Blackwater's black eye.

• Position: Comment - Blackwater USA

The Blackwater scandal tells you almost everything you need to know about what s wrong with the Bush Administration: swagger, wanton violence, impunity, cronyism, and privatization gone mad.

The only surprise is that it took so long for this scandal to break out in the mainstream media.

When Blackwater's armed contractors were guarding Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, or when they were guarding subsequent U.S. ambassadors in Baghdad, you would have thought that more people in the media would have asked aloud why this vital job wasn't being carried out by our own troops.

When Bremer, on his way out the door, issued Order 17 that immunized private contractors like Blackwater from prosecution in Iraq, that, in itself, ought to have been a big story.

When four Blackwater contractors were killed and mutilated in Fallujah after the company hastily sent them into a danger zone, that, too, should have raised more red flags, especially since it led Bush to order a brutal assault on Fallujah that left hundreds dead.

Or when Blackwater had its mercenaries patrolling the streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, the mainstream media just might have wanted to pay a little more attention.

One reporter who has paid attention is Jeremy Scahill. A writer for The Nation magazine and a correspondent for Democracy Now! , Scahill has been all over the Blackwater story for years. His book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army came out months before the brutal incident in Nisour Square in Baghdad on September 16, when Blackwater mercenaries opened fire, killing anywhere between eleven and twenty-eight Iraqi civilians.

But if you weren't following Scahill's fine work, you might wonder where Blackwater's black eye came from.

Here is a clue.

T his was not the first time Blackwater has been implicated in the killing of innocent Iraqis. A Blackwater contractor allegedly killed a bodyguard of Iraq's vice president last Christmas Eve in a drunken spree, and then the company whisked him out of the country.

There have been lots of other incidents as well, including one where "Blackwater forces shot a civilian bystander in the head," according to an October 1 staff memo of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The memo also cites another incident where "State Department officials report that Blackwater sought to cover up a shooting that killed an apparently innocent bystander."

All told, in more than 160...