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20 January 2010 By Stephen Lendman
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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 lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 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.
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