Diplos to Blame for Blackwater Shootings? (Updated)

Retired soldier Ralph Peters thinks Foreign Service Officers, our country’s diplomatic corps, are cowards, and the State Department is — in large part — to blame for the Blackwater mess. As he argues in a recent editorial:

The Bush administration has made sure that there’s no real accountability in the contracting arena, but the particular villain in this mess in the State Department. Our military has been doing all it can to keep Blackwater’s cowboys at arms’ length in Iraq. But State’s diplomats – the men and women theoretically responsible for building good relations with Iraqis – prefer the Blackwater approach (shoot first, and don’t bother asking questions).

To those who know little or nothing of State, it doesn’t make sense. Why should our diplomats, of all people, hire out-of-control gunslingers who routinely set back progress, who are despised by our military, who we protect from Iraqi or American justice – and who won’t even play by the loose rules laid down for security contractors in Iraq?

Actually, the answer’s simple: Our foreign service officers – the professional diplos – are just the most-frightened human beings you’ll ever meet (I swear they take showers in body armor). Although I’ve met some impressive State employees over the years, they’ve been the exceptions. The average junior FSO is cowardly, arrogant to a degree that would embarrass the Greek gods, and disdainful of anyone stupid enough to wear a military uniform.

Of course, State always wants to run the show – it just doesn’t want its diplomats to spill their Diet Cokes. Dead Iraqis? Better than stained trousers.

UPDATE : Walter Pincus dissects a Blackwater security contract, and pulls out this nugget:

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad overseeing more than 160,000 U.S. troops, makes roughly $180,000 a year, or about $493 a day. That comes out to less than half the fee charged by Blackwater for its senior manager of a 34-man security team.

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• Blackwater Author on Blackwater Shootings * Addicted to Blackwater * Black Days for Blackwater * Blackwater: From  Bad to Worse * Top 10 PR Moves for Blackwater * The Merc Cartoon * Blackwater "Bitch Slap": Right Move? * Blackwater Mess Fencing Diplos In * The Blackwater Backlash * Blackwater Ban "Inevitable" * Blackwater: Banned in Iraq? * Blackwater: The Vote * Blackwater Goes Down the Rabbit Hole * Blackwater Buying Counter-Insurgency Aircraft * Blackwater Sprawl * Inside the Belly of the Blackwater Beast * Officers, Mercs Brawl * Mercenary King, Revealed * Hooker in the Green Zone?