Blackwater Forever

17 Sep 2009

The most controversial private security company in history emerges in mainstream media yet again - this time with broader implications to its cultural impact, Jody Ray Bennett writes for ISN Security Watch.

Early last month, Blackwater Worldwide, the ever infamous private military and security company, was external pagethrust into the commercial media spotlight yet again after its founder was accused of “murder[ing] or facilitat[ing] the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company.”

After weeks of avoiding any sort of meaningful scrutiny, external pagethe company again emerged upon revelation in a piece by the New York Times that in 2004, the CIA external pagehired the company to “locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda” in a program that had been concealed from congressional oversight.

It was one of the first known times that US national security was purposefully outsourced to a private company to partake and engage in specialized and covert operations that were once exclusively performed by the government.

A former top Blackwater executive told ISN Security Watch that what was reported was not correct. He re-emphasized the article’s mention that “It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program.”

“Everyone was led to believe there was some force of [Blackwater] guys trained in assassination,” the former Blackwater employee told ISN Security Watch. “It just wasn't an accurate story, and it was way blown out of proportion.”

However, days after this story broke, the external pageNew York Times reported that the external pageubiquitous media stories covering external pageUS drone attacks in Pakistan were in part carried out by Blackwater, which had since external pagechanged its name to Xe and was sometimes under contract as external pageUS Training Center.

According to the report, “The division's operations are carried out at hidden bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the company's contractors assemble and load Hellfire missiles and 500-pound laser-guided bombs on remotely piloted Predator aircraft, work previously performed by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency [while also providing] security at the covert bases.”

The interviewee could not clear the record with ISN Security Watch as the programs remain classified and investigations are still ongoing.

Self-fulfilling prophecy?

The company is still under investigation by various parties and seems to external pageconstantly be in court for something.

That the company emerges every so often in the news cycle has caused some journalists to compare it to a game of “external pageWhack-A-Mole” in that it keeps “popping up,” while external pageothers have pondered if Blackwater is “too big to fail.”

Blackwater represents the fusion of American neo-realist foreign policy and neo-liberal theories, which maintain that anything can be bought and sold on a private market, including military functions that used to be exclusively owned by the nation-state.

The privatization of military affairs and national security cannot be discussed without mention of Blackwater, which has managed to force itself into the narrative of US-Iraq and US-Afghan relations and beyond. But more than this, the sheer idea of Blackwater has become a politically cultural archetype, which, despite its massive material power and political relationships, has manifested itself in a sort of stereotype, not only to its own detriment but to the detriment of the very external pageindustry in which it operates.

One might hesitate to suggest that a discussion of Blackwater (and what Blackwater means for global politics) should be limited to those in military, security, business or even academic circles, but indeed, the company has shaped itself into an epithet that evokes a dubious awe, perplexing fascination and outright suspicion.

For these reasons, the company has managed to be external pagecaricatured in several Hollywood films and external pagetelevision shows, it has been the subject of a external pagehard rock song, earned a mention on a external pagelate night entertainment program in the US and has been compared to the characters, companies, missions and plots in a external pagelitany of video games and other external pagefictional works. In fact, the external pageSWAT series for the Playstation gaming system includes actual footage of Blackwater’s training facilities and commentary from Blackwater-employed SWAT instructors.

A former executive with the company even mentioned to ISN Security Watch that Blackwater once had to send a legal letter to a Chinese toy company that was manufacturing GI Joe-knockoff action figures that bore the Blackwater logo without permission.

When asked about Blackwater’s cultural relevance, the executive told ISN Security Watch that at the time, “we didn’t think anyone in that world knew about us or even cared.”

But the company has clearly created an unintentional cultural impact. During the interview, the former Blackwater official likened the company’s brand to that of ‘Kleenex’ or ‘Fed-Ex’ in the sense that the word ‘Blackwater’ became a ubiquitous reference that spanned the entire security industry.

“[It’s] just like whether you use UPS or DHL, [but say] you ‘fedex’ soemthing,” the official told ISN Security Watch.

Critical security

To what degree have these cultural nuances altered or reinforced how scholars, journalists, soldiers and security personnel perceive the idea of security, let alone collective notions of how security can or should be allocated and what implications or consequences arise as a result of assumptions?

To some extent, these questions are addressed in the external pagemany external pagesecurity external pageblogs that can be external pagefound external pageonline, but few succeed in explaining or critiquing phenomenon in the security world outside of strictly positivist and empirical frameworks.

That songs and movie plots and action figures and video games develop in reaction or response to companies like Blackwater says more about the people who produce and consume these products and less about the “world’s most powerful mercenary army.”

This is not to say that the industry should not be subject to strict scrutiny, but without scrutiny or question of the cultural virtues that seem to develop, the emergence and existence of companies like Blackwater could not be understood outside of the near unanimous, functional explanation of military downsizing in the post-Cold War era.

As news coverage will undoubtedly rise and fall with Blackwater as a subject, might the aforementioned scholars, journalists, soldiers, security personnel and activists entertain for a moment that the idea of Blackwater may be nothing more than the material reflection of the political, economic and social culture from which it was formed?

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