RADIO TIMES: JEREMY SCAHILL has been a critic of Blackwater Worldwide, a private security contractor that has participated in military operations in Iraq and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Scahill continues to write about Blackwater and the company’s plans for further operations. His most recent article is “Blackwater’s Private Spies” published in the June 23rd edition of The Nation. LISTEN
USA TODAY: Today, at 38, [Erik] Prince, chief of Blackwater USA, has a real army or at least the makings of one, with weapons, aircraft, armored vehicles and a thousand or more battle-hardened security personnel…Prince landed an internship in the early 1990s in the White House under then-President George Bush. Again, he was disappointed. He later told the Grand Rapids Press: “I saw a lot of things I didn’t agree with, homosexual groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act, those kinds of bills.” But he didn’t reject politics. He stumped for Pat Buchanan and interned at Bauer’s Family Research Council in Virginia… Business soared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks from about $200,000 in federal contracts in 2000 to nearly $600 million last year. MORE
Jeremy Scahill (Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army)
with Anthony Lappé (Shooting War)
Free Library, Tuesday, July 1, 7:00 p.m., FREE
Based in the wilderness of North Carolina, Blackwater USA is the fastest-growing private army on the planet — with forces capable of carrying out regime change throughout the world — and as a privatized army, Blackwater is accountable to no one. Written by Jeremy Scahill, acclaimed winner of the George Polk Award and a frequent contributor to the Nation, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army tells the story of the rise of this powerful private army, from the streets of Iraq to the hurricane-ravaged US Gulf Coast to Washington D.C., where Blackwater executives are hailed as new heroes in the war on terror.
Shooting War, a graphic novel written by Anthony Lappé, producer of BattleGround: 21 Days on the Empire’s Edge — the acclaimed Showtime documentary — was originally launched online at smithmag.net, where it caught the attention of diverse media including Rolling Stone, Wired, New York magazine, and the Village Voice. At its peak, Shooting War received more than one million unique visitors a day, and was nominated for a 2007 Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic. “An intense and bracing read, torn from the headlines of tomorrow” (Entertainment Weekly), Shooting War is a bold, irreverent, unflinching spoof of the network news, the war in Iraq, and a burgeoning citizen journalism movement set in the near future.
MORE INFO 215-567-4341 www.freelibrary.org