Hampton Roads VA Virginian-Pilot:

Earlier this spring, Blackwater announced it is moving its aviation division from Florida to Camden County. Plans call for a 6,000-foot runway and a 20,000-square-foot hangar to accommodate 22 rotary and fixed-wing aircraft.

The company has nearly 400 permanent employees and maintains a database of 14,000 independent contractors, most of them former military or law enforcement personnel, who make up its security teams.

Six weeks ago, Blackwater Vice Chairman Cofer Black said the company is interested in creating a small army for hire - a brigade-size force that could be contracted for peacekeeping and stability operations in troubled regions of the world.

Peacekeeping. Yeah. Right.

Can somebody explain to me how this can possibly be fucking legal? Isn’t it covered under one of those quaint old Constitutional things about, oh I don’t know, patents of nobility or letters of marque or something? How can a private person—a corporation is a person remember, although frankly I have some doubts about Cofer Black’s right to claim the status—maintain a private army?

but seriously—if this was George Soros running this company instead of Cofer Black, do you think for one microsecond that they would not have legal papers, subpoenas, cease-and-desist orders and the like raining down upon their compound in volumes to block out the sun?

Some more background on the deep, dirty ties between Blackwater, the Christianists, Cheney and other filthy forces, gathered by ellroon (regular commentor over at Atrios as well as operator of the excellent Rants from the Rookery.