Private
mercenary firms like Xe (formerly Blackwater) and DynCorp have raked in
fortunes
running private armies for the US. They are major donors to the far
right of the
Republican Party. Deeply worried civil libertarians call these private
armies
potential Brownshirts, after the Nazi Party’s private army in the late
1920’s.
By Eric S. Margolis
March 21, 2010 "Khaleej Times" - -A fascinating scandal has erupted in
Washington over the use of mercenaries (‘private contractors’ in US terminology)
that is exposing the dark underbelly of America’s foreign wars. It has been that
the Pentagon and other US intelligence agencies secretly fielded mercenaries in
Afghanistan, Pakistan (aka “Af-Pak”), and Iraq to assassinate tribal
militants.
US law forbids murder or using mercenaries. But, as the Roman
jurist Cicero said, “laws are silent in times of war.”
A former senior
Pentagon official specialising in clandestine operations, Mike Furlong, set up a
shell company, International Media Ventures (IMV), to supposedly provide the US
military with “cultural information” about Afghanistan’s Pashtun tribes. Two
obscure Pentagon outfits, the “Cultural Engineering Group” in Florida, and
“Counter-Narco-terrorism Technology Programme” of Virginia funded Furlong with
$24.6 million. Furlong hired a bunch of former Special Forces types and assorted
thugs. These rent-a-Rambos’s real mission was to assassinate Pashtun leaders in
Pakistan and Afghanistan, and target tribal compounds for strikes by US Predator
drones. Welcome to the modern version of the Mafia’s infamous contract killers,
“Murder Inc.”
Thickening this plot, retired CIA types, including the
flamboyant Dewey Clarridge, whom I well recall from the 1980’s Afghan war, were
involved. So were other would-be bounty-hunters, eager to cash in one the
Pentagon’s cash bonanza. It is uncertain if Furlong’s Murder Inc had time to go
operational. But its exposure is causing uproar. In best US government
tradition, the Pentagon denied backing Furlong and cut him adrift. He is now
under criminal investigation. Shades of former CIA agent Edwin Wilson, whose
frightful case I long followed. Wilson was set up as a deniable “independent” by
CIA to supply arms and explosives to Libya and Angola in the 1980’s. When this
intrigue blew wide open, Wilson was kidnapped by US agents and buried alive in
federal prison for 27 years.
The Furlong scandal comes at a time of
growing criticism of the US government’s use of over 275,000 mercenaries in
Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. These hired gunmen and logistics personnel
operate without any accountability, legal structure, or oversight. Lack of
command and control of such free-lancers infuriates traditional military men,
who detest US Special Forces and these hired gunmen as ‘cowboys.’
It
certainly is no way to win over Muslim hearts and minds.
Private
mercenary firms like Xe (formerly Blackwater) and DynCorp have raked in fortunes
running private armies for the US. They are major donors to the far right of the
Republican Party. Deeply worried civil libertarians call these private armies
potential Brownshirts, after the Nazi Party’s private army in the late 1920’s.
Amazingly, US Special Forces in Af-Pak have not until this month been
under the control of supreme commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. They apparently
reported to his rival, Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus in Tampa,
Florida.
To the Pentagons’s anger, CIA runs its own killer paramilitary
units and drone assassination operations, 90 per cent of whose victims are
civilians, according to Pakistani media investigations. CIA’s paramilitaries
report only to HQ in Langley —which does not talk to the Pentagon. Pakistan’s
feeble government is not even informed in advance of Predator strikes and
assassinations on its own territory. How many of the 15 other US intelligence
agencies and NATO forces are running their own little illegal private armies? US
mercenaries are responsible for a growing number of civilian deaths. It’s only a
matter of time before all these cowboys begin shooting at one another. Reliable
sources in Pakistan report that US-paid mercenaries are staging bombings there
and in Afghanistan in an attempt to incite popular anger against Islamic or
tribal militants, and draw Pakistan’s army deep into the fray.
Washington
brands all Al Qaeda and Taleban “illegal combatants,” denying them due process
of law and the Geneva Convention’s prisoner protections. Murdering or torturing
such “terrorists,” says Washington, is lawful. So what about all the US
mercenary Rambos running amok, who wear no uniform, kill at will, and have no
legal oversight and, as we saw in Iraq, get away with murder?
Eric
Margolis is a veteran US journalist who reported from the Middle East and Asia
for nearly two decades
