Xe (Blackwater) is the Problem

Xe is the Problem   – In These Times

Keeping the corporation formerly known as Blackwater out of Skunk Hollow.

At first glance, it appears that 2009 didn’t start so well for the military contractor Xe, until February known as Blackwater Worldwide. In January, with multiple other lawsuits pending, six of its former employees went on trial for the death of 17 Iraqi civilians in September 2007 in Nisoor Square, Baghdad. And in March, its contract in Iraq, where it has so far made more than $1 billion dollars, was canceled.

Yet, on April 20 the AP reported that Xe (pronounced “zee”) will remain in Iraq until the summer. It has been widely reported that its aviation company, Presidential Airlines, will continue operations in Iraq until the fall. And Triple Canopy, the company that will assume Xe’s contract in Iraq to protect U.S. personnel, will be hiring former Blackwater/Xe personnel.

The private military corporation (PMC) market, of which Xe is a boutique part, is growing globally at 6 to 8 percent a year and has now surpassed $100 billion, mostly based in the United States and the United Kingdom. The use of mercenaries goes back millennia, but the phenomenon of corporate private armies capable of challenging the nation state’s “monopoly on violence”—as President Barack Obama put it—is a late 20th century development that worries peace activists around the globe. These private armies are used not just on the battlefield but also to protect corporations, train public law enforcement personnel and, as after Katrina, patrol city streets.

via Xe is the Problem — In These Times.