Blackwater The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army PDF
Preview Blackwater The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
BLACKWATER THE RISE OF THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL MERCENARY ARMY JEREMY SCAHILL $26.95 IT WAS THE MOMENT THE WAR TURNED: On March 31, 2004, four Americans were ambushed and burned near their jeeps by an angry mob in the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah. Their charred corpses were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River. The ensuing slaughter by U.S. troops would fuel the fierce Iraqi resistance that haunts occupation forces to this day. But these men were neither American military nor civilians. They were highly trained private soldiers sent to Iraq by a secretive mercenary company based in the wilderness of North Carolina. Meet Biackwater USA, the powerful private army that the U.S. government has quietly hired to operate in international war zones and on American soil. Its contacts run from deep inside the military and intelligence agencies to the upper echelons of the White House. Biackwater is the elite Praetorian Guard for the "global war on terror," with its own military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, and twenty thousand troops at the ready. Run by a multimillionaire Christian conservative who bankrolls President Bush and his allies, its forces are capable of overthrowing governments, yet most people have never heard of Biackwater. This is the unauthorized story of the epic rise of one of the most powerful and secretive forces to emerge from the U.S. military-industrial complex. It traces Blackwater's beginnings in 1996, with visionary executives opening a private military training camp "to fulfill the anticipated demand for government outsourcing"; to its secret deployment in Afghanistan following 9/11; to the blood-soaked streets of Fallujah and a fierce gun battle in Muqtada al-Sadr's stronghold of Najaf. The story races from Blackwater's expedition to the oil-rich Caspian Sea to set up a military base miles from Iran; to New Orleans, where its forces patrolled the hurricane-ravaged streets; to the chambers of power in Washington, D.C., where Biackwater executives are welcomed as new heroes in the war on terror. The admin istration hails Biackwater as a revolution in military affairs; others see its rise as nothing less than a dire threat to American democracy. JEREMY SCAHILL is a Polk Award-winning investigative journalist. He is a frequent contribu tor to The Nation magazine and a correspondent for the national radio and television show Democracy Now! Scahill has reported extensively from Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, and Nigeria. He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill lives in Brooklyn, New York. Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army is his first book. Jacket design by Whitney Cookman Cover photograph by© Kim Komenich/San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis Author photo by Jared Rodriguez NATION BOOKS An imprint of Avaion Publishing Group, Inc. www.nationbooks.org Distributed by Publishers Group West B L A C K W A T ER B L A C K W A T ER THE RISE OF THE W O R L DS MOST P O W E R F UL M E R C E N A RY A R MY J E R E MY S C A H I LL NATION BOOKS BLACKWATER The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army Copyright © 2007 Jeremy Scahill Published by Nation Books An Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc. 245 West 17th Street, 11th Floor New York, NY 10011 AVALON Nation Books is a copublishing venture of the Nation Institute and Avalon Publishing Group, Incorporated. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. ISBN-10: 1-56025-979-5 ISBN-13: 978-1-56025-979-4 9 8 7 6 5 Interior Design by Maria E. Torres Printed in the United States of America Distributed by Publishers Group West For unembedded journalists, particularly Arab media workers, who risk and often lose their lives to be the eyes and ears of the world. Without their courage and sacrifice, history would indeed be written by self-declared victors, the rich and the powerful
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