“Moody river more deadly than the vainest knife
Moody river, your muddy waters took my baby’s life.â€
It’s said that still waters run deep, yet as we find ourselves up to our ankles in Blackwater USA, a question remains; how deep are the mysteries of Blackwater? Those of you who have read my previous report on Blackwater USA should be better informed than the average ‘Mer’kan about Blackwater and the immense threat they pose to our civil liberties. However, like the still waters, or the Muddy Mississippi which cuts out great nation in two, Blackwater USA harbors many secrets.
Recently, it has been reported that the Prince Group, the parent company of Blackwater USA, has its own intelligence service, Total Intelligence Services. Total Intel is run by Cofer Black, former head of the CIA’s counterterrorism task force, and a 28-year CIA veteran. Mr. Black is also the number 2 executive at Blackwater USA. Mr. Black is a highly interesting character, known for his enthusiasm for killing Al Qaeda. Oddly enough, Black was in command of the CIA’s hunt for Bin Laden in Afghanistan following 9/11. Black is also currently employed as an adviser for the Mitt Romney Presidential Campaign. Knowing the history of Blackwater, and the history of paramilitary organizations becoming the iron fist of tyrants throughout history, the fact that the Prince Group has their own private intelligence service is extremely disconcerting.
For those of you not paying attention, The Prince group not only maintains the world’s most notorious private army, Blackwater, but also an intelligence service. Intelligence is what decides the success of a military campaign (which could be why the Iraq war is going so badly), and on the battlefield good intelligence means the difference between stunning victory and staggering defeat. Applying the fact that the Prince Group has in its employ several senior CIA officials, and various members of the worlds elite special forces, to the fact that they possess a private army and a private intelligence service is indeed a recipe for disaster, especially taking into account the political climate which we are now faced with.
The history of empires, from Persia (that’s Iran for all you faux news buffs) to Rome and later Byzantium, have been plagued by internecine rivalries and palace intrigues. The United States, however, seems to have thus far avoided the pitfalls of the Imperial Court. That is not to say that there are not machinations behind the scenes, but so far they have not lead to the assassinations of political rivals which characterized much of the history of the world’s greatest empires. The revelations about the Prince Group could change all of that. Perhaps we could see in the United States a revival of Byzantine-level courtly intrigue.
The FBI, CIA, DIA and myriad other alphabet-soup agencies that the government employs all have something in common: political oversight. Even though the agencies pretty much do as they damn well please, there is still the illusion of civilian control via the congress. Yet Blackwater and their sister organization Total Intelligence don’t have to worry so much about cuts in congressional funding, losing pensions, or those quaint notions of international and domestic law. Because they can operate with nearly no oversight by civilian government and de facto impunity from all laws, Blackwater and Total Intelligence may become an extremely useful political tool. Looking back at history we find that paramilitary goon squads which are oft employed as political leverage by petty kings and tyrants establish their own intelligence units. More often than not, these paramilitary intelligence organizations become the secret police. Free from the restraints of civilian oversight and law and armed to the teeth, these groups have terrorized the people into benign submission to failed states. It was true in Nazi Germany, the USSR and elsewhere, and unless we manage to strangle this threat while it sleeps in its cradle, suckling on a diet rich in our tax dollars and no-bid contracts, the same may come true in America, and it could be sooner than we all think.
The strange story of Blackwater USA manages to get even stranger. It’s well known that Erik Prince is not only an eccentric billionaire (if a private army to call your own doesn’t count for eccentricity nothing does) and former Navy SEAL, as well as a very conservative Catholic who likes to finance the Christian right. There are bizarre accusations that Blackwater is in some way affiliated with the Knights of Malta. The Knights of Malta are an order of Crusading knights originally called the Knights Hospitaller, and is the only Crusading order which is still in existence today. Even though Erik Prince is an eccentric and runs to world’s most blood thirsty private army, I am reluctant to believe that Blackwater USA is the American Tong of the Knights of Malta, or to believe in any far reaching Catholic conspiracy.
That being said, I am not reluctant to believe that with the current climate of hostility toward dissenting opinions – and the current moves to make me a criminal because of my unorthodox thought patterns – that Blackwater, and other mercenary organizations could be used against the American people in the near future. Given their very long history of reckless violence and seemingly utter disdain for the rules of civilized warfare, Blackwater USA is the prefect candidate for a Praetorian guard to enforce political orthodoxy. It also seems that Blackwater USA has started to infiltrate the local authorities. According to the Wayne Madsen Report, Blackwater has trained the police forces of dozens of cities and counties. I am aware that there are many that believe that since we live in a post-9/11 world that things must change to protect ourselves from the ever-present threat of this week’s bogey man, but I for one had much more peace of mind when the local police forces were not being trained by a private mercenary army.
How long do we have to wait until Blackwater mercenaries are not in the streets of Baghdad, or the ruins of New Orleans, but on your city streets, operating with full immunity? Can our republic survive the privatization military, policing and intelligence agencies? I doubt it. The vast majority of our fellow countrymen, unable to locate parts of their own country on a map let alone Iraq, are ignorant of the dangers which out republic faces. Blackwater USA, as mentioned in our last article, has recently been contracted by the US government to take an expanded role in the US’s war on (some) drugs. Does anyone want to even imagine Blackwater mercenaries being sent into the ghettos or even elite suburbs of the United States to knock around neighborhood drug pushers? Does anyone want to imagine images of violence taken off of the nightly news report about Iraq in the streets of our country while soldiers of fortune strut around town bearing automatic weapons with impunity? Unless we all as a nation wake up and realize that something is indeed rotten, our republic is dead. Freedom cannot thrive in a nation that relies upon mercenaries to fight its wars, not on paramilitaries to enforce local laws. The US is not a banana republic yet, but it will be.
The republic is up to its neck in Blackwater and could drown. Like children swimming in a deep river, we do not realize the danger that we are in. Should we be swept up in the tide we will surely lose our lives. Throughout history the same pattern is repeated over and over again, and the failures of the past rear their ugly head every few generations to try one more time, assured that this time they’ve got it right. The pattern of paramilitary forces and mercenary armies is one of failure, tyranny and destruction, yet many of our fellow countrymen are like naïve children swimming in a deep river. Should they travel too far they’ll be swept up in the current, and my beloved republic may very well die in those black, muddy waters.
