BLACKWATER: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army

By: Jeremy Scahill

I used to think that the use of mercenaries, or guns for hire, was limited to the distant past and sub-Saharan Africa. I naively expected that western democracies would not hire people who are essentially thugs with guns to do their dirty work, except perhaps in the shadowy intelligence world of black ops.

For me that all changed with the killings of four American ‘contractors’ in Faluja in March 2004. The deaths would have gone relatively unnoticed but for the way in which these men’s bodies were subsequently mutilated and put on display for the world’s television cameras. Then people started asking just who these contractors were and what they were doing in Iraq in the first place. And slowly, bit by bit, the story of Blackwater (the company for which these four men worked) started to come out.

This book covers that occurrence in detail (including Blackwater’s subsequent politically-assisted efforts to silence the families of the men killed who were seeking answers and justice). It also recounts the Nisgour Square shootings in September 2007 where a small group of Blackwater mercenaries reportedly shot and killed16 Iraqi civilians, “without provocation” according to witnesses, and “with no enemy activity involved”  according to a US Army report.

This is all presented in the context of how George W. Bush’s war machine, fuelled as it was by sometimes equal portions of God, greed and gusto, lay down the welcome mat to Keith Prince’s private army and others.  Prince, the founder and CEO of Blackwater, comes from a deeply religious background which opened doors to the highest levels of power within the Bush administration. And once in, Blackwater continued to work those levers of power to operate in theater with impunity, subject to neither the Uniform Code of Military Conduct (UCMJ) or the laws of Iraq, all the while fostering closer and tighter relationships through lobbying and the hiring of ex-government officials from extremely senior and sensitive positions within the administration.

At their peak, private contractors (mercenaries) actually outnumbered US military personnel on the ground in Iraq.  But then, realizing the war (and its lucrative profit margins) wouldn’t go on forever, Blackwater and others set their sights on domestic markets, with Hurricane Katrina providing the impetus to deploy stateside: “[Blackwater] beat the federal government and most aid organizations to the scene as 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear spread out into the chaos of New Orleans.” So now we have guns for hire patrolling a major US city, a law unto themselves, with no clear mandate or chain of command to a higher authority – the very definition of vigilantism.

The book is a real eye-opener, albeit a disturbing one. Recommended.

(Note to Canadian readers: Lest you think this is a US issue, news out of Ottawa today (Feb 7, 2011) claims that Canada has paid $41 million to security companies (i.e. mercenaries) in Afghanistan over the past 4 years.)

13 Things That Don’t Make Sense

by Michael Brooks

Writing about science for non-scientific readers poses its own particular challenges but for the most part Brooks has quite successfully met those challenges with his entertaining and very interesting exploration of 13 areas where science is still unable to come to an understanding of how, or why things work the way they do.

The subtitle, “The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time” may be overstating it a bit, but the 13 areas Brooks picked certainly cover a wide range of scientific exploration and theory ranging from the “missing” universe to a discussion on homeopathy. In between he discusses the challenges faced by scientists as they try to explain death, life, sex and a variety of other scientific conundrums.

On life, Brooks says that we are clearly “more than just a bag of chemicals”, but what is the “more”? No chemical in our bodies does not exist elsewhere in other living or non-living things. And even though we can assemble all the ingredients, we are unable to create, or even explain, life. We just don’t know the recipe.

Sexual reproduction is, according to Brooks, one of the least effective ways in which living things can reproduce. Asexual reproduction is more effective, efficient, and does a better job of sustaining the species that practice it. So why did we evolve the way we have and reproduce the way we do (aside from the obvious fun factor)?

One of the most interesting segments in my opinion was the discussion about free will. Free will is often seen as a cornerstone of our humanness, but some research has brought that whole concept into question. Normally we think, then act – I think I’ll move my hand, and then I execute the movement. Pretty straightforward, right? Except that it doesn’t seem to work that way. Subjects wired up to various brain scanners have shown that the brain is already starting the action needed to move the hand before the subject becomes consciously aware of his intent to move his hand. In other words, the brain activity is preceding the conscious thought process. So does conscious thought cause the brain to act? Or is it the other way around? Much to think about here for sure.

This is a book to be read slowly. The concepts, while expressed in layman’s terms, can still be quite complex, requiring a degree of attention and focus one can’t normally get reading in bed and falling asleep mid-page. But it is certainly worth the effort to read, and read again.

Recommended.

Note: You can also check it out at www.13thingsthatdontmakesense.com.

The Ghost Road

By Pat Barker.

The Ghost Road is the third book in Pat Barker’s First World War Regeneration Trilogy, following Regeneration, and The Eye in the Door.

The Ghost Road picks up the story in the closing days of the war as Dr. Rivers tries to make sense of what has happened and obsesses over whether he has actually helped any of the war wounded in his care. He has done his job, but is sending men who are “cured” back to France to face almost certain further injury or death morally justified? Reminiscences of his childhood and his experiences with the primitive head-hunting tribes of Micronesia provide further insight into his character.

