Cross posted at
TexasKos
This is a slightly updated repost. If you read the original, you need not read this one.
At the suggestion of one of the responders to my initial article on the role of PMC (Private Military Contractors) in enabling the "Great Decider", a couple of things have come up.
Before I get into them, I need to add some context missing from my first dairy.
You should know that most of the PMC are not combat personnel. See here:
50,000 support/logistics contractors, civilians hired by KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary which holds the military's logistical support contract. They work as weathermen, cooks, carpenters, mechanics, etc. Most are from Third World countries and the majority are Filipinos.
-- 20,000 non-Iraqi security contractors. Of these, 5-6,000 are British, American, South African, Russian or European; another 12,000 are from Third World countries, such as Fiji, Colombia, Sri Lanka, and India.
-- 15,000 Iraqi security contractors. Most of these were hired mainly by the British security firm Erinys to guard Iraq's oil infrastructure.
-- 40-70,000 reconstruction contractors. Hired to rebuild Iraq. Some are Iraqis, but they're mostly from the United States and dozens of other countries and employed by companies such as General Electric, Bechtel, Parsons, KBR, Fluor and Perini.
The U.S. military has become one of the prime clients of the industry. Private firms now providing the logistics of every major U.S. military deployment, maintaining strategic weapons systems like the B-2 stealth bomber and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, and taking over the ROTC programs in over 200 American universities, according to Singer.
From 1994 to 2002, the U.S. Defense Department entered into over 3,000 contracts with U.S.-based military firms, estimated at a value of more than $300 billion. The privatized military industry has several hundred companies operating in over 100 countries on six continents, and over $100 billion in annual global revenue, according to Singer.
Fox News Link
This helps also explain why PMC are probably here to stay.
However, here is some evidence that "necessity" is not necessarily the driving factor in all this.
Link It is, however, far from certain that the military had so few interrogators within its own ranks that it needed to turn to the private sector. Speaking on the Nightline television program Brookings Institution's Peter Singer noted:
Interrogation is something that we haven't contracted out to private companies in any previous war. It really starts in late 2001, and just as you note, it's a response to certain needs. There are a good number of skilled interrogators within the U.S. military system who weren't sent to Iraq. So it wasn't the case that our bench was empty, we actually have a lot of these personnel that weren't sent. And interesting enough, when you talk to them, they say that they were quite surprised that we contracted out. That's worrisome here.241
1. The ground breaking suit against Blackwater is going back to state court. This is good, because in North Carolina you can sue for military damages in this type of civil suit. This is not true at the federal level or in other states. The company had argued for it being tried in Federal court. The link with this story has been pulled down, so no details I can find.( Does anyone know if there is a connection to Federal Law Suit "reforms" pending or passed? )
As to the implications of all this , one Blogger put it this way:
MountainRunner: Review of the Blackwater Lawsuit
"When firms act like this, as Blackwater is alleged to have done, it not only taints the industry but also the United States. As an interview in the movie Shadow Company demonstrates, Stephen "Scott" Helvenston, Mike Teague, Jerko Zovko and Wesley Batalona were attacked not because they were contractors or because they might have been military, but because they were thought to be CIA by the locals.
While Americans tend to see contractors as independent operators, others see them as extensions, or a part of, the US Government (USG).The thousand or so deaths in Fallujah that were a direct result of the alleged failure of Blackwater to protect its men and the international coverage had tremendous impact on the image of the United States.
Blackwater didn't take the hit and in fact may have gained value from it (this is not to suggest it was intentional or even desired publicity). For the United States, this is image management and public diplomacy by proxy without recourse or management. "
Mountain Runner Link
2. Ted Koppell had written an
op-ed on this a few weeks ago. The whole piece is well worth your time. His article contained these interesting points:
Just as the all-volunteer military relieved the government of much of the political pressure that had accompanied the draft, so a rent-a-force, harnessing the privilege of every putative warrior to hire himself out for more than he could ever make in the direct service of Uncle Sam, might relieve us of an array of current political pressures.
In the areas of logistics and support, this proposition is already more than theoretical. In addition to the roughly 130,000 American troops now serving in Iraq, private contractors have their own army of approximately 50,000 employees performing functions that used to be the province of the military. The army used to cook its own meals, do its own laundry, drive its own trucks. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Pentagon reduced American armed forces by some 36 percent, anticipating a peace dividend that was never fully realized.
What then if the commercial interests of a company or foreign government hiring one of these security contractors comes into conflict with the interests of the United States government? Mr. Taylor of Blackwater doesn't even concede the possibility. "At the end of the day," he said, "we consider ourselves responsible to be strategic partners of the U.S. government." To which he then added, perhaps a little more convincingly: "If we went against U.S. government interests we would never get another contract."
So, what about the inevitable next step -- a defensive military force paid for directly by the corporations that would most benefit from its protection? If, for example, an insurrection in Nigeria threatens that nation's ability to export oil (and it does), why not have Chevron or Exxon Mobil underwrite the dispatch of a battalion or two of mercenaries?
This issue will not go away anytime soon.
I repeat myself
In the end, this is all about the NeoCon narrative which is at present the soundtrack of our lives, at least of our Government's policies.
A cabal of arrogant ideologues, enamored of the private sector, turns more and more public functions over to the vagaries of the Corporate marketplace, with no provision for public accountability. The average American is lead to believe that this means more economic and efficient government. It doesn't. It has come to mean cronyism, favoritism and public policies that do not serve the common good.