Saturday, March 17, 2007
Your mercenaries at war
Jeremy Scahill reporting in The Nation gives us a deep;y troubling look at the rise of private armies in the prosecution of Our Dear Embattled Leader's Glorious Little War. And thanks to the policies of Rummy one of the prime leaders among the Neo-Warlord armies is Blackwater.
Every day we read of a new effort by the Bushoviks to destroy and dismantle the government, like some terrible army of termite bureaucrats eating a house from the inside out. The effort is so vast and complete that it is difficult to realize the full scope of it. One element remains the same with each disclosure, a small group of wealthy and influential people who seek to draw as much public value to themselves as possible before the collapse. And some have their own private armies to protect them afterwards.
Occupying the hot seat through these deliberations is the shadowy mercenary company Blackwater USA. Unbeknownst to many Americans and largely off the Congressional radar, Blackwater has secured a position of remarkable power and protection within the US war apparatus. This company's success represents the realization of the life's work of the conservative officials who formed the core of the Bush Administration's war team, for whom radical privatization has long been a cherished ideological mission. Blackwater has repeatedly cited Rumsfeld's statement that contractors are part of the "Total Force" as evidence that it is a legitimate part of the nation's "warfighting capability and capacity." Invoking Rumsfeld's designation, the company has in effect declared its forces above the law--entitled to the immunity from civilian lawsuits enjoyed by the military, but also not bound by the military's court martial system. While the initial inquiries into Blackwater have focused on the complex labyrinth of secretive subcontracts under which it operates in Iraq, a thorough investigation into the company reveals a frightening picture of a politically connected private army that has become the Bush Administration's Praetorian Guard.So now they are a part of the military establishment, without control, and in concert with others in the warlord industry, costing at least 10 times what a regular army costs. Reading further, we get to see how $2.3 million in protection services ends up costing $19.6 million in tax dollars. While Democrats try to simply find out how this mare's nest on contracts and subcontracts and who is working for whom and how much it actually cost, they are also trying to bring the mercenaries under the control of the military. How well this might work is questionable, given the success to date of the efforts of the Bushoviks to break the Army as a functioning force.
Every day we read of a new effort by the Bushoviks to destroy and dismantle the government, like some terrible army of termite bureaucrats eating a house from the inside out. The effort is so vast and complete that it is difficult to realize the full scope of it. One element remains the same with each disclosure, a small group of wealthy and influential people who seek to draw as much public value to themselves as possible before the collapse. And some have their own private armies to protect them afterwards.
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