagues from the war zone. Scahill exposes all of this, based on his own eyewitness reporting and on a meticulous analysis of Blackwater's history and operations.
By the way, I'm a reporter and editor who has found Scahill's articles extremely valuable, and in any of my following and checking of his stories, I've never found a single point that didn't hold up. The reviewers here may not like the facts he presents, but they are facts.
So many one-star reviews for a very good book..... March 26, 2007
A reader (Buffalo, NY)
251 out of 293 found this review helpful
I almost didn't buy this book because of the poor reviews (many written almost before the book came out, I must add), but decided to purchase it anyway, and I'm glad I did. It is well-written, thoroughly researched, and it is an expose of a company that every American should be aware of. I highly recommend it.
Blackwater scares me. One of the blurbs on the back of the jacket says they are just like Saddam's Republican Guard, and while I disagree with that, if they continue on the road they're on, it could happen.
They are fighting our wars, lobbying for fighting other wars, and for "peacekeeping" (something they're not very good at) missions in places we have not yet interceded. They were first-responders in Katrina, bringing guns and ammo, not supplies, for desperate people.
The scariest part is that they can kill with impunity, and I'm quite sure they do. It is also difficult to tell where the government ends and Blackwater begins, as people travel back and forth from high-level government positions to high-level Blackwater positions.
There is no accurate record of how much money Blackwater is actually making in our military conflicts, but through the maze of contractors, sub-contractors, sub-sub, etc., it is very difficult to imagine they are saving the government money as they claim.
The lack of oversight is the most frightening. No one seems to know what they are REALLY doing in Iraq or Afghanistan. If we are going to be outsourcing our wars, there needs to be oversight and accountability.
A Disturbing Account of Corruption and the Potential Loss of our Freedoms March 8, 2007
D. Buxman (Pueblo, CO United States)
118 out of 141 found this review helpful
I'd like to start by saying that I was a Republican once, when that meant smaller government, staying out of your neighbor's business and taking care of yourself. The level of outright corruption by the Bush Administration has been exposed before, but this is an excellent exposition on the very successful attempts by Christian Fundamentalists to privatize war. While our Constitution says that it's the job of government to "provide for the common defense," the neoconservatives and the military-industrial complex have clearly conspired to bleed our treasury at the expense of our liberty. The author has carefully documented his case and many of the accounts of the individual Blackwater mercenaries themselves are sympathetic.
If you are a student of history, you will be intrigued by the similarities between our efforts to utilize mercenaries and that of the Roman Empire in its decline. What struck me most was the fact that I had missed the complicity of the media in reporting about the deaths of "civilian contractors," whenever mercenaries died in the war zones. The chapter about Blackwater's involvment in New Orleans after Katrina should make all of us fear for our personal liberty.
 War is Buiiness & Buisness is Very Good! March 16, 2007
Paul J. Ciolino (Chicago)
90 out of 108 found this review helpful
This is a disturbing but accurate account on how big goverment & big industry work. Personally knowing one of the contributing authors to this book (Garrett Ordower) I would guarantee the book's meticulously and well researched dollar amounts, fact checking & research. Blackwater takes some serious hits ,(most of them well deserved) but I do believe that they play a critical and much underappreciated role around the world. As with any large organazation be it military, police or goverment there are always abuses and misconduct. Blackwatwer seized an opportunity and ran with it. They arent the only people getting rich in this war or the only organazation doing what they do for the U.S. Goverment. Many of the men working for Blackwater are former special forces operatives. If they were still working at their old jobs in the military we would be giving them Silver Stars and Navy Cross's for their activities. Because they are being paid by a corporation and not the U.S. Goverment we hang this mercenary label on them. I think that is patently unfair to them. Scahill may be a left wing radical, commie loving pinko writer. I dont know what his politics are, but he has done us all a great service by exposing what is really going on. The involvement of big goverment and big buisness is always scary. Eisonhower warned us about it fifty years ago and it is still true today. The people making these decisions very seldom have a child being exposed to the horrors and dangers of war. Perhaps if we they did there would be no need for Blackwater and other companies of this type. Scahill has done us a big favor by writing this book and every American needs to read it especially the U.S. Attorneys who prosecute fraud and corruption in goverment.
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