posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by TSN:
Unless the mercs get killed. Then it's nothing but "US CIVILIANS BRUTALLY MURDERED AND DESECRATED! LOOK AT THEIR BODIES! IRAQ IS EEEEEVIL!".

---

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wraith:
What US control of policy? Actually, what US policy?

---

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wraith:
Never mind disagreements between Bremer and the US, there have been persistant disputes between British forces and the US. For example, a couple of weeks ago we were being criticised by the US for employing former Ba'athists. Guess what the US announced this week? Yes, former members of Saddam's regime are now allowed to be employed in the new government and police/armed forces.

---

Frankly, the US really screwed up by disbanding the army and police forces and removing the Ba'athists in the first place; as one writer noted, any imperialist knows that you always buy off the army and police first.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wraith:
Now, I personally had no real problem with the war itself. The political build up could have been handled far better on both sides of the Atlantic. Neither Bush nor Blair impressed in the slightest. Post war has been less impressive. I can discern very little planning from any of the coalition members; the US used the privatisation of Polish industry as the basis for what planning it did do. Hardly the most relevant precedant. Finally US forces are simply not suited by training or temperment to what is effectively a colonial war. The heavy handed tactics used have been repeatedly criticised by UK armed forces, with little result. Although at least one US think tank (I forget which) has recommended US commanders start reading our old Imperial Policing textbooks.

---

As for the War, baiscally the neocon-artists deluded themselves into accepting what Chamaldi and his Iraqi National Congress told them; that they would be welcomed as liberators, no plan was necessary. The neocons thought they could install Chamaldi and his cronies as their puppet governnment, forgetting that the INC has NO street cred in Iraq and that their leader was convicted of embezzelment in Jordan.

(OK, time to get back on topic track.)

Here's another article on modern day corporate mercenaries (or as they are called nowadays, Private Military Forces [PMF]): Soldiers for Hire

--------------------
The best way to predict the future is to create it.

posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cartman:
I'd be more concerned about their lack of accountability at the moment.

---

posted                      

quote:

---

But it's the reliance on private contractors to carry out tasks usually performed by government workers that has really come back to haunt us.

Conservatives make a fetish out of privatization of government functions; after the 2002 elections, George Bush announced plans to privatize up to 850,000 federal jobs. At home, wary of a public backlash, he has moved slowly on that goal. But in Iraq, where there is little public or Congressional oversight, the administration has privatized everything in sight.

For example, the Pentagon has a well-established procurement office for gasoline. In Iraq, however, that job was subcontracted to Halliburton. The U.S. government has many experts in economic development and reform. But in Iraq, economic planning has been subcontracted � after a highly questionable bidding procedure � to BearingPoint, a consulting firm with close ties to Jeb Bush.

What's truly shocking in Iraq, however, is the privatization of purely military functions.

For more than a decade, many noncritical jobs formerly done by soldiers have been handed to private contractors. When four Blackwater employees were killed and mutilated in Falluja, however, marking the start of a wider insurgency, it became clear that in Iraq the U.S. has extended privatization to core military functions. It's one thing to have civilians drive trucks and serve food; it's quite different to employ them as personal bodyguards to U.S. officials, as guards for U.S. government installations and � the latest revelation � as interrogators in Iraqi prisons.

According to reports in a number of newspapers, employees from two private contractors, CACI International and Titan, act as interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to Sewell Chan of The Washington Post, these contractors are "at the center of the probe" into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. And that abuse, according to the senior defense analyst at Jane's, has "almost certainly destroyed much of what support the coalition had among the more moderate section of the Iraqi population."

We don't yet know for sure that private contractors were at fault. But why put civilians, who cannot be court-martialed and hence aren't fully accountable, in that role? And why privatize key military functions?

I don't think it's simply a practical matter. Although there are several thousand armed civilians working for the occupation, their numbers aren't large enough to make a significant dent in the troop shortage. I suspect that the purpose is to set a precedent.

You may ask whether our leaders' drive to privatize reflects a sincere conservative ideology, or a desire to enrich their friends. Probably both. But before Iraq, privatization that rewarded campaign contributors was a politically smart move, even if it was a net loss for the taxpayers.

In Iraq, however, reality does matter. And thanks to the ideologues who dictated our policy over the past year, reality looks pretty grim.

Paul Krugman, The New York Times

---