That line jumped out at me this evening (or should that be, this morning).
Read that again, slowly.
The CIA considers contractors to be officers.
CNN posted a fairly standard corporate media description of an attack by terrorists/Muslims/Afghans/an ANA soldier/Taliban/somebody. It's sad. Several Americans died.
This is what happens in war. People die. It's sad. In fact, that's one of the primary reasons to only fight wars of necessity.
But that's not where I'm going with this piece. Rather, I want to ruminate for a moment on the casualness of that offhand remark by CNN. Here are a few paragraphs for context.
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- An American intelligence official vowed Thursday that the United States would avenge a suspected terrorist attack on a U.S. base in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of seven CIA officers.
Two of those killed were contractors with private security firm Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, a former intelligence official told CNN. The CIA considers contractors to be officers.
A current intelligence official confirmed that the casualties included a mix of people -- CIA staff and contractors. Six others were wounded.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred on Wednesday.
There are several great rhetorical notes here, not because they're purposeful or malicious, but because they've become so standard that a casual reader (or author) doesn't even process the inherent social programming. There's the juxtaposition of terrorist in paragraph one with Taliban in paragraph four, so deeply established in our lingo that even bothering to ask what it means to be fighting a war (the Taliban attacking a base) against criminal acts (terrorism) doesn't come to mind. Then, there's the anonymous sourcing of the former intelligence official. A required stand-by, these days, those anonymous sources and background-only discussions.
But what really jumped out at me was the complete melding of private mercenary and public patriot. Even our intelligence agencies, the most secretive, most patriotic parts of our patriotic national defense ecosystem, are so thoroughly infected by people serving a contract that we lump their fates together with the men and women who dedicate their lives in service of a country.
Here's where that gets really scary. If our media is lumping those two categories of people together, you can bet the residents of places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan...et al, are making those connections. Private actors are conducting the most sensitive activities of our government. They are acting in our name. But their boss, the guy who signs their paychecks, the one who gives their orders, isn't even an employee of the government.
On a totally unrelated note, imagine if this company were somehow related.
IRAQ ANNOUNCED yesterday that it would challenge a decision by a US federal court judge dismissing the case against five private contractors for the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007.
The melding of private and public is nearly complete.
I can't wait until AT&T gets into the spying business.
Oh, wait.
Well, at least we'll prosecute them when they break the law.
Doh.
Crossposted at The Seminal at FDL.