Two of the patients in his care, Billy Prior and the poet Wilfred Owen are among those who go back to the front. Prior has an option to stay in  England but chooses, in fact feels compelled, to return. The details of their last few days of the war at the front are chilling indeed as they try to survive even as talk of an armistice is heavy in the air.

A winner of the 1995 Booker Prize, this book is very good – not quite as good as Regeneration, in my opinion, but a worthy read nonetheless. Furthermore, the reader would be best advised to read the trilogy in sequence, otherwise much of the context and some of the character development would be missed.

Recommended.

Zen and Now

By Mark Richardson

Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a road story with a twist.

From the cover liner:

“Richardson … was struck by [Zen and The Art’s] portrayal of Pirsig’s complex relationship with Chris and struck by the timelessness of its lessons.

So Richardson tuned up his old Suzuki dirt bike and became a “Pirsig pilgrim””.

Richardson neatly blends his own experiences on this trip with those of Pirsig some 36 years earlier. He follows the same route, visits the same places, and meets many of the same people that Pirsig encountered. And in the process comes to better understand himself, the Pirsigs, and Zen and the Art.

But Richardson takes it beyond a simple road story with his extensive research into the lives of the Pirsigs beyond what we learn in Zen and the Art.  The murder of Chris in San Francisco, the marital breakup, the relationship with the other son, Tom, all combine to add an interesting third dimension to Zen and Now.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for something deeply philosophical, read Pirsig’s second book, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals. But if you want a book that will keep you turning the pages and perhaps trigger an impulse to become a Pirsig pilgrim yourself, Zen and Now is a worthwhile addition to your motorcycling library.

When walking, just walk.
When sitting, just sit.
Above all, don’t wobble.

The Eye in the Door

By Pat Barker.

The Eye in The Door is the second book of Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy. Whereas Regeneration focused on the relationship between Dr. William Rivers and Siegfried Sassoon at Craiglockhart, this book deals with life on the home front in 1918 and the relationships between one soldier, an intelligence officer, and the various conscientious objectors, war resisters, and homosexuals he comes into contact with in London as part of his duties.

But that soldier, Billy Prior, was also not left unscathed by his time at the front. After a breakdown, he was removed from active combat duties and underwent several months of therapy at Craiglockhart. When ‘cured’ he was attached to the Department of Munitions in their Intelligence Division. It’s during his tenure there that we see him begin to break down emotionally and psychologically. Eventually he is forced to consult with the one man who had helped him previously – Dr. Rivers.

One tends to assume that the war effort was universally supported in England – how else to explain the continued recruitment of young men to throw into the meat grinder of the Western Front – but there was an active and organised resistance to the war in England at the time. The Eye in the Door offers an interesting glimpse of that world and with a narrative that is both compelling and disturbing, Barker delivers a fascinating read that offers one more perspective on The Great War and how it changed a generation.

The Great Karoo

By Fred Stenson

When I first picked up The Great Karoo I was anticipating a novel comparable to Three Day Road (Boyden), another story of Canadians at war. However unlike Three Day Road (which I would have read in one sitting if the need for food and sleep hadn’t interrupted), I found The Great Karoo to be a bit of a struggle.

The Great Karoo is primarily a story of Western Canadians fighting in the Boer War. The story line follows Frank Adams, a cowboy from Alberta who signs up with the Canadian Mounted Rifles, through training, across the ocean to South Africa, crossing the Great Karoo Desert, and into the thick of the fighting.

Frank is certainly not the best soldier Canada ever produced, but he manages to survive, and through the lens of his experience we see the war, its conduct, and the relationships these men develop with each other, their horses, and even, in some cases, the enemy.

I found the book interesting from an historical perspective as I learned a few things about the Boer War I didn’t know before. But surprisingly, for all the rich potential of the story, I found the tone of the book to be confusing, and even somewhat impassionate. The Great Karoo couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a war story, a story about the relationships between these Westerners, a story about South Africa, or a love story. The seeds were there – bits of all four were scattered about – but they never germinated into the fulsome, engaging tale of adventure, war, and personal experiences I was expecting. Consequently I developed no emotional attachment to the story or any of the characters – historical or fictional. Frankly by the end of the book it mattered not one whit to me who survived and who didn’t; I just didn’t care enough for any of the characters to celebrate their safe return or mourn their loss.

It took me a long time to read The Great Karoo as I could only read 5-10 pages at a time before something more interesting would attract my attention. That perhaps was partly the reason I couldn’t get “into” it - a bit of chicken and egg here – I didn’t commit the time to become consumed by the story, and I wasn't consumed by the story so didn’t expend the time and effort. So it could just be me and the head space I was in when reading this book, but I’m not so sure....

Is it “A truly magnificent novel” as David Adams Richards enthuses on the cover? Not in my opinion. It’s an interesting read and worth the effort if you are curious about the role of Canadians in the Boer War, but it’s certainly not a page-turner, and surely not “a deeply satisfying novel” as claimed on the overleaf.