CENSORED 2011: Blackwater (Xe) The Secret War in Pakistan

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Blackwater is a private military company founded as Blackwater USA in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark. The company has a wide array of business divisions, subsidiaries, and spin-off corporations but the organization as a whole has aroused significant controversy. In October 2007, Blackwater USA was renamed Blackwater Worldwide. It announced on February 13, 2009 that it would operate under the new name "Xe." In a memo sent to employees, ex-President Gary Jackson wrote that the new name "reflects the change in company focus away from the business of providing private security."

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• Xe is currently the largest of the U.S. State Department's three private security contractors.
• Of the 987 contractors Xe provides, 744 are U.S. citizens.
• At least 90% of the company's revenue comes from government contracts.
• Xe provided security services in Iraq to the CIA on a contractual basis.
• They no longer have a license to operate in Iraq: the new Iraqi government made multiple attempts to expel them from their country, and denied their application for an operating license in January 2009

The Secret War in Pakistan

Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the United States has expanded drone-bombing raids in Pakistan. Obama first ordered a drone strike in North and South Waziristan on January 23, 2009 and the strikes have been conducted consistently ever since. In addition to working on covert action planning and drone strikes, Blackwater SELECT also provides private guards to perform the sensitive task of security for secret US drones bases, JSOC camps, and Defense Intelligence Agency camps inside Pakistan. The number of strikes ordered by the Obama administration has now surpassed the number during the Bush era in Pakistan, inciting fierce criticism from Pakistan and some US lawmakers over civilian deaths.

Some locals allege that the suspected U.S. drone strikes regularly kill innocents, while others say the missiles are accurate and most of the dead are militants or villagers knowingly harboring them. The strikes are carried out by unmanned drones that fly over the region for hours and equipped with extremely high-powered video cameras.

image via: Check-6.com

image via: Vaticproject.blogspot.com

Blackwater's ability to survive against odds by reinventing and rebranding itself is most evident in Afghanistan, where the company continues to work for the US military, the CIA, and the State Department despite intense and almost weekly scandals.

image via: Info-wars.org

Media Meditation #4: iPrison

Foxconn is one of the most recognized and renowned electronics manufacturers around the world. The company manufactures products for some of the biggest corporations in the world such as Apple, Sony, Dell, and HP. Its largest factory, which houses more than 330,000 employees, is located in Shenzhen, China. There they make many of our gadgets and computers, then walk to dormitories on the 2.1-kilometer-square campus. As the technological shift grows, the facility receives more and more negative attention due to the recent increase in suicides on the property. But who is to blame? Is it a question of ownership, government regulations, or should electronic corporations simply come together to address the issue?

Below are some pictures that I found of the facilities where Foxconn houses half of their workforce. Would you live here and work for the rest of your life?

image via: Gizmodo.com

The picture above shows one of the older dorms that house men only. Women use a separate facility where they have more privacy.

image via: Gizmodo.com

This is one of the dorm rooms. It houses eight workers, four bunk beds, a window and a desk. Workers have minimal space for their belongings.

image via: Gizmodo.com

Each floor has a TV room where workers can catch up on current events. You would think the largest electronics manufacturer in the world could at least provide a TV larger than 25 inches.

image via: Gizmodo.com

As a Simple Solution, safety nets have been installed around every building on the property. There have been eleven documented suicides this year so far, but none since the nets were put up back in May.

Here is a video on China suicide rates compared to Foxconns'. Do you think the deaths at Foxconn are normal?

Poor Working Conditions + Poor Pay = $$$ for Foxconn

Work in the factory is stressful and long. Stress and disease are quickly developed due to the fast paced nature of the work. Workers don’t really know each other very well due to many different factors, which makes it difficult for them to know their state of well-being, or lack of.

According to Engadget, Foxconn has “set up support lines, stress relief rooms, counseling classes, and ¥200 ($29) rewards for reporting a colleague’s mood disorder” since the reports of suicides were published. While these incentives might be able to help, experts believe that wages play a big role. They state that by taking into consideration the consumer price index, modern Chinese workers are being paid way less than workers in China were paid back in the 80′s.

What do you think? Are the suicide rates at Foxconn being brushed off through Either/Or persuasion? Should workers be happy that they even have a job? Or is this another exploitation driven by corporate denial? Think about it next time you are reaching for your smartphone.