This article in The Nation is fascinating to me because years ago, when I was still living in Paris, I ran into a guy who told me a similar story of how he -- as a Blackwater employee -- had to literally *escape* from Iraq to avoid being killed by them.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill The guy *could* have been bullshitting me, but he struck me as a fairly no-bullshit guy, and I saw very little reason to disbelieve what he said. He "signed up" as a contractor with Blackwater early in the Iraq War, and was assigned primarily desk duties creating invoices to send to the US govern- ment for Blackwater services. The only trouble was that he was being told to LIE consistently on these invoices, and inflate the charges as much as tenfold. Somewhat disturbed about this, the guy said he wrote an email *on his private email account* to a friend suggesting (with no details) that he was being told to do illegal things by Blackwater. The *next day* he was called into the main Blackwater offices and subjected to a three-hour grilling, after which he was instructed to shut the fuck up and go back to doing what he was told to do, or else. He decided to do something else instead, and went back to his room, packed his bag, and walked out, on his way to the American Embassy, there to ask for help in getting out of Iraq. According to the guy's story, just as he arrived at the Embassy, a big black Blackwater SUV pulled up and three armed Blackwater employees demanded that he get into it and go with them. My friend in Paris claimed that what he did at that time was yell to the military guards at the gates of the Embassy and told them that these guys were trying to force him to get into their car and go with them, and could they help him. The guards asked him to produce his passport and when he did and it was clear that he was an American, his story is that they leveled their guns at the Blackwater employees and allowed him to enter the Embassy. He flew out the next day and, when I met him, was working for a non-war-profiteer in Paris. Interesting story. It *could* be bullshit, but it didn't feel that way. And now that other stories are emerging about Blackwater murdering employees who were trying to "blow the whistle" on its illegal activities, it feels even less like bullshit.
