EXCLUSIVE: The Jericho Report
Blackwater Part 1

“The mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous, and if anyone
supports his state by the arms of mercenaries, he will never stand firm or
sure, as they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, faithless, bold
amongst friends, cowardly amongst enemies, they have no fear of God,
and keep no faith with men.”
                                                                      — Machiavelli, The Prince

Private Military Contractors for Dyncorps, Wackenhut, Triple Canopy, Blackwater, MPRI and others.

Private Military Companies (PMCs), Private Security Companies (PSCs), and firms in adjacent business sectors play growing roles in the implementation of the defense, development, and security agendas since the end of the Cold War. In the era of globalization, these types of contractors are critical in raising and maintaining levels of security in unstable but economically important areas of the world. Ongoing global instability since 9/11 fosters a demand for private military and security services too. The contracting-out and outsourcing imperatives of governments further make private military and security solutions viable alternatives for authorities to consider. By consolidating an expert sample of hyperlinks pointing at sources and aspects inherent in the privatization of defense, humanitarian undertakings, and security.

PrivateMilitary.org

That is the "positive" point of view.

What is not spoken above whispers in "our world" is that the use of private armies such as Blackwater, Dyncorp, Triple Canopy, Wackenhut, MPRI, Dick Cheney's Halliburton, Kellogg Brown Root (KBR) and the scores of other PMCs that have been created in recent decades, is that they allow governments to lie about the number of "troops" committed to areas like Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.

These private "contracted armies" come in handy, for example, when U.S. military forces are stretched too thin and can't accomplish their mission - if they actually have one. The "privates" come in - paid far, far more and enjoying complete immunity from prosecution in both the U.S. and the countries where they are sent for any and all crimes they commit - no matter how hideous.

Blackwater is the most notorious because, according to the military forces who work with them, they are "the most out of control."

Blackwater has [at least] 2,300 private soldiers deployed in nine countries, including inside the United States. It maintains a database of 21,000 former Special Forces troops, soldiers and retired law enforcement agents on whom it can call at a moment's notice. Blackwater has a private fleet of more than 20 aircraft, including helicopter gunships and a surveillance blimp division.

Its 7,000-acre headquarters in Moyock, NC, is the world's largest private military facility. ... Blackwater has more than $50 million in government contracts - and that does not include its secret "black" budget operations for U.S. intelligence agencies.

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill
as quoted in The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot by Naomi Wolfe, p. 74

Those who are supportive of private armies bristle at the word "mercenary", while critics say that is exactly what they are.

PrivateMilitary.org has a very comprehensive listing of Private Military Companies and Private Military Contractors, as well as some other intriguing information on the whole "private military" phenomenon, all of a positive or promotional nature. These links lead to multi-page lists for each category.

The website serves as a clearing house and job bank for those seeking PMC employment.

legally established multinational commercial enterprises offering services that involve the potential to exercise force in a systematic way and by military means and/or the transfer or enhancement of that potential to clients. The potential to exercise force can materialize when rendering, for example, a vast array of protective services in climates of instability (on land and sea). Transfer or enhancement, on the other hand, occurs when delivering expert military training and other services such as logistics support, risk assessment, and intelligence gathering. It is a ‘potential’ to exercise force because the presence of a PMC can deter aggressors from considering the use of force as a viable course of action. (*)

Taken from: Ortiz, Carlos. 'The Private Military Company: An Entity at the Center of Overlapping Spheres of Commercial Activity and Responsibility' (PDF), in Jäger, Thomas and Kümmel, Gerhard (eds). Private Military and Security Companies. Chances, Problems, Pitfalls and Prospects, Vs Verlag, 2007, pp. 60-1. > PDFs: page 60, page 61.

(*) An earlier version of this definition is found in Ortiz, Carlos. 'Regulating Private Military Companies: States and the Expanding Business of Commercial Security Provision', in L. Assassi, D. Wigan and K. van der Pijl (eds). Global Regulation. Managing Crises After the Imperial Turn. Houndmills / New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p. 206.

"Private MIlitary Companies" or PMCs are on occasions referred to as "Military Firms", "Military Service Providers" (MSPs), "Privatized Military Firms" (PMFs), "Transnational Security Corporations" (TSCs), and "security contractors". All of these terms, however, point at the same phenomenon: firms offering security and military-related services that up to the 1980s used to be considered the preserve of the state.

Other terms used to refer to Private Military Companies (PMCs) are Private Security Companies or Contractors (PSCs) and Privatized Military Firms (PMFs). Therefore, in spite of inevitable conceptual ambiguities this definition also answers the questions What Private Security Companies or What Privatized Military firms are. Use the menu on the left to explore the variable articulation of these peculiar private military and/or private security service providers, whether labeled PMCs, PMFs, or PSCs. However, please note that the PSC label is increasingly and erroneously used in the popular press to refer to traditional security firms, which chiefly profit from the offering of passive security services that have nothing to do with the military.

Some diversified corporations offer services that incorporate private security tasks in their delivery, which on many occasions are outsourced to Private Security Companies. At the same time, the links established between corporations and PSCs can be traced down to ownership issues, share speculations, contractual relations, or formal or informal partnerships at a particular given time; these, on occasions, can be very subtle indeed.

PrivateMilitary.org