Blackwater: How Exactly Does This Help Us?

I've deliberately been trying to refrain from ripping my face off and blogging 24/7 about the Bush administration and how I am convinced they have caused permanent harm to the Constitution of the United States and our good standing in the pantheon of world history and opinion. I mean, where do you start? It would take forever to just break the ice on all the ridiculous things they've been doing. But it's also a cop-out not to recognize it from time to time. These are important days. And there are, in my opinion, very serious consequences to what has been going on. If Clinton had done a tenth of what the Bushies have done, not only would he have been impeached, but he would have been convicted, and I would have been the first to say good riddance. In a way the Republicans' impeachment of Clinton was brilliant Machiavellian strategy, for it so soured the nation of the idea of impeachment that it isn't an option in the slightest for a group of miscreants who clearly deserve it.

Which leads me to Blackwater. I don't think enough attention has been paid to exactly what the long-term ramifications are with these criminals. Beyond the already disturbing reports of their abuses, beyond the fact that they literally operate above the law and with no oversight, beyond even the weasel-like use of Blackwater to purposely make our deployment of manpower and resources in Iraq seem much smaller than it really is, the use of Blackwater is perhaps irrevocably changing how this country will raise war and conduct foreign policy. We are privatizing war and making U.S. foreign policy a for-profit venture. And clearly I cannot be the only one to think that this is not a very good idea. I'm not too keen on the whole military-industrial complex to begin with (Eisenhower was incredibly prescient there), but the actual conduct of war is definitely not something I want the free market to be a part of.

Anyways, Army Lt. Col Bob Bateman, who served in Iraq for two years, has been a regular poster over at Altercation for a long time. I have developed a great deal of respect for him. He is a historian by trade, apart from his active duty, and is a remarkably reasoned and intelligent man with undeniable insight and opinions into this whole fiasco (and I would just love to see Limbaugh call him a "phony soldier!"). He has a new op/ed at the Chicago Tribune about his experience with Backwater overseas, and it's not a happy story. Check it out.