EARL NASH,WTFG hired killers Correspondent
>>>>>
“It’s news to YOU...” <<<<<
Blackwater/Xe, a corporation that rents out "para-military" killers, who are not subject to national military rules, and ignore international law, is a threat to democracy.
They have been wantonly killing civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere and they have been accused of false flag operations, where they set off a bomb in a crowded market place with the expectation that their "terror attack" will be blamed on "insurgents," "jihadis," or al-Qaeda. They are likely the culprits in the recent atrocity in Afghanistan, where school children were handcuffed and shot in the head.
Dick Cheney created these "murder for hire" corporations to "outsource killing" and exempt them, and the Vice President and Rumsfeld, from any prosecution. These murderers believe they are above all laws; they must be stopped.
According to reports, they have already arrived in Yemen and Somalia: are these amoral para-military prostitutes loyal to the United States, the Pentagon, or, their pimp, Blackwater/Xe?
If the Federal governmen t hired these mercenaries to control US citizens, would the local law enforcement personnel and and National Guard soldiers join them against civilians in the United States?
OR will our National Guard troops support us? Would they remain loyal to the Constitution and their fellow citizens and protect their neighbors from these hired killers? During the American Revolution, the British hired hessians to do their killing and the patriots shot them dead.
following from: Countercurrents.org
In The Prince,
Machiavelli (May 1469 - June 1527) wrote:
"The mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and
dangerous, and if anyone supports his state by the arms of mercenaries, he will
never stand firm or sure, as they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline,
faithless, bold amongst friends, cowardly amongst enemies, they have no fear of
God, and keep no faith with men."
In an August 11, 2009 Global Research article
titled, "The Real Grand Chessboard and the Profiteers of War," Peter Dale Scott
called Private Military Contractors (PMCs) businesses "authorized to commit
violence in the name of their employers....predatory bandits (transformed into)
uncontrollable subordinates....representing....public power in....remote
places."
True enough. Those performing security functions
are paramilitaries, hired guns, unprincipled, in it for the money, and might
easily switch sides if offered more. Though technically accountable under
international and domestic laws where they're assigned, they, in fact, are
unregulated, unchecked, free from criminal or civil accountability, and are
licensed to kill and get away with it.
Political and institutional expediency
affords them immunity and impunity to pretty much do as they please and be
handsomely paid for it.
As
vice-president, GHW Bush applied it to intelligence, and then defense secretary
Dick Cheney hired Brown and Root Services (now KBR, Inc., a former Halliburton
subsidiary) to devise how to integrate private companies effectively into
warfare.
The Current Proliferation of
PMCs
According to PW Singer, author of "Corporate
Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry:"
Included are companies offering "the functions of
warfare....spanning a wide range of activities. They perform everything from
tactical combat to consulting (to) mundane logistics....The result is that (the
industry) now offers every function that was once limited to state
militaries."
Warfare, in part, has been privatized so that "any
actor in the global system can access these skills and functions simply by
writing a check."
In the 1991 Gulf War, the Pentagon employed one
PMC operative per 50 troops. For the 1999 Yugoslavia conflict, it was one for
every 10, and by the 2003 Iraq War, PMCs comprised the second largest force
after the US military.
So wherever they're deployed, they're menacing and
feared with good reason even though many of their member firms belong to
associations like the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) and the
British Association of Private and Security Companies (BAPSC). Their conduct
codes are mere voluntary guidelines that at worst subject violators to
expulsion.
The U.S. military reports appear to corroborate the Iraqi government's
contention that Blackwater was at fault in the shooting incident in Nisoor
Square, in which hospital records say at least 14 people were killed and 18 were
wounded.
"It was obviously excessive, it was obviously wrong," said the U.S.
military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident
remains the subject of several investigations. "The civilians that were fired
upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. And none of the IP or
any of the local security forces fired back at them," he added, using a military
abbreviation for the Iraqi police. The Blackwater guards appeared to have fired
grenade launchers in addition to machine guns, the official
said.
When IPOA wanted Blackwater USA investigated
(later Blackwater Worldwide, now Xe - pronounced Zee) for slaughtering 28 Iraqis
in Al-Nisour Square in central Baghdad and wounding dozens more on September 16,
2007, the company left the association and set up its own, the Global Peace and
Security Operations Institute (GPSOI), with no conduct code besides saying:
"Blackwater desires a safer world though practical
application of ideas that create solution making a genuine difference to those
in need (by) solving the seemingly impossible problems that threaten global
peace and stability."
