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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:32 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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Erm, mercenaries, who are often former American armed forces as Gopher pointed out, did not realize that their guns sold on the black market might end up in the hands of insurgents?
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I guess it would depend who they thought the weapons were being sold to. Let's say the buyer presented himself as representing Group X. and claimed that the weapons were for the use of Group X, but then turned around and sold them to the PKK. Then, the mercenaries(or whatever you call them) might not have known who they were really supplying.
But if the buyer just said "yeah, I'm gonna sell to the highest bidder", then the mercs would have less of an excuse.
Either way, gun smuggling is bad and government emplyees should not do it. |
I'm having a hard time thinking the Blackwater employees would be so naive. The standard here seems not to be, 'whether the Blackwater employees knew for certain that the arms would be given to a third-party,' but rather, 'whether the Blackwater employees recognized that the arms might wind up in the hands of a third-party.'
IOW, the Feds suspect the Blackwater employees are dirty but the standards of evidence are just so rigorous. The Feds also do not want to try Blackwater in the media. I'm sure the Feds are preparing to charge these Blackwater employees with as much as they possibly can, though. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:02 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Erm, mercenaries, who are often former American armed forces as Gopher pointed out... |
Could be a definitional problem. But I think there is more to our misunderstanding than that. When I think "mercenary" I think of third-party soldiers-for-hire who obey no flag, only money. In Blackwater's employees' case, I think of former American soldiers and Marines who remain loyal to the American flag and are consciously fighting on behalf of American national interests.
If they were truly "mercenaries," then a govt like Tehran could potentially buy them off and turn them around, as has been done in other times and places in human history. And I see this as an impossibility in this case.
Consider also the French Foreign Legion -- a mercenary legion, although not strictly legally so -- whose members are denied French citizenship and may not enter France until they retire after twenty or thirty years or so. Yet Blackwater employees may quit their contracted jobs and return to the United States anytime they choose.
Sure, then, these former American soldiers and Marines are likely in it for the money (and many of them might be war-junkies, too), and some of us may object to their presence and operating style in Iraq -- and, to clarify, my distinction that I do not think they are "mercenaries" should not be taken as a wedge to justify any of this; that is not my intention. But this does not mean that we can hastily or slopily use a pejorative metaphor like "mercenary" to name and describe them. This is not splitting hairs; "mercenary" suppresses nuance. And nuance is what we need to get a better grasp of actual ground conditions in the Iraqi War.
I am hypothesizing that the Pentagon is employing Blackwater and other similar contractors to offset political, troop-level, and other budgetary restrictions involved in deploying strictly active-duty military in the Iraqi War. I believe that this means that these are essentially American armed forces masked as "contractors" but still fighting the American government's fight. We have seen this before, when Belgium withdrew from the Congo, for example.
Finally, see Mercenary to see what I am getting at by citing these contractors' American citizenship. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:37 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| Erm, mercenaries, who are often former American armed forces as Gopher pointed out... |
Could be a definitional problem. But I think there is more to our misunderstanding that that. When I think "mercenary" I think of third-party soldiers-for-hire who obey no flag, only money. In Blackwater's employees' case, I think of former American soldiers and Marines who remain loyal to the American flag.
If they were truly "mercenaries," then a govt like Tehran could potentially buy them off and turn them around, as has been done in other times and places in human history. And I see this as an impossibility in this case.
Consider also the French Foreign Legion -- a mercenary legion -- whose members are denied French citizenship and may not enter France until they retire after twenty or thirty years or so. Yet Blackwater employees may quit their contracted jobs and return to the United States anytime they choose.
Sure, these former American soldiers and Marines are likely in it for the money (and many of them might be war-junkies, too), and some of us may object to their presence and operating style in Iraq -- and, to clarify, my distinction that I do not think they are "mercenaries" should not be taken as a wedge to justify any of it; that is not my intention. But this does not mean that we can hastily or slopily use a pejorative metaphor like "mercenary" to name and describe them -- and that is how people are using it -- in cases like this where it does not apply. This is not splitting hairs; "mercenary" suppresses nuance. And nuance is what we need to get a better grasp of actual ground conditions in the Iraqi War.
I am hypothesizing that the Pentagon is employing Blackwater and other similar contractors to offset troop-level and other budgetary problems involved in deploying strictly active-duty military in the Iraqi War. I believe that this means that these are essentially American armed forces masked as "contractors." We have seen this before, when Belgium withdrew from the Congo, for example. |
I'll grant that these are not mercenaries in the sense that Machiavelli derisively issued the term. These are not individuals who will flee trials and abandon the Coalition cause because they are merely soldiers-for-hire. In fact, its pretty clear that the problem is altogether different and separate.
