To the guy who said Blackwater was trigger happy, Some of them are, but not all of them. My uncle is in blackwater and is probably one of the best men Ive ever met. I dont like what they do over there, but I hope that this can be settled without a lot of unnecessary fuss.

Privatise, privatise, privatise... looks like they have run out of silver to pawn and are selling the family guns.

I would posit that the employment of mercenary forces is the direct result of the waging of a politically 'iffy' war with an all volunteer army. Bringing back the draft to support this mess would be a non-starter and the all volunteer army would not be able to support a multi-year occupation like this, especially given the rising unpopularity of the occupation.
Perhaps the overall lesson is that it is really unwise to railroad/trick a nation into war. Unless it goes swimmingly, then nation will not offer up its young people very willingly. We still have to pay for this mess, including the merc's salaries.

I think there are some elements of that at play, certainly.

But what I also at least suspect is that the increasing privatization of the military is the result of having taken exactly the wrong lessons from our failures in Vietnam.

In the aftermath of that debacle, we abandoned the draft, seeking to isolate the military and civilian populations from each other (and to insulate the civilian population from any sense of the sacrifices of war), and we deliberately abandoned "nation-building" in favor of ever-increasing specialization in combat operations and activities directly associated with combat.

These, I think, were shortsighted fixes. Nationbuilding is the face of war, now - battle, in the traditional sense, is largely (albeit not entirely) a thing of the past, like duelling. And the Army is now unstoppable in battle - as it always was, even in Vietnam - but can't do nationbuilding at all.

Meanwhile, the Army's non-combat functions have been steadily outsourced over the years, as a result of both the guiding theory of what the military and shouldn't be able to do, and also - especially in the Bush years - as a result of free-market fundamentalism (and the crony capitalism that inevitably derives from that).

But, as I say, I don't think you're wrong, either.

While I was in Iraq, I saw black water as a problem. We almost engaged them in a fight-fight once when they thought they were going to try to run us (American Army Soldiers) off the road because they were in a hurry.

I have no love for someone who has no self control. We got into plenty of ambush situations and never shot up the civilians.

Doesn't hurt my feelings to see them getting kicked out.

Maybe this will finally lead to us leaving and not caring about the wrong side of the world anymore.

CNN interviews victims of the shootout involving Blackwater:

Whoops, not so much. Blackwater is back in business in Iraq.

"Mercenaries are usless, disunited, unfaithful
They have nothing more to keep them in a battle
Other than a meager wage
Which is just about enough to make them wanna kill for you
But never enough to make them wanna die for ya"
John Cale Mercenaries (Ready For War)

Yup. Maliki says "it may prove difficult for the Iraqi government to follow through on threats to expel Blackwater".

Not surprised in the least

Machiavelli warns that princes must never depend on mercenaries.

If only we had such enlightened leadership today!

One of the reasons it can't do nationbuilding is that it doesn't have to justify its existence at home. The USA looks astonishingly militarised, to (at least) most of Europe.

Apart from that, I agree; though frankly, being unstoppable in Vietnam should have been trivial.

And then al-Maliki caves to US pressure:

So. The investigation is ongoing. Blackwater operating practices are still under question.

But that doesn't stop friends from helping out friends.

It looks like their troubles back here in the States are heating up with some weapons smuggling charges.

source

On the surface, there doesn't appear to be any relation.

Under investigation.

No not really. Just related to Blackwater. The article does say appear to say that a US Senator is accusing them of smuggling weapons, night-vision scopes, armor, gun kits and other military goods to Iraq without the required permits and that a federal investigation is being opened.

It seems the gentlemen mentioned at the bottom of your article that according to Blackwater are "negotiating sentencing in Raleigh with federal prosecutors." are the same guys mentioned in the article I read as " agreed to cooperate with authorities and testify about any crimes they knew of in plea deals filed last November"

I'm sure it's nothing.