You would never imagine that California would need or want a Blackwater mercenary training facility. And you'd be right: California and the residents near where Blackwater wants to set up shop really don't want Blackwater. After all, the Marines at Pendleton, a few miles down the road, keep us pretty safe.

Blackwater West, as they call it, will be created and run by the same folks who brought us four dead Americans with corpses strung up from a bridge in Fallujah. But as with so much else Blackwater does, the wishes of the people matter not one whit. It's all about a buck and the ideology of fear.