Sherry Chandler » The Bulging Biceps of Fundamentalism
The Bulging Biceps of Fundamentalism
Blackwater: bulging biceps fueled by ideological purity, from Floyd J. McKay in the Seattle Times (via Informed Comment):
BLACKWATER, the secretive private army now emerging into public view, is a perfect hinge linking two key elements of the Republican political base: America’s war machine and a muscular form of fundamentalist Christianity.
Military contractors such as Halliburton and Blackwater are the brainchild of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. A major goal of Cheney when he was secretary of defense in the first Bush administration was to privatize as much military work as possible, ostensibly to make it more efficient. He commissioned a study by Halliburton, which predictably liked the idea and wound up as America’s largest military contractor. Cheney was hired as Halliburton’s chief officer, awaiting the return of a Republican administration.
When that occurred, Cheney and Rumsfeld enthusiastically promoted privatization, and went so far as to include private contractors in the “Total Force” of the American military, standing never before given to contractors.
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Blackwater is the private empire of billionaire Erik Prince, a major Republican fundraiser and bankroller of several fundamentalist Christian organizations. His private army employs some 2,300 active gunners and boasts a register of 21,000 ready to serve on call. He has the largest privately held arsenal in the country and the expertise and firepower to bring down a small country.
In 2006, Prince expanded internationally, forming a new subsidiary in Barbados, outside American taxes and regulation, to train foreign forces, often funded by American military aid. Elite Blackwater soldiers have conducted secretive “black jobs” for the CIA or other spy agencies.
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Blackwater’s lawyers assert it cannot be sued because it is part of the “Total Force.”
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In Prince, the Republicans’ radical Christian base is wed to the war-machine base, the one providing votes and manpower, the other providing campaign funds.
The resulting combination is one of rigid ideology and eagerness to solve any problem with overwhelming force.
Now let’s see — what’s the definition of a terrorist organization? Doesn’t it have something to do with being an army without a state? an army outside the law? an army espousing some fundamentalist cause?
Read all of this excellent article.
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