Knowing this, it becomes exceedingly difficult to escape the dreadful conclusion that for U.S. forces, Blackwater has a sort of al Qaeda effect. Each moment our nation's most powerful for-profit, private militia spends in Iraq, extends further the period during which rank and file U.S. soldiers will remain in harm's way.
Each moment adds to the list of U.S. casualties; of flag-draped coffins secretly whisked out of Iraq to be flown into Dover Air Force Base in the dead of night.
Each moment increases the frequency of the dreaded solemn visits from military chaplains and fellow soldiers to homes of deceased service men and women. Visitors who are accompanied not by a family member in uniform, fortunate to have made it back alive, but instead, by a carefully folded American flag, and perhaps, a bible.
For Blackwater however, these are moments that register like a taxicab's fare meter as the for-profit militia's deep pockets grow flush with over one billion American tax dollars and counting. In an example of skewed priorities, U.S. service men and women earn a mere fraction of what Blackwater pays its personnel -- as much as $180,000 yearly, all U.S. taxpayer dollars -- while Blackwater personnel experience a mere fraction of the dying (30 Blackwater casualties thus far, according to Prince).
Just the ugly side of capitalism? Or, the stark representation of the old adage that all's fair in love and war?
Whichever, the reality is that while the Iraq war will continue to deepen the pockets of Blackwater, America’s most powerful for-profit private militia, the prolonging of that war, to a considerable degree a result of Blackwater’s unconscionable, perhaps suspiciously reckless behavior, can only serve to deepen the divide that the ill-fated post-911 decision to initiate a war with Iraq has created within the American people.
As such, in the case of Blackwater, we have seen the enemy; and it is us.
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