Thread: Why Terrorism Exists

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

Wow. With all of the discussion that has been going on about the war, lately, I'm really surprised you're not familiar with Blackwater USA, UM. They have been all over the news, recently.

They are basically mercenaries that the U.S. government hires. They have been coming into play a lot, lately, because the U.S. forces are having a lot of trouble doing the job "on their own." The most recent scandal has come because many (not just the ones skysaw mentioned) civilian deaths have been caused by Blackwater agents and, unlike the U.S. military, they face no immediate consequences for their actions. They operate outside of U.S. military directives and, over there, U.S. civil law doesn't necessarily apply.

In other words, they are unbound vigilantes (more or less), hired by the U.S. to help us fight, but are automatically exonerated for things that military personnel would be court-martialed for, or worse.

I am familiar with the term and what they generally do, but the "vigilantes for hire" part is something I missed. It seems to me that if they are working for the government, which I assumed was the case the times I came across their name, the government is responsible for their actions in the scope of employment. That does not mean they should be responsible for everthing they do in life. If the government is not being held responsible for their reportedly wrong actions on the job, they should be. I am of course speaking in hypotheticals here. I will need to look more into the details of what you and Skysaw are saying before I comment about facts.

EDIT: I just read the Wikipedia article. It looks like there are several investigations of them being conducted and Congress is pushing a bill to make contractor crimes in Iraq prosecutable in the United States. The bill has already been passed in the House. And of course the Iraqi government is free to prosecute them for crimes in Iraq. They are also being sued on behalf of certain Iraqi families. They are not exactly above all laws and free to rape and plunder.