Perpetual War

[Detroit City]

And in any case the Iraqi government doesn't fit the profile - it's not a private corporation.

but it is a puppet regime installed by the americanos

 

[Random]

A hard political sell, I would've thought.

I think you're overstimating the extent to which this needs to be sold. To whom were the outsourcings in other areas 'sold' to? Instead it's simply presented as inevitable. And, with the increased use of private security, there's the political bonus that 'our boys' can be pulled back to make way for non-soldiers; many of whom are, of course, recently discharged US and UK soldiers...

 

[Random]

with private mercenaries outnumbering the number of soldiers operating in Iraq (160,000 vs 130,000).

No, I think your figure must include civilian contractor workers - such as Halliburton truck drivers. The number of armed security contractors in Iraq has not been estimated as more than 50,000 at the highest.

 

[nosos]

The question remains, though, how well the professional armies -such as the US and UK - can sustain these kinds of long-term morale sapping ventures; plus the huge number of sverely wounded casualties. Aren't both armies under-recruited?

Can we see see any measures under way to restructure the armies to make them able to perform this 'perpetual war' role?

I imagine that's partly what's driving the outsourcing of the military. A lot of the military contracters are recruiting people internationally who are prepared to work for less than the UK and US contractors so it's an effective response to under-recruitment and (in theory) to morale because it'll be easier to motivate privater recruits. Apparantly blackwater have already been treating some of the contracters like absolute shit (not meeting agreed pay/conditions and inviting them to make their own way out of Iraq if they fail) so I'm curious about what will happen to the efficacy of these sorts of companies. Morale may be easier to mantain in private organisations but without a military command structure I'm guessing the breakdown of morale is also far more destructive. Particularly given that said contracters are increasingly central to operations.

 

[nosos]

The problem is though that, in outsourcing the violence, you're also outsourcing your moral authority

Hence you're not accountable. Part of the appeal.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip> The problem is though that, in outsourcing the violence, you're also outsourcing your moral authority. <snip>.

I think part of this development is that by doing so, you're also outsourcing responsibility, to whoever is paying the mercs to guard their stuff. Even better, you may be able to outsource the achievement of some sorts of objectives to local factions who can be presented as 'the enemy' or at least 'brutal foreigners' even though they are actually quite serviceable in many ways, particularly if you can arrange things so they're not likely to inflict casualties on those national troops that you do have to take responsibility for.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm not convinced by this. I don't see how the US government and, to a lesser extent, our own governnment can avoid assuming ultimate responsibility for events in Iraq and elsewhere. Even if they farm out the dirty deeds to other parties - and I don't see substantial evidence of this either - I don't think people are so easily fooled with regard to who's ultimately responsible.

It's something that they may get away with on a small scale - eg, "insurgents have blown up a telecomms tower in S. Iraq" - but not as an overarching strategy.

My point is that using third parties (mercenaries/"private contractors") rather than state agencies (military) means that the third parties are able to operate outwith standard rules of engagement, rules of war and military law and discipline. In effect there's no effective sanctioning process against any act of barbarity that may be carried out by those third parties except standard criminal law, which would only be applicable after the event, rather than, in the military's case, at least the checks and balances of military regs and RoEs..

 

[Random]

I think part of this development is that by doing so, you're also outsourcing responsibility, to whoever is paying the mercs to guard their stuff.

Not sure about the long-term use of this tactic. The AEGIS Oil Protection Force was disbanded and its duties handed over to the Iraqi oil ministry in, iirc, 2004. Now I'd be fascinated to see what kind of role the outgoing AEGIS types got in the Oil Ministry force - but it seems that, even in the case of Iraq, the aim is to hand over to government actors when possible.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I can't imagine how you'd begin selling the idea of private armies to the public.

We've accepted it for at least 200 years in Britain. IIRC the Blair and Atholl Highlanders are a private regt.

As for the small mean guys with kukris...

 

[Hi-ASL]

We've accepted it for at least 200 years in Britain. IIRC the Blair and Atholl Highlanders are a private regt.

As for the small mean guys with kukris...

Yes, but they've always operated as part of a larger state-controlled whole. I'm talking about 100% or near-100% private forces.

Good points from everyone though. I'm a lot less sceptical about the possibility than I was before.

 

[Vash]

I wonder how long it will be before companies get there own armies, they more or less have them in Iraq. I think people are brainwashing into joining the army your doing your duty for your country when your really just a murderer. So the idea of fighting for Tesco's is a lot better than fighting for a country it wouldn't be glorified and you'd certainly get paid better.

 

[likesfish]

but backwaters hardware consists of a few light helicopters and amoured trucks no tanks artillery or fast jets.
so mopping up and convoy patrol yes.
actual war fighting no as they don't own the big ticket items and unlikely to want too.
a couple of 3rd hand ex soviet gunships might turn the tide in a small african state.
Black water are having a hard time getting a license to operate a training aircraft in the US

 

[Luther Blissett]

I came across an interesting analysis the other day.



http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2007/09/unleashing-the-.html

The argument is basically this.

1) Governments have improved their ability to market war.
2) Militarisation is too profitable for too many vested interests.
3) Privatization of war marginalises the moral issues at stake.

