The Blackwater Question

Blackwater is now known as Xe

I highly recommend listening to the episode of NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook linked to above. It addresses many of the topics I have previously written about on this blog. It highlights the errors of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld thinking that outsourcing military functions to private companies is the best way to wage war, especially in the "all-volunteer" military era.

I'll never forget the conversations these cowboys would have about their time outside the wire in the dining facility, surrounded by Soldiers that could hear them. They did all of the things that our Soldiers were prevented from doing because they were trying to execute a counterinsurgency strategy in its infancy. We took two steps forward and Blackwater's rogue cowboy actions would set us backwards... All they cared about was going home alive with their gigantic paycheck (many of them at least). It is a sad situation.