Blackwater: Exactly As Evil As You Thought

The great thing about federal investigations: people present lots of information about crimes for us all to read through. It's kind of a lovely system, if you ask me.

Case in point: Blackwater (now XE) and its CEO Erik Prince. The company is now being investigated for multiple shooting deaths of Iraqis during the period when the Bush administration let the company run roughshod over that beleaguered nation. And former employees are telling some amazingly horrible stories.

Here are some sample allegations, reported by the Times Online of the UK:

• "..murder, weapons smuggling and the deliberate slaughter of civilians.."


• "...the company founder Erik Prince either murdered or had killed former employees co-operating with federal investigators..."


• "Prince 'views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe'"


• "executives destroyed incriminating videos, e-mails and documents and hid their criminal behaviour from the US State Department"


• "..also accused Blackwater guards of boasting of kills, taking mind-altering drugs, steroids and using child prostitutes."

The moral: when you think something bad has happened--like a crime--a federal investigation is a good idea. You'll be glad you had one; usually the story turns out to be as bad as you suspected.