Half true, not every government and not these kinds of tactics.
The point is that when you move from dirty intelligence work to hiring mercenaries to perform large scale purges and intentionally make them unaccountable in order to shield yourself from war crime prosecution ... that's a level normally reserved for totalitarian states or exceptionally corrupt states.
Since the 70's and 80's these types of organizations have normally been called "death squads", most people have heard that term in connection to the violence in central and south america during that time.
You would have to be exceptionally cynical about the state of US democracy to not be a little shocked by the scale of this.
These aren't "large scale purges" or "death mobs", they're targeted assassinations. Blackwater, villainous as they may be, aren't killing indiscriminately to cause fear.
"deaths squads", and it's the exact definition of death squad. The fact that it fits a definition of a word isn't important anyway. The facts are.
Blackwater didn't get that "villainous" reputation by being particularily targeted. I guess you could argue that the frequently reported "indiscriminate" firing was a different Blackwater/Xe/Acedemi department and you might be totally right.
And I guess that depends on when the number of extrajudicial killings by a funded group kept unaccountable specifically to avoid prosecution reaches a level that you would call "large scale". No one seems to know the scale, but it's certainly beyond what any historian is going to call "targeted assassinations" in the future.
The point is that when you move from dirty intelligence work to hiring mercenaries to perform large scale purges and intentionally make them unaccountable in order to shield yourself from war crime prosecution ... that's a level normally reserved for totalitarian states or exceptionally corrupt states.
Since the 70's and 80's these types of organizations have normally been called "death squads", most people have heard that term in connection to the violence in central and south america during that time.
You would have to be exceptionally cynical about the state of US democracy to not be a little shocked by the scale of this.