| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
 Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 12:15 am Post subject: Outsourcing the War |
 |
|
| Quote: |
For instance, we know that nearly 3,400 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq and more than 25,000 wounded. We do not know the exact number of private contractors killed or wounded. Through the US Department of Labor, we have been able to determine that at least 770 contractors had been killed in Iraq as of December 2006 along with at least 7,700 wounded. These casualties are not included in the official death count and help to mask the human costs of the war. More disturbing is what this means for our democracy: at a time when the administration seems unwilling to subject its war strategy to oversight by the Congress, we face the widespread use of private forces seemingly accountable to no effective system of oversight or law.
While tens of thousands of these contractors provide logistical support, thousands are heavily armed private soldiers roaming Iraq. We do know that there are some 48,000 employees of private military companies in Iraq alone.
These forces work for US companies like Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp as well as companies from across the globe. Some contractors make in a month what many active-duty soldiers make in a year. Indeed, there are private contractors in Iraq making more money than the Secretary of Defense and more than the commanding generals. The testimony about private contractors that I hear most often from active duty soldiers falls into two categories: resentment and envy.
They ask what message their country is sending them. While many soldiers lack basic protective equipment--facts well-known to this committee--they are in a war zone where they see the private soldiers whiz by in better vehicles, with better armor, better weapons, wearing the corporate logo instead of the American flag and pulling in much more money. They ask: Are our lives worth less?
Of course, there are many cases where war contractors have hoarded the profits at the top and money has not filtered down to the individual contractors on the ground or the armor to protect them.
The second reaction is that the active-duty soldiers see the "rock star" private contractors and they want to be like them. So we have a phenomenon of soldiers leaving active duty to join the private sector.
There is slang in Iraq now for this jump. It is called "Going Blackwater." To put it bluntly, these private forces create a system where national duty is outbid by profits. And yet these forces are being used for mission-critical activities. Indeed, in January Gen. David Petraeus admitted that on his last tour in Iraq, he himself was protected not by the active-duty military but by private "contract security."
Just as there is a double standard in pay, there is a double standard in the application of the law. Soldiers who commit crimes or acts of misconduct are prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. There have been some 64 courts martial on murder-related charges in Iraq alone. Compare that to the lack of prosecution of contractors. Despite the fact that tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, have streamed in and out of Iraq since March of 2003, only two private contractors have faced any criminal prosecution. Two. One was a KBR employee alleged to have stabbed a co-worker, the other pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison. In four years, there have been no prosecutions for crimes against Iraqis and not a single known prosecution of an armed contractor.
That either means we have tens of thousands of Boy Scouts working as armed contractors or something is fundamentally wrong with the system. Brig. Gen. Karl Horst of the 3rd Infantry Division became so outraged by contractor unaccountability that he began tracking contractor violence in Baghdad. In just two months he documented twelve cases of contractors shooting at civilians, resulting in six deaths and three injuries. That is just two months and one general.
... |
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070528/scahill
The author of that article was also on Real Time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWqX-m7OAG4
Blackwater's idea that they will be to the US Military as Fedex is to USPost is, in my opinion, scary. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 12:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
Mercenaries for hire..
A very lucrative profession. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
huffdaddy
Joined: 25 Nov 2005
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 2:53 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Tiger Beer wrote: |
Mercenaries for hire..
A very lucrative profession. |
I'm really not sure why the US isn't hiring 3rd world mercenaries. I'm sure there are plenty of them who'd jump at a hundred dollar a day gig in Iraq. Or even better, make 2 years of service a requirement for everybody who wants to immigrate to the US. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 3:46 am Post subject: |
|
|
| huffdaddy wrote: |
| Tiger Beer wrote: |
Mercenaries for hire..
A very lucrative profession. |
I'm really not sure why the US isn't hiring 3rd world mercenaries. I'm sure there are plenty of them who'd jump at a hundred dollar a day gig in Iraq. Or even better, make 2 years of service a requirement for everybody who wants to immigrate to the US. |
oh lord, a bunch of international killing rogues who get free citizenship just for killing people.
Puts new meaning into 'i'd kill to have U.S. citizenship' |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 5:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
| huffdaddy wrote: |
| Tiger Beer wrote: |
Mercenaries for hire..
A very lucrative profession. |
I'm really not sure why the US isn't hiring 3rd world mercenaries. I'm sure there are plenty of them who'd jump at a hundred dollar a day gig in Iraq. Or even better, make 2 years of service a requirement for everybody who wants to immigrate to the US. |
They already do. Read the new book on Blackwater. They hired commandos from Pinochet's death squads (literally) and have thousands of other Latin American and Philippine commandos under hire as well. Also, most of the KBR and Halliburton convoys are driven by TCN (third country nationals) who mainly come from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. They are paid a couple dollars a day (while KBR bills Uncle Sam several hundred) They drive in trucks without any protection less the windscreen, which is also sometimes missing. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 5:08 am Post subject: |
|
|
| huffdaddy wrote: |
| Tiger Beer wrote: |
Mercenaries for hire..
A very lucrative profession. |
make 2 years of service a requirement for everybody who wants to immigrate to the US. |
That is already a defacto rule, though 4 years. There are many thousands of illegal immigrants fighting in Iraq (or otherwise in the military) who hope to get citizenship when they get out. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 5:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
Oh, and the TCN's are not counted in any official casualty report and as such we have no idea whatsoever how many have been killed or injured. Blackwater, or the other mercenary firms, are under fully zero legal obligation to report this information.
It is like the TCN's don't exist. Hell, huffdaddy didn't even know they existed. That is quite useful, eh? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| thepeel wrote: |
Oh, and the TCN's are not counted in any official casualty report and as such we have no idea whatsoever how many have been killed or injured. Blackwater, or the other mercenary firms, are under fully zero legal obligation to report this information.
It is like the TCN's don't exist. Hell, huffdaddy didn't even know they existed. That is quite useful, eh? |
We have some idea of how many there are.
I believe a thousand had died by August, 2007. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Dying Corp. Guard Kills Unarmed Iraqi Taxi Driver
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD - A private security guard fatally shot an Iraqi taxi driver, Iraqi officials said Monday, in the latest incident involving what Iraqis believe are unprovoked killings by contractors hired to protect Americans.
A spokesman for DynCorp International, a Falls Church, Va.-based company, said one of its security teams opened fire Saturday to disable a vehicle in Baghdad after it approached a convoy in a "threatening" manner.
MORE ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071112/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 5:27 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| disgusting...simply disgusting |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 5:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 9:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Hey, and if you are a paranoid nut, or an over-zealous police department, you too can dress up like GI Joe in Blackwater gear!
http://www.blackwatergear.com/default.aspx
I guess if the language of war (war on drugs, war on poverty, war on terrorism) plus the actual wars (...too many to list) combine together to create a fetish for the latest styles of war.
And one for the kids
http://proshop.blackwaterusa.com/
"Proshop". yeah. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
