Private Wars and the Christian Right
The Sydney Morning Herald (April 21-22, 2007) reports on the huge contribution private subcontractors make to the war in Iraq. It is no secret that private contractors are involved, but little publicity is given to the scale of their involvement. It casts further doubts on the legality of the war and how it has been conducted. It also illustrates the influence of the Christian Right in the US.
I quote from the Sydney Morning Herald:
“When Rumsfeld resigned last December, there were an estimated 100,000 private contractors in Iraq”.
Jeremy Scahill , in his book “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army” writes “Contractors have provided the Bush Administration with political cover, allowing the Government to deploy private forces in a war zone free of public scrutiny, with the deaths, injuries and crimes of those forces shrouded in secrecy. The Administration in turn have shielded contractors from accountability, oversight and legal constraints. ‘We have over 200,000 troops in Iraq, and half of them aren’t being counted,’ says the Democrats’ Dennis Kucinich, a leading congressional critic of war contracting.”
Blackwater USA is such a mercenary company. “It was founded in 1996 by conservative Christian multimillionaire and ex-Navy SEAL, Erik Prince, the scion of a wealthy Michigan family whose generous political donations helped fuel the rise of the religious right and the Republican revolution in 1994…….. Prince, his family and his political allies poured money into the Republican campaign coffers….”
“Prince has expanded his headquarters …..in North Carolina, to 7000 acres (2800 hectares), making it the largest private military base, with 2300 personnel in nine countries and 20,000 other contractors at the ready”.
According to the Washington Post:
“On the afternoon of July 8, 2006, four private security guards rolled out of Baghdad’s green zone in an armoured security vehicle. The team leader,……., rode in the front passenger seat. He seemed in good mood. His vacation was to start the next day.
“I want to kill somebody today”, ….. said, according to the other three men in the vehicle. Before the day was over, the guards had been involved in three shooting incidents. In one, … allegedly fired into the windshield of a taxi for amusement.
The full story may never be known…”
Is this how future wars will be fought? Are private contractors being drilled for taking on the Iranians? Do the Geneva convention and other international treaties apply to such private armies? Apparently not, how otherwise could the “Administration in turn have shielded contractors from accountability, oversight and legal constraints”? Who pays for this billion Dollar business? Salaries of the contractors certainly are very high.
April 24th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I don’t know. I just think Iraq is a magnet for people who think deadly violence is “exciting”, basically Americans and Terrorists :):-)
April 26th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
I do think there is a case for the “private vs public” political debate to be extended to defence, military, army and security spheres. I am preparing a blog entry which will attempt to do this.
April 27th, 2007 at 11:17 am
I have thought of this before mostly as a metaphorical stick to beat private schools with:
‘In our neighbourhood we decided the regular army wasn’t doing a good enough job protecting us, so we started our own. Now we demand government funding! It’s not fair that we are not funded by the taxpayer on the same per capita basis as the regular army. Surely every Australian hasn the right to be protected by the army of their choice, etc….”
September 18th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
[...] I have commented on the widespread use of private security contractors in Iraq in my post “Private Wars and the Christian Right“ [...]