Blackwater

This Blackwater thing has been burning up the news for a while now. Type in Blackwater to Google News and you get this this this and this .

The basic summary seems to be concern over Tuesday's Iraq shooting.

The AFP writes

Tuesday's shooting came just days after Iraq vowed to punish US firm Blackwater when a probe found that its guards opened "deliberate" fire in another incident in Baghdad three weeks ago, killing 17 civilians.

Concern in San Diego comes from their planned facility in Potrero (45 miles east of San Diego). City Beat sums it up:

As the public face of the project-dubbed Blackwater West-it's Bonfiglio's job to sell the facility as a non-invasive windfall to the residents of Potrero, a rural hamlet 45 miles east of San Diego. Given his employer's image as a supplier of trigger-happy mercenary armies, unaccountable to neither the Iraqi nor American governments, wooing Potrero's 850 residents has been a dicey game.

City Beat's article does a nice job of summing up the issues and exploring the possible windfall of a Blackwater facility near San Diego. While Blackwater is saying they will "not train independent contractors going to places like Iraq and Afghanistan..." some people are not buying it.


Check out the article for more information.