Executive Corporate Mercenaries
Would you be upset to know that your president allows the use of mercenaries to protect American business concerns in war zones so that the legitimate military can get on with it’s job? Or that the government itself awards no-bid contracts to them in order to safeguard corporations who have themselves been awarded no-bid contracts? Would it shock you to know that there are an estimated 100,000 of these so-called private military contractors operating in Iraq right now? That they have become embedded with the U.S. military, but that the military has no real control over their actions because they retain civilian status?
Maybe not. Possibly these facts are unimportant to you, or you believe contractors need private protection, or maybe you are just somewhat ambivalent. In September 2005 Brigadier General Karl Horst, deputy commander, 3rd Infantry Division in charge of security, Baghdad said, “These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There’s no authority over them, so you can’t come down on them hard when they escalate force…They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all over the place.”
On January 23, 2007, the mainstream press reported that a helicopter had been shot down by insurgents, and that five American civilian contractors–security professionals of Blackwater USA–had been killed. Four were shot execution-style. These reports were calculated to stir up indignation and anger over the killing of our civilians. But it was not the whole story.
Blackwater USA is the largest of several Private Military Contractors (PMC’s or mercenaries) being used today in Iraq. Their stated purpose is protection, but in actuality they have become the unrestricted commandos in that war.
Blackwater itself was founded, and is run, by Erik Prince, a militant right-wing fundamentalist Christian who supports the Bush administration and it’s Iraq agenda. He and his family have contributed heavily to George Bush, himself a fundamentalist Christian, and Blackwater employees are required to take an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution according to Bush. Blackwater also has ambitions of becoming the point men in future UN peacekeeping missions. Power pacification, I suppose. Thus far, the UN has resisted. These are, after all, people who believe that the teachings of Jesus include the phrase “by whatever means necessary.”
Does America really want to fight a proxy war in Iraq? Is this the best way to save our military people from harm, the best way to avoid a draft? I cannot think that sending unaccountable mercs into enemy territory in order to avoid repercussions at home will work, and the repercussions abroad will be even larger than they are now. Not a single military contractor has been charged with a crime since we got into this war. It seems very unlikely that any of them will ever be punished or even prosecuted for their many documented war crimes.
Remember, the next time you hear of an American contractor being killed in Iraq, the odds are about 50-50 that it is not some oil rig worker or schoolteacher, but a mercenary aggressively protecting the rights of big business to plant itself in a country where it is not wanted.
