The private security firm Blackwater is planning to offer a new service to make money: protection from the pirate-infested waters off the coast of East Africa. “Blackwater’s push to land its first antipiracy contract is part of a strategy to build its business outside its State Department security work in Iraq, which brings in between $300 million and $400 million a year.” The security company may be looking for new lucrative opportunities partly because the Iraqi government has now ratified a law stripping Blackwater contractors of immunity. Indeed, Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell noted the legal benefits of operating in the open sea: “We would be allowed to fire if fired upon; the right of self-defense is one that exists in international waters.”~~lt;/p>
Why do I get visions of Lord Beckett and the East India Trading Company in my head? If you haven’t see all three Pirates of the Caribbean, then you might be lost at my reference so let me explain real quick. Beckett ran the East India Trading Company and decided to make his company more profitable he would go out and defeat all the pirates. Of course his methods were less than ethical, something we know of Blackwater. In the end the pirates won and Beckett was dead.
It just strikes me as funny that when Blackwater loses their immunity in Iraq, and some Blackwater employees are actually facing criminal charges now, that they are presented with a new opportunity to make money and kill. Would you really feel save on a cruise if pirates took the ship hostage and Blackwater came to your rescue? If you don’t know the answer, ask the family members of Iraqi civilians that have been killed by the trigger happy mercenaries.