Blackwater is NOT Free Market!!

"This past long weekend edition of STR had a link about Mercenaries Patrolling in New Orleans. This link is to a story in The Nation magazine and is negatively slanted against the free market practice of buying security protection. I am not sure why or what the objection is."-- "Would I Hire Mercenaries? Hell Yes!"by Ali Hassan Massoud

Although I tend to agree with most of the articles written at Strike The Root I was surprised
with the take by one Ali Hassan Massoud on the presence of Blackwater security in New Orleans.

He seemed upset that Blackwater was being bashed by The Nation for being a Private Company but correctly points out that Government security made a mess of things.

While this does not surprise me coming from a magazine such as The Nation, we as Anarcho- Capitalists should not be celebrating this as an example of the wonders of the Free Market.

To the contrary Blackwater as an acceptor of Government contracts is no more Free Market than Haliburton in Iraq.

"Blackwater is one of the leading private "security" firms servicing the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It has several US government contracts and has provided security for many senior US diplomats, foreign dignitaries and corporations."--"Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans" by By Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091005A.shtml

So yes Ali, a private security is a better alternative to Government security which was an abysmal failure in New Orleans.

However Blackwater getting fat off of Government contracts is not the Free Market but a Government handpicked Monopoly so we shouldn't be celebrating it simply because it appears to be a step in the right direction which it is not.

Patrick Sovereign,

Enemy of the State