Letters to the Editor
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Blackwater-Contractors?
Could be the first step in analyzing the use of Blackwater personnel is to call them by their actual name and description--mercenaries. By distinguishing between contractors and mercenaries we could get a better idea of how the administration is perverting our military's purpose. Of course, I don't see either the national media or Democrats using the 'M' word. This is the Democrat's singular failure to communicate the facts of this war.
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Cost of Gulf War I
"To put this into context, the amount paid to Halliburton-KBR is roughly three times what the U.S. government paid to fight the entire 1991 Persian Gulf War."
To put THIS into context, The U.S. government paid only about 15% of the cost of the first Iraq War. The other $52 billion was picked up by Coalition Members, including Saudi Arabia.
Not that paying inflated rates to private companies to peel the soldiers' potatoes isn't obscene.
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Blackwater is the logical and predictable result of outsourcing military operations
While a reduction in force of the US Army began before Donald Rumsfeld became the Secretary of Defense in the first Bush/Cheney administration, its literal deconstruction was signaled with the cancellation of the Crusader Weapons System, a tracked artillery system intended to maneuver with tank and mechanized forces and provide covering fire at Corp and Division levels, throughout a combat theater. Capable of firing 12 rounds per minute over a distance of 40 kilometers, it was intended to support conventional maneuver forces in a rapid onslaught against enemy tank, artillery, mechanized, heavy. medium and light infantry divisions. Ironically, it was a Carlisle Group entity—United Defense—that lost the opportunity to build the Crusader, which was supported by many, and opposed by others.
Whether it should have, in fact, been built and deployed is not the issue. It is the fact that this cancellation was the first glove tossed down by Rumsfeld in his relentless effort to reinvent the US Army as a lighter, more mobile and ostensibly more mobile force. With the cancellation, came calls for the elimination of armored calvary units, aviation units, many of the medium and heavy combat elements of the National Guard, and a transformation of artillery and armored divisions. It was this collateral effort, coupled with the resulting reduction in forces and driven by a blind policy envisioned by someone who understood little of land warfare, that placed us in Iraq with insufficient forces, and the wrong mix of forces. We were doomed to fail even as we launched the initial offensive to take the country, because we did not have sufficient rear area operations forces such as military police and armored cavalry units in place, and did not have sufficient combat forces capable of guarding or rapidly dismantling the ammunition caches and primary targets of potential insurgent or resistance forces.
The looting of Baghdad was another clear indication of impending doom to senior Army officers, who quickly found their fears of a population run amuck to be the emerging picture. Idiotic decisions made by Ambassador Bremmer such as the dissolution of the Iraqi Army and a policy of de-Bathification led to rampant unemployment, serious financial problems for the populace, and social upheaval.
None of this was a surprise to me as a former Army military police and intelligence officer, not was it a surprise to thousands of others, I am confident. Yet, there seemed to be no recognition from the civilian leadership at any level that a disaster loomed before us.
And into this cauldron, was tossed Blackwater. Not initially subject to either the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a Status of Forces agreement—which did not exist—or, to Iraqi law, such as it was, how could anyone expect an essentially lawless organization, operating under its own set of rules, to behave in any other manner? There should be NO ONE armed and operating in the battle space at any time, other than the legally constituted uniformed forces of the various nations contributing to the effort. 'Private armies' have no place whatsoever in a combat theater, and as was pointed out in this article, have actually done far more harm than good. In addition, while it was alluded to only briefly in the article, the use of contractors at every level has actually reduced the maneuverability of combat units, and severely degraded our fighting forces, particularly the US Army.
The present contracts for these mercenary 'armed forces' in the theater should be terminated as rapidly as possible, and those forces disarmed and removed completely from the combat zone. Congress should debate and pass legislation absolutely prohibiting contracting with such mercenary forces, focusing first on armed combatants not subject to the control of US commanders, then begin dismantling the crippling process of contracting critical tasks in such functional areas as intelligence, surveillance, policing and confinement operations.
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What a Picture!
That is one bad ass Mennonite!
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Eeek...
Have we hit bottom yet?
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Mercenaries or lawful combatants
My initial reaction was exactly the same as petralyn: these people are mercenaries and should be called by that name, with all of its pejorative connotations.
Sadly though, it seems the Geneva Conventions disagree with us: http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/protocol1.htm
Article 47: "A mercenary is any person who ... is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict"
In other words, so long as Blackwater is careful to only use US nationals, and so long as the US can be defined as a "party to the conflict", Blackwater get to do pretty much whatever they want with impunity.
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Where are the much over-rated American journalists, including TV, print, web, ect?
President Bush called the MoveOn ad "disgusting."
No.
The very idea of using Mercs is disgusting in the extreme.
But this situation has been going on for three fucking years?
Now? Now the media finally gets off its collective ass and starts reporting?
Shit!
We don't have a hope in this country until our so-called "journalists" start reporting something besides Brittney's hairless twat!
This sucks!
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Hate to be a cynic
Singer proclaims:
Outsourcing the war to private military contractors such as Blackwater has shattered the United States' moral authority and its ability to win the nation's wars -- including Iraq.
Wasn't that supposed to be the case with Abu Graib, Gitmo, Falujah, and the rape and torching of a young Iraqi girl by US soldiers?
I am beginning to think that nothing short of our setting up Zyclon B showers will galvanize our nation to move to a more just course.