Few people not employed by Blackwater know more about the rising world of private military companies than Robert Young Pelton, author of Licensed To Kill, an exploration of military contracting in the war on terrorism. Pelton told me it’s a mistake to point a finger at Blackwater for Sunday’s debacle in Mansour without looking at the role of the State Department — which, after all, pays Blackwater to protect its diplomats. State doesn’t want to take chances with its peoples’ lives in the chaos of Iraq.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=179844