http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...0.html?cnn=yes
Quote:
The security firm's website notes that "Blackwater has the people to execute any requirement." Blackwater recruits from the ranks of active-duty special-forces units—particularly Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and Delta Force troops—many of which are based in nearby Ft. Bragg, N.C. The best and brightest among private security consultants earn salaries that run as high as $15,000 a month. And as various commitments have strained the military's capacity to provide day-to-day security for relief workers and diplomats, Blackwater has prospered by filling the void. Since 2002, Blackwater has won more than $35 million in government contracts.
The current business boom is in Iraq. Blackwater charges its clients $1,500 to $2,000 a day for each hired gun. Most security contractors, like Blackwater's teams, live a comfortable if exhausting existence in Baghdad, staying at the Sheraton or Palestine hotels, which are not plush but at least have running water. Locals often mistake the guards for special forces or CIA personnel, which makes active-duty military troops a bit edgy. "Those Blackwater guys," says an intelligence officer in Iraq, "they drive around wearing Oakley sunglasses and pointing their guns out of car windows. They have pointed their guns at me, and it pissed me off. Imagine what a guy in Fallujah thinks." Adds an Army officer who just returned from Baghdad, "They are a subculture."
(snip)
It's still unclear whether the four Blackwater employees found themselves in Fallujah inadvertently or were on a mission gone awry. Even by Pentagon standards, military officials were fuzzy about the exact nature of the Blackwater mission; several officers privately disputed the idea that the team was escorting a food convoy. Another officer would say only the detail was escorting a shipment of "goods." Several sources familiar with Blackwater operations told TIME that the company has in some cases abbreviated training even for crucial missions in war zones. A former private military operator with knowledge of Blackwater's operational tactics says the firm did not give all its contract warriors in Afghanistan proper training in offensive-driving tactics, although missions were to include vehicular and dignitary-escort duty. "Evasive driving and ambush tactics were not—repeat, were not—covered in training," this source said. Asked to respond to the charges, Blackwater spokesman Bertelli said, "Blackwater never comments on training methods and operational procedures."
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This is still not meant to diminish the deaths of these men, but I just think it is important to repeat, that there may have been extenuating circumstances. And is reason for pause before you level a city.
Alternatively, this could be the work of a specific terrorist entity, not people who actually live in Falluja, who want to see america use it's "overwhelming force" so that they have some extreme vid-bytes to gain new recruits and work the muslim world into a vengeful lather after seeing how we treat that town.
And I do think things can go quickly down-hill for us in Iraq if we don't engage this Falluja situation tactfully. Overwhelming Force seems to be lacking in in that tact.
It's a pretty good tactic. Sacrifice some of their "bretheren" to force martyr status on them. Then reap the benefits of average Iraqi support.
just more of my .02