内容简介
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On September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad's Nisour Square leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled Baghdad's Bloody Sunday, was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide.
This is the explosive story of a company that rose a decade ago from Moyock, North Carolina, to become one of the most powerful players in the War on Terror. In his gripping bestseller, awardwinning journalist Jeremy Scahill takes us from the bloodied streets of Iraq to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans to the chambers of power in Washington, to expose Blackwater as the frightening new face of the U.S. war machine.
* Winner of the George Polk Book Award
* Alternet Best Book of the Year
* Barnes Noble one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007
* one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007
编辑推荐
From Publishers Weekly
Scahill, a regular contributor to the
Nation, offers a hard-left perspective on Blackwater USA, the self-described private military contractor and security firm. It owes its existence, he shows, to the postCold War drawdown of U.S. armed forces, its prosperity to the post-9/11 overextension of those forces and its notoriety to a growing reputation as a mercenary outfit, willing to break the constraints on military systems responsible to state authority. Scahill describes Blackwater's expansion, from an early emphasis on administrative and training functions to what amounts to a combat role as an internal security force in Iraq. He cites company representatives who say Blackwater's capacities can readily be expanded to supplying brigade-sized forces for humanitarian purposes, peacekeeping and low-level conflict. While emphasizing the possibility of an "adventurous President" employing Blackwater's mercenaries covertly, Scahill underestimates the effect of publicity on the deniability he sees as central to such scenarios. Arguably, he also dismisses too lightly Blackwater's growing self-image as the respectable heir to a long and honorable tradition of contract soldiering. Ultimately, Blackwater and its less familiar counterparts thrive not because of a neoconservative conspiracy against democracy, as Scahill claims, but because they provide relatively low-cost alternatives in high-budget environments and flexibility at a time when war is increasingly protean.
(Apr. 10)
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From AudioFile
The dark, largely unknown, story of Blackwater, the world's most secretive, powerful, and fastest growing private army, is chillingly told in Jeremy Scahill's exposé. Fact by fact, Scahill demonstrates the widespread outsourcing of military tasks to private companies bankrolled by right-wing millionaire Eric Prince, the scion of a conservative dynasty (founded, ironically, on the invention of the lighted car visor and the car cup-holder). Tom Weiner has precise diction and a rumbling, authoritative delivery. Listeners might detect a slight jarring note when his masculine voice attempts women's voices, but nothing detracts from the saga of self-regulated profiteering armies being entrusted with U.S. foreign policy and U.S. lives.A.W. AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
专业书评
From Publishers Weekly
Scahill, a regular contributor to the
Nation, offers a hard-left perspective on Blackwater USA, the self-described private military contractor and security firm. It owes its existence, he shows, to the postCold War drawdown of U.S. armed forces, its prosperity to the post-9/11 overextension of those forces and its notoriety to a growing reputation as a mercenary outfit, willing to break the constraints on military systems responsible to state authority. Scahill describes Blackwater's expansion, from an early emphasis on administrative and training functions to what amounts to a combat role as an internal security force in Iraq. He cites company representatives who say Blackwater's capacities can readily be expanded to supplying brigade-sized forces for humanitarian purposes, peacekeeping and low-level conflict. While emphasizing the possibility of an "adventurous President" employing Blackwater's mercenaries covertly, Scahill underestimates the effect of publicity on the deniability he sees as central to such scenarios. Arguably, he also dismisses too lightly Blackwater's growing self-image as the respectable heir to a long and honorable tradition of contract soldiering. Ultimately, Blackwater and its less familiar counterparts thrive not because of a neoconservative conspiracy against democracy, as Scahill claims, but because they provide relatively low-cost alternatives in high-budget environments and flexibility at a time when war is increasingly protean.
(Apr. 10)
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From AudioFile
The dark, largely unknown, story of Blackwater, the world's most secretive, powerful, and fastest growing private army, is chillingly told in Jeremy Scahill's exposé. Fact by fact, Scahill demonstrates the widespread outsourcing of military tasks to private companies bankrolled by right-wing millionaire Eric Prince, the scion of a conservative dynasty (founded, ironically, on the invention of the lighted car visor and the car cup-holder). Tom Weiner has precise diction and a rumbling, authoritative delivery. Listeners might detect a slight jarring note when his masculine voice attempts women's voices, but nothing detracts from the saga of self-regulated profiteering armies being entrusted with U.S. foreign policy and U.S. lives.A.W. AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
媒体推荐
Review
A crackling expos of the secretive military contractor Blackwater.
The New York Times Book Review[Scahill] is a one-man truth squad.Bill Moyers
[An] utterly gripping and explosive story.Naomi Klein, The Guardian
The biggest book of the yearan amazingly researched and well-told story.Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive
Scahills page-turning collection of intrigue and insight into the underworld of privatized warfare is well researched, thoroughly documented, and as a result extremely frightening.The Globe and Mail
Scahill provided me informationwhich I have not been able to get from the U.S. militaryI have read more from Mr. Scahill, than Ive got from our own government.Representative Marcy Kaptur, Defense Appropriations Committee
[T]his is no uninformed partisan screedMeticulously documented and encyclopedic in scopeits a comprehensive and authoritative guidethis book serves as a provocative primer for advancing the debate.Bill Sizemore, Pulitzer-prize nominated journalist, Virginian-Pilot
Andy McNab couldnt have invented this prescient tale of the private army of mercenaries run by a Christian conservative millionaire who, in turn, bankrolls the president. A chilling expos of the ultimate military outsource.Christopher Fowler, The New Reviews Best Books of 2007
Fascinating and magnificently documentedJeremy Scahills new book is a brilliant expos and belongs on the reading list of any conscientious citizen.Scott Horton, International and Military Law Expert, Columbia University Law School
Virginian-Pilot
At Blackwater USA, Jeremy Scahills is the face they love to hate [He is] perhaps the private military companys most dogged critic.
Bill Maher, host of HBOs Real Time
[Scahills] book is so scary and so illuminating.
The Guardian (London)
Blackwater being rarely out of the news lately, this is a very useful survey of modern mercenaries or, as they prefer to be called, private security contractors in the peace and stability industryScahill is a sharp investigative writer.
Scarlett Johansson, actor
It should be mandatory reading. Its very interesting and scary.
作者简介
Jeremy Scahill is a frequent contributor to
The Nation magazine and a correspondent for the national radio and TV program
Democracy Now! He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill has won numerous awards for his reporting, including the prestigious George Polk Award, which he won twice. While a correspondent for
Democracy Now!, Scahill reported extensively from Iraq through both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Traveling around the hurricane zone in the wake of Katrina, Scahill exposed the presence of Blackwater forces in New Orleans and his reporting sparked a Congressional inquiry and an internal Department of Homeland Security investigation. He has appeared on
ABC World News,
CBS Evening News,
NBC Nightly News, CNN, MSNBC, PBSs
The NewsHour,
Bill Moyers Journal and is a frequent guest on other radio and TV programs nationwide. Scahill also serves as an election correspondent for HBOs
Real Time with Bill Maher. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
