Kafkaesque Laws, Nisour Square, and the Trials of the Former Blackwater Guards

by Marouf A. Hasian Jr.

Overview

This book provides academics and lay persons with Kafkaesque readings of our memories of the 2007 Nisour Square shootings in Iraq. The author uses critical analyses of the rise of Blackwater, support for private security firms and private contracting, prosecutorial and defense preparations and the 2014 jury trial to argue that most observers have drastically underestimated the groundswell of support that existed for Erik Prince and many other defenders of military or security outsourcing. This book puts on display the cultural, legal, and political difficulties that confronted those who wanted to try former Blackwater security guards in the name of belated social justice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683930600
Publisher:	University Press Copublishing Division
Publication date:	11/22/2017
Series:	The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Law, Culture, and the Humanities
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	896 KB

About the Author

Marouf Hasian Jr. is professor of communication at the University of Utah and author of Representing Ebola: Culture, Law, and Public Discourse about the 2013–2015 West African Ebola Outbreak (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2016).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Chapter One — Introduction: Kafka, and the Chaotic Rhetorical Cultures of Mercenaries and
Private Military Companies
Chapter Two — Operation Iraq Freedom and the Rise of Blackwater, Inc.
Chapter Three — Creative Destruction, Iraqi Sentiments, and Early Prosecutorial Narratives of
“What Happened” at Nisour Square, 2007-2008
Chapter Four — The Demise of Blackwater and the Tales of Primate Military Corporate
“Accountability,” 2009-2013
Chapter Five — The 2014 Criminal Trials of Paul Slough, Nicholas Slatten, and the Other
Blackwater Defendants
Chapter Six — Remembrances of Blackwater and the Advent of the “New Humanitarian”
Private Contractors
Bibliography
About the Author