Your hypothesis is unchallenged. The military is under-staffed for its mission, and I've heard that 160,000 'troops' in Iraq becomes much smaller when you account for those working in offices who never go out on patrol. In fact, given the numbers, 100,000 contractors and 160,000 troops, many of whom do not actually serve in the field, we probably have a 1:1 contractor/American soldier ratio.
What I'm suggesting is two things:
1) The CPA, particularly under Paul Bremer, has issued contractors virtual immunity from prosecution and investigation, and the standards of accountability for such soldiers are lax. Bush loves to compare himself to Truman, but I doubt the current occupant of the Oval Office would even understand what 'The Buck stops here' means.
2) The contractors are regularly enough sloppy and reckless. They take advantage of our virtual immunity, and are making the jobs for our regular soldiers harder. One cannot blame the contractors strictly for the Fallujah mess, as the people who dragged their bodies through the streets and the US military that decided to do something about it are primarily to blame. But its clear that if those reckless cowboys hadn't been careening top-naked well outside their patrol area, the incident never would have happened. Yes, those were Blackwater employees.
The essential point of both these points is not the terminology used to describe them, be it contractors/mercenaries/guns-for-hire/etc.... Its the simple fact that the behavior and conduct of these individuals is another reason we are losing.
I want to note that it is 2007, and these problems are readily identifiable, in the public eye, and still have not been addressed. We are being assured that things weren't like the bad-ol'-days of 2003, and that we are changing our tactics. Petraeus has indeed come out and clarified detainment policies for our military. But our military represents only half of the forces in Iraq. The contractors represent the other half, and they are shooting up innocent Iraqis at traffic intersections first, and asking questions later.
More and more it becomes undeniable that whatever the intention, this is clearly an occupation. Moreover, while the occupation is certainly destructive, it is not at all creative or constructive. We cannot even protect people in their homes, much less keep the factional fighting from occurring. And yes, I'll be happy to defend my use of the term occupation with more data if called upon to do so.
[Sorry, OTOH, I think I just derailed your thread] |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:50 am Post subject: |
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I see it not as "an occupation" so much as "dirty-war." That is what the American invasion and the insurgents and other local factions who emerged after it have collaborated to create. That is what the contractors and all other combatants are fighting. That is what we have all been sucked into.
Such wars routinely see "shooting up innocent [civilians] first, and asking questions later" because the line between civilians and guerrillas is so far blurred that no one truly knows the difference anymore.
If we leave or, I suspect, remove all the contractors, which probably make up, as you say, approximately half our fighting forces on the ground, the insurgents might very well overwhelm the potentially U.S.-friendly Iraqi government we have created and replace it with an antiAmerican one. A huge defeat for American interests in the Middle East and a likely victory for Iranian interests. And if we stay, and if our contractors stay, this may exacerbate our difficulties as well.
Thus we remain with the fundamental problem Iraq poses today: bad and worse options only. And, in any case, Blackwater does not strike me as the crux of this problem. Nor have we considered the potential domestic and regional political angles of Maliki's slamming Blackwater on this thread yet, who he may be aiming to placate by attacking and denouncing American "forces" without having to risk openly offending the American government. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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[Sorry, OTOH, I think I just derailed your thread]
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No problem. My opinion is that there is no such thing as a derailed thread. And anyway this is an interesting discussion. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:09 pm Post subject: |
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Nor have we considered the potential domestic and regional political angles of Maliki's slamming Blackwater on this thread yet, who he may be aiming to placate by attacking and denouncing American "forces" without having to risk openly offending the American government.
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I was thinking the same thing myself. Not that I necessarily doubt that Blackwater has been up to some pretty bad stuff. But I've also considered that this might be a way for Maliki to attack the Americans by proxy, as it were. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:45 pm Post subject: |
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| "Proxy" but not "scapegoat?" Scapegoats need not necessarily be innocent or virtuous, right? |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:49 pm Post subject: |
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"Proxy" but not "scapegoat?" Scapegoats need not necessarily be innocent or virtuous, right?
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If by "scapegoat" you mean "someone whose transgressions are emphasized in lieu of discussing the bigger problems", then yes, I guess you could call them scapegoats.
However, I usually think that a scapegoat is someone who is being blamed for all the problems in a particular area, which I don't think is quite what Malili is doing here. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, I meant the first. Definitely not the second in this case. And perhaps we are better off discussing -- and I am not faulting Maliki for this -- "opportunism" or "convenient pretexts" than "proxies" or "scapegoats."
In any case, Maliki's pledging that he will not allow Iraqis to be killed in cold blood enhances his image as a nationalist -- and it enhances the notion that he is actually governing Iraqi affairs and managing American involvement as well. He desperately needs to cultivate both images, I think. |
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