Jeremy Scahill - Blackwater

Colson’s essay was titled “Kingdoms in Conflict.” “[E]vents in America may have reached the point where the only political action believers can take is some kind of direct, extra-political confrontation of the judicially controlled regime,” Colson wrote, adding that a “showdown between church and state may be inevitable. This is not something for which Christians should hope. But it is something for which they need to prepare.” He asserted, “[A] ‘social contract’ that included biblical believers and Enlightenment rationalists was the basis of the founding of the United States…. If the terms of our contract have in fact been broken, Christian citizens may be compelled to force the government to return to its original understanding…. The writings of Thomas Jefferson, who spoke openly of the necessity of revolution, could also be called upon for support.” Colson stopped short of calling for an open rebellion, but he clearly viewed that as a distinct possibility/necessity in the near future, saying, “with fear and trembling, I have begun to believe that, however Christians in America gather to reach their consensus, we are fast approaching this point.” 23

The First Things symposium sparked great controversy—even within the theoconservative movement. Among those who came to the defense of Colson, Bork, Neuhaus, et al. was Edgar Prince’s old friend, ally, and beneficiary James Dobson of Focus on the Family. “My deepest gratitude to the editors of First Things for facilitating what history may reveal to be their most important symposium. The moral legitimacy of our current government and the responsibility of the Christian towards it are questions of tremendous moment,” Dobson wrote. “I wonder—do we have the courage to act upon the conclusions we may reach in these deliberations?” Dobson said the essays had “laid an indisputable case for the illegitimacy of the regime now passing itself off as a democracy,” adding, “I stand in a long tradition of Christians who believe that rulers may forfeit their divine mandate when they systematically contravene the divine moral law…. We may rapidly be approaching the sort of Rubicon that our spiritual forebears faced: Choose Caesar or God. I take no pleasure in this prospect; I pray against it. But it is worth noting that such times have historically been rejuvenating for the faith.” 24

It was against this backdrop—a throwing down of the political and religious gauntlet by many of the powerful conservative leaders Prince and his family had supported and built up—that Blackwater was born. A month after the First Things symposium explored the possibility of a “showdown between church and state” and a “morally justified revolution,” 25Erik Prince would begin building up one of the largest privately held stockpiles of weaponry inside the United States, a few hours outside Washington, D.C. Prince simultaneously strengthened his bonds with powerful Republican legislators and the leaders of the theoconservative movement, becoming a major bankroller on par with his father. 26On December 26, 1996, three months after being discharged from active duty with the SEALs, 27he incorporated Blackwater Lodge and Training Center. 28The next year, he purchased more than four thousand acres in Currituck County, North Carolina, for $756,000 and nearly one thousand acres in neighboring Camden County for $616,000. Prince’s new kingdom would be built near the Great Dismal Swamp. 29The stated idea behind Blackwater was “to fulfill the anticipated demand for government outsourcing of firearms and related security training.” 30

Blackwater USA might now have influence over and access to some of the most powerful operatives roaming the chambers of power in Washington, D.C., but at its inception, the company struggled to convince the planning commission of Currituck County—population twenty-thousand 31—that Blackwater should be allowed to open for business. In the pre-9/11 days of Bill Clinton’s America, the planning commissioners weren’t worried about international terrorism and couldn’t have even comprehended the company that Blackwater would become. Instead, what concerned them was property values, noise ordinances, and the possibility that the types of militia groups that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh had been linked to would come to their community for training. When Erik Prince appealed to the plan commissioners, his project was described as a “$2 million outdoor shooting range.” 32At the time, Prince estimated the facility could create up to thirty new jobs in the county and help to train its sheriff’s department. But before Prince could land approval for the facility, he needed to convince the planning commission to create a new ordinance that would allow it to be built, and to spell out the protections that would be put in place to keep the area quiet and stray bullets away from residences. 33

Local opposition to the Blackwater project was strong. A year earlier, residents had been outraged when stray bullets from a hunter struck a truck and building at a local junior high during school hours. 34Consequently, county officials raised serious questions that a proposed 900-foot buffer between nearby properties and firing areas would be sufficient. “The 900-foot buffer is no buffer at all, really,” County Attorney William Romm said. 35One resident constructing a home near Blackwater’s proposed site said, “Nobody’s going to want to live anywhere near a shooting range,” while another resident asserted, “I’ve not spoken to anyone who is in favor of this.” 36One woman at one of the early meetings said she “would never consider buying anything next to a firing range of this magnitude.” 37The commission apparently didn’t seem sold on the idea, either, and a month later denied Prince’s request for a new ordinance. “We’re very disappointed,” Prince said at the time. “For a county that claims to be a sportsman’s paradise, it doesn’t bode well for safe-shooting sports.” 38After being rebuffed by Currituck, Prince went down the road to Camden County, which quickly approved the project. 39

In June 1997, ground was broken on the Blackwater compound, and in May 1998, the company officially opened for business. 40Though the company’s name sounds ominous, it actually was inspired by the black waters of the Great Dismal Swamp—a 111,000-acre peat bog stretching from south-eastern Virginia to northeastern North Carolina—close to where Blackwater was contructed. While many later accounts from company executives and others would portray the early days of Blackwater as slow going, its volume of “black” and confidential contracts makes that difficult to confirm. As Clark remembers it, the company hit the ground running. “The SEAL community came down, because we came from the SEAL community and they were aware of it. They came down at least for the shootouts and the ranges to run their training. It filtered into a lot of law enforcement; the FBI came down, as word got out. The facility was the initial draw to a lot of them because it was something new and big and close by,” Clark said. 41While Blackwater was constructed on a swamp, it was strategically located a half-hour from the largest naval base in the world, the forty-three-hundred-acre Norfolk Naval Station, 42and not far from the epicenter of the U.S. intelligence and federal law enforcement communities. The facility would also provide various government agencies—federal, state, and local—with a remote and secure location to discreetly train forces. “A lot of the reason some of those agencies came down there was to get away from everybody else, get out of the public eye, for the press and the public,” Clark recalled. “Just because they’re wearing black outfits everybody want[ed] to come see what they’re doing.” 43