The NY Times covers a report this morning about shooting incidents that Blackwater has been involved in while helping to spread freedom and democracy in Mr Bu$h’s ego-war.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Employees of Blackwater USA have engaged in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005, in a vast majority of cases firing their weapons from moving vehicles without stopping to count the dead or assist the wounded, according to a new report from Congress.

In at least two cases, Blackwater paid victims’ family members who complained, and sought to cover up other episodes, the Congressional report said. It said State Department officials approved the payments in the hope of keeping the shootings quiet. In one case last year, the department helped Blackwater spirit an employee out of Iraq less than 36 hours after the employee, while drunk, killed a bodyguard for one of Iraq’s two vice presidents on Christmas Eve.

There has been a story going around that the “best” Blackwater operators – the ones getting the cream contracts like the State Department personal security jobs – are all ex-US servicemen from the Special Ops community, like SEALs and the Army’s Delta and green beanies.

A curious man would probably ask if this quick-on-the-trigger phenomenon is a component of the Spec Ops world or is it a requirement to be the highest-paid Blackwater gunmen. And he might also wonder what the lower-paid BW gunsels are like, given the Bu$h malAdministration’s immediate reaction of giving the company a contract to patrol New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. There were many stories in the aftermath of the hurricane of BW employees threatening residents with MP5s when they tried to return to their homes in attempts to salvage belongings or clean up.

[T[he report is also harshly critical of the State Department for exercising virtually no restraint or supervision of the private security company’s 861 employees in Iraq. “There is no evidence in the documents that the [House Oversight and Government Reform]committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater’s actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting episodes involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation,” the report states.

Oh, it’s a Democratic document. OK, it’s just a political document then. I’m sure we’ll hear pious statements from some Republican Congressman – anyone who’s not currently under investigation or indictment – that actually BW would call their headquarters three times to ask for permission to take their pieces off safety before firing. Darn those Democrats, always trying to politicize rampant killings of helpless Iraqi citizens.

Blackwater supplies State Dept personal security details in and round Baghdad. Competitors Triple Canopy and DynCorp are contracted for the same services in the South and North, respectively, and have less than half as many killings as BW. It‘s noted that BW employs about twice as many gunmen as the other two companies combined. Is this considered justification? The more gunmen you employ, the more killings you’re going to have? There’s actually a State Department section responsible for the same task that functions in other countries and I don’t think they’ve gunned down any women or children in years.

Blackwater has dismissed 122 of its employees over the past three years for misuse of weapons, drug or alcohol abuse, lewd conduct or violent behavior, according to the report. It has also terminated workers for insubordination, failure to report incidents or lying about them, and publicly embarrassing the company. One employee was dismissed for showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.

That’s a 13.6% failure rate. I know of MacDonald’s restaurants that have a better retention rate than that. The problem might just be in management.

Erik Prince (friends tree here) is a deep pockets Fundamentalist Republican donor. People claiming he got the contract because he’s a hard right-wing christian Dominionist and Republican political donor are just jealous.

Is that some kind of secret Dominionist left-behind sign?