Blackwater, now Xe, makes them far worse as
unchecked hired guns. Wherever deployed, they operate as they wish, take full
advantage, and stay unaccountable for their worst crimes, the types that would
subject ordinary people to the severest punishments.
In his book "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's
Most Powerful Mercenary Army," Jeremy Scahill described a:
"shadowy mercenary company (employing) some of the
most feared professional killers in the world (accustomed) to operating without
worry or legal consequences....largely off the congressional radar. (It has)
remarkable power and protection within the US war apparatus" to practice
violence with impunity, including cold-blooded murder of non-combatant
civilians.
Employing Mercenaries - A Longstanding
Practice
Called various names, including mercenaries,
soldiers of fortune, dogs of war, and Condottieri for wealthy city states in
Renaissance Italy, employing them goes back centuries. In 13th century BC Egypt,
Rameses II used thousands of them in battle. Ancient Greeks and Romans also used
them. So didn't Alexander the Great, feudal lords in the Middle Ages, popes
since 1506, Napoleon, and George Washington against the British in America's war
of independence even though by the early 18th century western states enacted
laws prohibiting their citizens from bearing arms for other nations. Although
the practice continued sporadically, until more recently, private armies fell
out of favor.
Defining a Mercenary
Article 47 in the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva
Conventions provides the most widely, though not universally, accepted
definition, based on six criteria, all of which must be met.
"A mercenary is any person who:
(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in
order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the
hostilities:
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities
essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on
behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess
of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the
armed forces of the Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the
conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party
to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a
Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces."
This Article's Focus and Some
Background
This article covers the modern era of their
resurgence, specifically America's use of private military contractors (PMCs)
during the post-Cold War period. However, the roots of today's practice began in
1941 in the UK under Captain David Stirling's Special Air Service (SAS), hired
to fight the Nazis in small hard-hitting groups. In 1967, he then founded the
20th century's first private military company, WatchGuard International.
Others followed, especially during the 1980s
Reagan-Thatcher era when privatizing government services began in earnest.
They've also been used in numerous civil wars
globally in nations like Angola, Sierra Leone, the Balkans throughout the 1990s,
Papua New Guinea, and elsewhere. From 1990 - 2000, they participated in 80
conflicts, compared to 15 from 1950 - 1989.
Singer cites three reasons why, combined into "one
dynamic:"
1. Supply and demand
Since the Cold War ended in 1991, the US military
downsized to about two-thirds its former size, a process Dick Cheney, as defense
secretary, called BRAC - Base Realignment and Closure, followed by privatizing
military functions. But given America's permanent war agenda, the Pentagon
needed help, especially because of the proliferation of small arms, over 550
million globally or about one for every 12 human beings, and their increased use
in local conflicts.
2. Changes in the conduct of war
Earlier distinctions between soldiers and
civilians are breaking down, the result of low-intensity conflicts against drug
cartels, warlords and persons or groups aggressor nations call "terrorists," the
same ones they call "freedom fighters" when on their side for imperial
purposes.
High-intensity warfare also changed, so sailors
aboard guided missile ships, for example, serve along side weapons and
technology company personal, needed for their specialized expertise.
In addition, the combination of powerful weapons
and sophisticated information technology let the Pentagon topple Saddam with
one-fourth the number of forces for the Gulf War. This strategy can be just as
effective in other conventional warfare theaters, depending on how formidable
the adversary, but it doesn't work in guerrilla wars - the dilemma America faces
in Afghanistan, earlier in Iraq and still now as violence there is
increasing.
3. The "privatization revolution"
Singer calls it a "change in mentality, a change
in political thinking, (a) new ideology that" whatever governments can do,
business can do better so let it. The transformation is pervasive in public
services, including more spent on private police than actual ones in America.
And the phenomenon is global. In China, for example, the private security
industry is one of its fastest growing.
By privatizing the military, America pierced the
last frontier to let private mercenaries serve in place of conventional forces.
Singer defines three types of companies:
1. "Military provider firms"
Whatever their functions, they're used tactically
as combatants with weapons performing services formerly done exclusively by
conventional or special forces.
2. Military consulting companies
They train and advise, much the way management
consulting firms operate for business. They also provide personal security and
bodyguard services.
3. Military support firms
They perform non-lethal services. They're
"supply-chain management firms....tak(ing) care of the back-end, (including)
logistics and technology assistance...." They also supply intelligence and
analysis, ordnance disposal, weapons maintenance and other non-combat
functions.
Overall, the industry is huge and growing,
grossing over $100 billion annually worldwide, operating in over 50 countries.
By far, the Pentagon is their biggest client, and in the decade leading up to
the Iraq War, it contracted with over 3,000 PMCs, and now many more spending
increasingly larger amounts.
A single company, Halliburton and its divisions
grossed between $13 - $16 billion from the Iraq War, an amount 2.5 times
America's cost for the entire Gulf War. The company profits handsomely because
of America's commitment to privatized militarization. More about it below.
Since 2003, Iraq alone represents the "single
largest commitment of US military forces in a generation (and) by far the
largest marketplace for the private military industry ever."
In 2005, 80 PMCs operated there with over 20,000
personnel. Today, in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, it's grown exponentially,
according to US Department of Defense figures - nearly 250,000 as of Q 3, 2009,
mostly in Iraq but rising in Afghanistan to support more troops.
Not included are PMCs working for the State
Department, 16 US intelligence agencies, Homeland Security, other branches and
foreign governments, commercial businesses, and individuals, so the true total
is much higher. In addition, as Iraq troops are drawn down, PMCs will replace
them, and in Afghanistan, they already exceed America's military force.
According to a September 21, 2009 Congressional
Research Service (CRS) Report, as of June 2009, PMCs in Afghanistan numbered
73,968, and a later year end 2009 US Central Command figure is over 104,000 and
rising. The expense is enormous and growing with CRS reporting that supporting
each soldier costs $1 million annually, in large part because of rampant waste,
fraud and abuse, unmonitored and unchecked.
With America heading for 100,000 troops on the
ground and more likely coming, $100 billion will be spent annually supporting
them, then more billions as new forces arrive, and the Iraq amount is even
greater - much, or perhaps most, from supplemental funding for both theaters on
top of America's largest ever military budget at a time the country has no
enemies except for ones it makes by invading and occupying other countries and
waging global proxy wars.
Regulating PMCs
Efforts to do so have been fruitless despite the
General Assembly trying in 1989 through the International Convention against the
Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries. It took over a decade
to get the required 22 signatories, but neither America or other major PMC users
were included.
An earlier effort also failed when in 1987 a
special UN rapporteur was established to examine "the use of mercenaries as a
means of impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination."
It was largely ignored, and a 2005 effort won't likely fare better under a
working group for the same purpose. Nor will industry associations functioning
more for show than a commitment to end bad practices that will always go on as
long as rogue firms like Xe and others like it are employed.
Singer noted how PMCs have been involved in some
of the most controversial aspects of war - from over-billing to ritual slaughter
of unarmed civilians. Yet none of them have ever been prosecuted, convicted or
imprisoned, an issue Singer cites in listing five "dilemmas:"
1. Contractual ones - hiring PMCs for their
skills, to save money, or do jobs nations prefer to avoid. Yet unaccountability
injects a "worrisome layer of uncertainty" into military operations, opening the
door to unchecked abuses.
2. PMCs constitute an unregulated global business
operating for profit, not peace and security when skilled killers are hired -
former Green Berets, Delta Force soldiers, Navy Seals, and foreign ones like the
British SAS.
3. Conducting public policy as serious as war
through private means is worrisome, including covert operations to avoid
official oversight and legislative constraints.
4. Moving private companies into the military
sphere creates disturbing gray areas. PMCs can't be court martialed, and
international law doesn't cover them. Further, operating in war zones makes them
even less accountable as who can prove their actions weren't in self-defense,
even against unarmed civilians.
5. Increasing PMC use also "raises some deep
questions about the military itself." How do you retain the most talented combat
troops when they can sell their skills for far greater pay? Also consider the
uniqueness of the military.
