Coming to America: Mercenary Justice | Black Agenda Report

Coming to America: Mercenary Justice

09 Jul 2014

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

There is as yet no legal barrier to wholesale deployment of mercenary soldiers to U.S. cities. Such forces occupied New Orleans in 2005, two years before Blackwater troops massacred Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. Could Times Square be next?

Coming to America: Mercenary Justice

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“As long as the United States is allowed to act with imperial impunity on the world stage, its uniformed and civilian armed forces will recognize no limitations on their behavior.”

The trial of four Blackwater mercenaries in the unprovoked massacre of Iraqi civilians in 2007 is probably not the biggest news item of the day for Iraqis, faced as they are with a national crisis of potentially apocalyptic dimensions. However, the events unfolding in a Washington DC federal court should be of critical interest to Americans, who will one day find themselves under the guns of mercenaries licensed to kill with impunity. In fact, it has already happened, in New Orleans, after Katrina.

Two years before the atrocity in Baghdad, Blackwater descended on New Orleans in force in the wake of the 2005 hurricane, setting up a downtown headquarters and deploying its troops in full battle gear, armed just “as they would be in Iraq.” Jeremy Scahill, reporting at the time for The Nation magazine, said Blackwater troops told him that in addition to having been authorized to use lethal force, they were also empowered to arrest citizens. Many of them had flown in straight from Iraq to occupy a great Black American city.

At least five mercenary companies patrolled New Orleans under contract with Homeland Security, including an outfit of Israeli ex-special forces troops under a company named Instinctive Shooting International. Civil liberties activists warned at the time that placing an American city under mercenary occupation is illegal, but neither President Bush nor Barack Obama nor the Congress or the courts have clarified the question of mercenary deployment. Therefore, it is all but inevitable that legions of hired killers and “instinctive shooters” from around the world will again be sent to U.S. cities, with consequences that will rival the carnage at Nisoor Square, in Baghdad.

The Long Mercenary Legacy

Mercenaries have a long history in the United States. The granddaddy of them all, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, founded in 1850, specialized in both raw thuggery and advanced intelligence gathering techniques to make millions defending ruling class privileges and property. The Pinkertons broke scores of strikes and created the first national criminal data base. The State of Ohio outlawed the Pinkertons in 1890, fearing it had become a private army, or an independent militia. By that time, the Pinkerton’s were a larger force than the standing army of the United States. In 1999, after almost a century and a half of service to the rich and powerful, the Pinkerton agency was sold to Securitas Security Services USA, which six years later took part in the Katrina occupation.

However, we must be clear that the driving force behind the explosive growth of killer corporations is the U.S. military, which trains the assassins and sends them on missions of murder around the globe, and later hires them at fantastic salaries through mercenary corporations, which in turn become indispensable to the U.S. war machine. As long as the United States is allowed to act with imperial impunity on the world stage, its uniformed and civilian armed forces will recognize no laws, no limitations on their behavior. Private soldiers and mercenary corporations are only reflections of the government that gave them birth.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. Go to BlackAgendaReport.com to sign up for email notification when we put out a new issue, each Wednesday.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20140709_gf_Blackwater.mp3

More Stories

Essam Elkorghli
De-Baathification 2.0: One Year Since the Fall of Syria
10 Dec 2025
Western media celebrate the terrorist they supported as Syria's savior. Syria’s new U.S.-backed rulers have erased anti-colonial history, enacted neo-liberal policies, and welcomed Israeli occupation…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio December 5, 2025
05 Dec 2025
In this week’s segment, we hear about events in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, a disputed election, and a so-called coup that was actually carried out on behalf of the president. But first…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
China Cannot Be Contained
05 Dec 2025
Margaret Kimberley was a guest on the Jamarl Thomas YouTube Channel. We present excerpts of the discussion of her contribution to the new anthology China Changes Everything. Her chapter is entitled "…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Guinea-Bissau Coup Protects Its Neo-Liberal State
05 Dec 2025
The West African nation of Guinea-Bissau recently experienced an aborted electoral process followed by what was called a coup d’etat. But the reality differs from the narrative presented by the neo-…
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Dimitri Lascaris
US Attack On Venezuela Would Cause 'Chaos' In The Region w/ Ajamu Baraka
03 Dec 2025
Ajamu Baraka, BAR Editor and Columnist, joins Dimitri Lascaris to discuss the potential US attack on Venezuela and its regional impact. The conversation explores the legality and morality of recent…