"The Worse Things Get in Iraq, the More Privatized This War Becomes, The More Profitable This War Becomes"
Naomi Klein on the Privatization of the State

And what the Bush administration has really been doing is going for the core, privatizing those core essential government services that are so inherently part of what we think of as the state, that it almost seems impossible to imagine that they could be privatized, like the government itself, like cutting Social Security checks, like welfare, like prisons, like the army, which is where Blackwater fits in.

What's so extraordinary about what has happened in Iraq -- and Amy mentioned the “Baghdad Year Zero” article -- is that you really have all of these layers of colonialism and neocolonialism, this quest for privatization, forming a kind of a perfect storm in that country. On the one hand, you have sort of old-school colonial pillage, which is, let's go for the oil. And as many of you know, Iraq has a new oil law. It’s passed through cabinet, hasn't yet passed through parliament. But, really, it legalizes pillage. It legalizes pillage. It legalizes the extraction of 100% of the profits from Iraq's oil industry, which is precisely the conditions that created the wave of Arab nationalism and the reclaiming of the resources in the 1950s through the ’70s. So it’s an undoing of that process and a straight-up resource grab, old-school colonialism.

Layered on top of that, you have sort of colonialism 2.1, which is what I was researching when I was in Iraq, which is the looting of the Iraqi state, what was built up under the banner of Arab nationalism, the industry, the factories. The kind of rapid-fire, shock therapy-style strip-mining privatization that we saw in the former Soviet Union in the ’90s, that was the idea, that was Plan A for Iraq, that the US would just go in there with Blackwater guarding Paul Bremer and would sell off all of Iraq’s industries. So you had the old-school colonial, then you had the new school.

And then you had the post-modern privatization, which was the idea that the US military was actually going to war, the US Army was going to war, to loot itself, which is a post-modern kind of innovation, right? If we remember, Thomas Friedman told us less than a decade ago that no two countries with a McDonald's have ever gone to war. Now, we go to war with McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King, in tow. And so, the process of waging war is a form of self-pillage. Not only is Iraq being pillaged, but the United States coffers of this government are being pillaged. So we have these three elements, all converging this perfect storm over this country.

And one of the things that I think is most important for progressives to challenge is the discourse that everything in Iraq is a disaster. I think we need to start asking and insisting, disaster for who, because not everybody is losing. It’s certainly a disaster for the Iraqi people. It's certainly a disaster for US taxpayers. But what we have seen -- and it’s extremely clear if we track the numbers -- is that the worse things get in Iraq, the more privatized this war becomes, the more profitable this war becomes for companies like Lockheed Martin, Bechtel, and certainly Blackwater. There is a steady mission creep in Iraq, where the more countries pull out, the more contractors move in, which Jeremy has documented so well and will talk more about.

The danger. These are the stakes that I think we need to understand. And I really do want to keep this brief, so that we have a fruitful discussion afterwards. What are the stakes here? The stakes could not be higher. What we are losing is the incentive, the economic incentive, for peace, the economic incentive for stability. When you can create such a booming economy around war and disaster, around destruction and reconstruction, over and over and over again, what is your peace incentive?

Read/listen at http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/02/1345218&mode=thread&tid=25

 

[G. Fieendish]

Re:Likesfish'es last post
When you consider that said aircraft are ex-New Zealand Skyhawk light attack aircraft which had their avionics upgraded under the Project Kahu (Hawk) programme, you can understand why the U.S Government is somewhat reluctant to give Blackwaters a licence to operate 20 Light Attack Bombers.....
In short, Blackwater bought up New Zealand's entire fast attack jet fleet.....
(Project Kahu upgraded the Skyhawk's avionics systems to handle laser guided bombs, as well as Maverick air to surface missiles, & Sidewinder 9L air to air missiles.
In addition, Project Kahu, gave the Skyhawks a full, NVG compatible "Glass Cockpit", upgraded inertial navigation systems & the capacity to utilise ECM jamming pods.... This was coupled with a full Service Life Extension Programme (SLEP for short), which effectively gives these Skyhawks another 30 years of life....).

 

[Hi-ASL]

Wow. Things are afoot.

Blackwater Banned After Deadly Firefight by Daniel Luban
http://www.antiwar.com/ips/luban.php?articleid=11634

The Iraqi government announced Monday that it had revoked the license of one of the most prominent private U.S. security firms operating in Iraq, a decision that is expected to cause friction with U.S. occupying forces, which have increasingly come to rely on private contractors to meet their logistical and security needs.

The decision to revoke the license of Blackwater USA came one day after a Baghdad firefight that left eight civilians dead, the latest in a string of incidents involving private security contractors that have engendered resentment among Iraqis.

The Iraqi government also promised to prosecute those responsible for the deaths, a demand that is likely to become another source of tension with the U.S. and which drives home the legal gray area in which military contractors currently operate.

Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry, said that contractors believed to be Blackwater employees opened fire on civilians in western Baghdad on Sunday, killing eight and injuring 13 more.

U.S. officials stated that the incident began when a convoy of State Department vehicles came under small-arms fire, the Associated Press reported.

"We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory," Khalaf told reporters. "We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities."