Blackwater
Executives Boast of Membership in
The Knights of
Malta
‘What is
particularly scary about
Blackwater’s role in a war that
President Bush labeled a
‘crusade’ is that the
company’s leading executives are
dedicated to a Christian-supremacist
agenda…. Some Blackwater
executives even boast of their
membership in a Sovereign Military
Order of Malta, a [Roman Catholic]
Christian militia formed in the
eleventh century, before the first
Crusades, with the mission of
defending ‘territories that the
Crusaders had conquered from the
Moslems.’ The Order today boasts
of being ‘a sovereign subject of
international law, with its own
constitution, passports, stamps, and
public institutions’ and
‘diplomatic relations with 94
countries.’ The outsourcing of
U.S. military operations in Muslim
countries and in secular societies to
such neo-crusaders reinforces the
greatest fears of many in the Arab
world and other opponents of the
administration’s wars.”
–Blackwater, xxv, xxvi.
Joseph Schmitz: Knight
of Malta
One Knight of Malta
hired on at Blackwater is Joseph
Schmitz, “appointed by President
Bush to be the Pentagon’s
Inspector General, the top U.S.
official in charge of directly
overseeing military contractors in
Iraq and Afghanistan.” (Blackwater,
297), from 2002 to 2005. “On
Schmitz’s watch, well-connected
companies like Halliburton, KBR,
Bechtel, Fluor, Titan, CACI, Triple
Canopy, DynCorp, and Blackwater made
a killing serving the occupations of
Iraq and Afghanistan. By June of
2005, the Defense had 149 ‘prime
contracts’ with seventy-seven
contractors in Iraq worth
approximately $42.1 billion.”
–Blackwater, 297, 298.
Senator Wyden: Iraq
Like Dodge
City Before the
Marshals Showed
Up
“Its been like
Dodge City before the marshals showed
up,’ declared Senator Ron
Wyden.” –Blackwater, 298.
Under fire from Democrats and
Republicans, Schmitz resigned, and
“revealed his intention to
pursue a career working for Erik
Prince at Blackwater.” –Blackwater,
298.
“General
Schmitz,” Knight of
Malta,
Blackwater’s Chief
Operating Officer
“Joseph Schmitz,
like Erik Prince and other executives
at Blackwater, was a Catholic and a
Christian fundamentalist. Some would
go as far as to say he was a
religious fanatic obsesses with
implementing ‘the rule of law
under God.’ In numerous speeches
given during his time as Pentagon
Inspector General, Schmitz
articulated his vision and
understanding on the war on terror,
employing the rhetoric of Christian
supremacy…On his official
biography, Schmitz proudly listed
his membership in the Sovereign
Military Order of Malta, a
Christian militia formed in the
eleventh century, before the first
Crusades, with the mission of
defending ‘territories that the
Crusaders had conquered from the
Muslims. The Order today boasts of
being ‘a sovereign subject of
international law, with its own
constitution, passports, stamps, and
public institutions’ and
‘diplomatic relations with 94
countries.’” –Blackwater,
299.
Schmitz sits
“directly at Prince’s right
hand as the Prince Groups’ chief
operating officer and general
counsel. In a press release
announcing the hire, Erik Prince
referred to him as ‘General
Schmitz.’” –Blackwater,
300.
Schmitz comes from an
ultra-radical Catholic family that
has espoused the most radical
Catholic causes.
A Frankenstein
Experiment in
Military and
Intelligence
Outsourcing with
Iraq the Laboratory
Some of these
mercenaries’ armies can field
battalion-sized armies. Blackwater in
Iraq is bigger than Britain’s
entire military contingent there.
“’Each private firm amounts
to an individual battalion,’ a
U.S. government official told the Washington
Post. ‘Now they are all
coming together to build the largest
security organization in the world.
It became like a Frankenstein
experiment in military and
intelligence ouytsourcing,
with Iraq as the laboratory.” [Blackwater,
158.] They are networking together.
Baghdad Alive with
Mysterious
Westerners Draped with
Hardware
‘’[T]he
power of the mercenaries has been
growing,’ Robert Fisk wrote from
Baghdad in the summer of 2004.
‘Blackwater’s thugs with
guns now push and punch Iraqis who
get in their way: Kurdish journalists
twice walked out of a Bremer press
conference because of their
mistreatment by these men. Baghdad
is alive with mysterious Westerners
draped with hardware, shouting
and abusing Iraqis in the street,
drinking heavily in the cities poorly
defended hotels. They have become,
for ordinary Iraqis, the image of
everything that is wrong with the
West. We like to call them
‘contractors,’ but there is
a disturbing increase in reports that
mercenaries are shooting down
innocent Iraqis with total
impunity.’” –Blackwater,
158.
$100 Billion Per
Year Industry
They are extremely
highly paid, and have the ear and
support of the highest echelons of
the US government. Money is flowing
in a new gold rush as security is in
desperate demand in high-risk areas.
Massive infusion of taxpayers funds
is flowing like a giant IV into these
mercenary armies. It is now a $100
billion per year industry. [Blackwater,
158].
At one point recently
in October 2006 there were almost three
times the number of British armies in
Iraq as there were British military
– an estimated 21,000 private
mercenaries as opposed to about 7,200
active British military.
New Wave of the Future
–
Flooding the World
With Massive
Numbers of SEAL-type
Armies
Private militias are
these mercenary armies. They are the
new wave of the future. They are
flooding the world with a massive
number of expertly trained, Navy SEAL
type private mercenaries used to
working for vastly more money than
active military, and who have no
chain of command like the military,
and operate with immunity from
prosecution decreed by the ruling
power in Iraq.
These men are trained
to kill, men who are restless unless
they have that continual rush of
adrenalin from dangerous combat. I
have spoken to these men. They are so
trained to be killing machines that
they have great difficulty adapting
later to civilian life.
Men are pouring into
these mercenary armies. I once spoke
with a man I came across who had a
large scar across his face. He told
me that an African country having
trouble with thousands of rebels
threatening to overthrow of the
government, hired a seventy
[that’s 70] man miniature army
to protect them from overthrow. He
was part of the operation. The
seventy-man team flew in giant
Russian aircraft loaded with armored
vehicles equipped with machine guns.
They had excellent communications.
Once in the country, they located
where the rebels were, attacked the
thousands of armed rebels with their
superior firepower, overwhelmed the
rebels, quickly won the victory and
kept the government from collapsing.
Twelve Times the
Pay
Blackwater USA, at the
foremost of the mercenary armies,
offers no doubt the finest Special
Forces type training in the world.
Blackwater can field 25,000 men. It
is the world’s most powerful
mercenary army. It is like an army of
Special Forces personnel, armed to
the hilt with helicopters, heavy
military equipment, and superb
tactical training. Blackwater
commands a price tag of up to $1,500
to $2,000 per day for each of its men
in the field. Blackwater men make as
much in a month as military men make
in a year. Where then, would the
finest military men choose to serve?
The answer is obvious. They would go
where they can make twelve times as
much money. Therefore, Blackwater, by
virtue of its incredible wealth, can
command by far a far superior
quality force of men, pound for
pound, than the US Military.