"It is the only profession that has its own court
system, its own laws; the only profession that has its own grocery stores and
separate bases;" its own pensions and other benefits for those staying around
long enough to qualify. So what happens when it's transformed into a business
with profit the prime motive? Simple - more wars, greater profits. The same idea
as privatizing prisons - more prisoners, fatter bottom line.
Another consideration is also worrisome. Given
America's imperial ambitions, global dominance, permanent war agenda, and
virtual disregard for the law, public distrust is growing for politicians who
never earned it in the first place.
Given the Pentagon's transformation since 1991,
the number of services it privatized, and America's permanent war agenda, what
will conditions be in another decade or a few years? How much more prominent
will PMCs be? How much more insecurity will result? How soon will it be before
hordes of them are deployed throughout America as enforcers in civilian
communities outside of conflict zones, with as much unaccountability here as
abroad? What will the nation be like if it happens?
Halliburton/KRB
In his book, "Halliburton's Army: How a
Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War,"
Pratap Chatterjee describes a company tainted by bribes, kickbacks,
inefficiency, corruption and fraud, exploitation of workers as near-slaves, and
other serious offenses, yet operates with impunity and sticks taxpayers with
many billions of dollars in charges.
Before spun off in 2007, KBR won the bulk of Iraq
contracts as part of Halliburton, many of them no-bid. Earlier from 2002 to
March 2003, it was involved with the Pentagon in planning the war and its role
once it ended - the one co-founder George Brown claimed Lyndon Johnson described
in the 1960s as a "joint venture (in which) I'm going to take care of politics
and you're going to take care of the business side of it." Fast forward, and
nothing's changed.
In a February 19, 2009 article, titled "Inheriting
Halliburton's Army," Chatterjee writes how their employees are in "every nook
and cranny of US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan," yet stateside operations yield
additional billions in revenue. He describes their "shoddy electrical work,
unchlorinated shower water, overcharges for trucks sitting idle in the desert,
deaths of KRB (its former subsidiary) employees and affiliated soldiers in Iraq,
alleged million-dollar bribes accepted by KBR managers, and billions of dollars
in missing receipts, among the slew of other complaints" that got wide publicity
since the beginning of the Iraq war.
He explains that since it got a 2001 contract to
supply US forces in combat theaters, KBR grossed over $25 billion. It then got
new contracts under Obama, leading Chatterjee to ask: "How did the US military
become this dependent on one giant company?"
Tracing its history since the 1960s, he noted its
connection to Lyndon Johnson, its profiteering from the Vietnam War, again under
Ronald Reagan, then more under GHW Bush and Dick Cheney, his defense secretary
who accelerated the Pentagon's privatization agenda, then headed the company as
CEO. Bill Clinton continued it, hiring KBR in 1994 to build bases in Bosnia,
later Kosovo, and run their daily operations.
Then under Bush/Cheney, outsourcing accelerated
further, so today there's one KBR worker for every three US soldiers in Iraq.
They build base infrastructure and maintain them by handling all their duties -
feeding soldiers, doing their laundry, performing maintenance, and virtually all
other non-combat functions.
Despite its abusive practices, KBR is such an
integral part of the Pentagon that Chatterjee asks "could Obama dismiss (its)
army, even if he wanted to?" Not at all so expect KRB's $150 billion 10-year
LOGCAP contract (the Army's Logistics Augmentation Program - beginning September
20, 2008) to continue, and KBR's army to remain on the march reaping billions
from the public treasury as the nation's largest PMC war profiteer.
PMCs Under Obama
In February 2007, Senator Obama introduced the
Transparency and Accountability in Military Security Contracting Act as an
amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization Act, requiring federal agencies to
report to Congress on the numbers of security contractors employed, killed,
wounded, and disciplinary actions taken against them. Referred to the Senate
Armed Services Committee, it never passed.
Then in February 2009 as president, Obama
introduced reforms to reduce PMC spending and shift outsourced work back to
government. He also promised to improve the quality of acquisition workers -
government employees involved in supervising and auditing billions of dollars
spent monthly on contracts. Even so, PMCs are fully integrated into national
security and other government functions, as evidenced by the massive numbers in
Iraq and Afghanistan alone.
Earlier, PMCs were at times used in lieu of US
forces. As mentioned above, they helped General Washington win America's war of
independence. Later the war of 1812, and in WW II the Flying Tigers fought the
Japanese for China's Chiang Kai-Shek. In the 1960s and early 1970s, they were
prominent nation builders in South Vietnam. From 1947 through 1976, the CIA's
Southern Air Transport performed paramilitary services, including delivering
weapons to the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s.
In 1985, the Army's LOGCAP was a precursor for
more extensive civilian contractor use in wartime and for other purposes. It's
involved in pre-planned logistics and engineering or construction contracts,
including vehicle maintenance, warehousing, base building abroad, and a range of
non-combat functions on them.
The Clinton administration's "Reinventing
Government" initiative promised to downsize it by shifting functions to
contractors as a way cut costs and improve efficiency. Later under George Bush,
private companies got to compete for 450,000 government jobs, and in 2001, the
Pentagon's contracted workforce exceeded civilian DOD employees for the first
time.
In 2002, under Army Secretary Thomas White, the
military planned to increase its long-term reliance on contracted workers, a
plan known as the "Third Wave" after two earlier ones. Its purposes were to free
up military manpower for the global war on terror, get non-core products and
services from private sources so Army leaders could focus on their core
competencies, and support Bush's Management Agenda.
In April 2003, the initiative stalled when White
resigned, among other reasons for a lack of basic information required to
effectively manage a growing PMC force, then estimated to be between 124,000 -
605,000 workers. Today, more precise figures are known and for what functions,
but a lack of transparency and oversight makes it impossible for the public,
Congress, the administration, or others in government to assess them with regard
to cost, effectiveness, their services, whether government or business should
perform them, and their effect on the nation for good or ill, with strong
evidence of the latter.
The 2008 Montreux Document is an agreement
obligating signatories with regard to their PMCs in war zones. Seventeen nations
ratified it, including America, Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Canada
and China, pledging to promote responsible PMC conduct in armed conflicts.
Divided in two sections, its first one covers international laws binding on
private contractors, explains states can't circumvent their obligations by using
them, requires they take appropriate measures to prevent violations, address
them responsibly when they do, and take effective steps to prevent future
occurrences.
The second section lists 70 practices for helping
countries fulfill their legal obligations, including not using PMCs for
activities requiring force, implementing effective control, using surveillance
and sanctions in case of breaches, and regulating and licensing contracted
companies, that in turn, must train their personnel to observe the rules of law.
Given the obvious conflicts of interest,
self-regulation won't work. Unchecked, combatant PMCs are accountable only to
themselves, operating secretly outside the law - for the Pentagon as an imperial
tool.
Given Obama's permanent war agenda and how
entrenched PMCs have become, expect little constructive change, save for
tinkering around the edges and regular rhetorical promises, followed by new
fronts in the war on terror and even greater numbers civilians and soldiers for
them.
Then add hundreds more billions diverted from
vital homeland needs to enrich thousands of war profiteers, addicted to
sure-fire blood money, and expecting plenty more ahead. They'll get it unless
enough public outrage demands an end to this madness before it's too late to
matter.
Some Final Comments
On January 13 (on antiwar.com), Jeremy Scahill
reported that Representative Jan Schakowsky (D. IL and House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence member):
"is preparing to introduce legislation (Stop
Outsourcing Security Act - SOS) aimed at ending the US government's relationship
with Blackwater and other armed contracting companies."
Originally introduced in 2007 but not passed,
Schakowsky says:
"The legislation would prohibit the use of private
contractors for military, security, law enforcement, intelligence, and armed
rescue functions unless the President tells Congress why the military is unable
to perform those functions. It would also increase transparency over any
remaining security contracts by increasing reporting requirements and giving
Congress access to details about large contracts."
Meanwhile on January 12, 2010, a coalition of
groups opposed to Blackwater called on Congress to investigate why criminal
charges against the company were dismissed on grounds of prosecutorial
misconduct. They also want to "pull the funding on war profiteers like
Blackwater (and) stop them for good."
It's a tall order given how entrenched they are
and expanding. In Haiti, for example, reports say Blackwater is there providing
security, an indication perhaps of more contingents to follow, from them and
other armed contractors, "authorized to commit violence in the name of their
employers."
Stephen Lendman is a Research
Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and
can be reached at [email protected].
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to the Lendman News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday
at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests
on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.
Outsourcing War: A Threat To USA
And The World
By Stephen Lendman
19 January,
2010
Countercurrents.org
