Just a snippet from a story posted by Al Jazeera about a suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan:
At least 15 people in a convoy guarded by a private US security firm have been killed by a car bomb in southern Afghanistan.
As many as 26 people were also wounded in the suicide attack on Saturday, the blast being so strong it tore through several vehicles.
Police say that the attack was carried out in a crowded area west of Kandahar.
Sayed Aqa, a police chief, said: “Fifteen people, four Afghan security guards and 11 civilians, were killed and another 26 including 19 civilians and seven guards were wounded in the suicide blast today.”
The convoy, which was guarded by USPI, was travelling to the Zahri district in Helmand province.
People who own and operate British or American “security firms” like USPI (i.e., mercenaries for hire) have made large fortunes off the Bush War on Terror, because to a large extent many war zone duties traditionally reserved to troops (such as convoy protection) have been outsourced to these private firms by our government. Indeed, one of the things 9/11 did change in this country was the ubiquity of private security forces, “guns for hire” as it were, sucking from the public teat. It’s one of the reasons the War in Iraq has been so costly. Rather than provide enough troops in the first place, many “security jobs,” including security in the infamous Green Zone in Baghdad, are now performed by the likes of Blackwater and Aegis, private companies under no obligation to disclose the identities of the people who work for them, nor how many may have been killed working for the US government. What we do know about them is that they have become very large and very profitable very quickly:
(cont.)
With almost no congressional oversight and even less public awareness, the Bush administration has more than doubled the size of the U.S. occupation through the use of private war companies.
There are now almost 200,000 private “contractors” deployed in Iraq by Washington. This means that U.S. military forces in Iraq are now outsized by a coalition of billing corporations whose actions go largely unmonitored and whose crimes are virtually unpunished.
In essence, the Bush administration has created a shadow army that can be used to wage wars unpopular with the American public but extremely profitable for a few unaccountable private companies.
Since the launch of the “global war on terror,” the administration has systematically funneled billions of dollars in public money to corporations like Blackwater USA , DynCorp, Triple Canopy, Erinys and ArmorGroup. They have in turn used their lucrative government pay-outs to build up the infrastructure and reach of private armies so powerful that they rival or outgun some nation’s militaries.
“I think it’s extraordinarily dangerous when a nation begins to outsource its monopoly on the use of force and the use of violence in support of its foreign policy or national security objectives,” says veteran U.S . Diplomat Joe Wilson, who served as the last U.S. ambassador to Iraq before the 1991 Gulf War.
The billions of dollars being doled out to these companies, Wilson argues, “makes of them a very powerful interest group within the American body politic and an interest group that is in fact armed. And the question will arise at some time: to whom do they owe their loyalty?”
Note the money quote from Joe Wilson? “I think it’s extraordinarily dangerous when a nation begins to outsource its monopoly on the use of force and the use of violence in support of its foreign policy or national security objectives.” Dangerous, indeed, in many ways. For not only are these “private militias” being employed overseas (at the cost of billions of your tax dollars) they are also now being employed within the United States itself, to perform functions that were traditionally provided by The National Guard, such as security in the wake of Hurricane Katrina:
New Orleans – Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Some of the mercenaries say they have been “deputized” by the Louisiana governor; indeed some are wearing gold Louisiana state law enforcement badges on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards on their arms. They say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force. Several mercenaries we spoke with said they had served in Iraq on the personal security details of the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer and the former US ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte.
“This is a totally new thing to have guys like us working CONUS (Continental United States),” a heavily armed Blackwater mercenary told us as we stood on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. “We’re much better equipped to deal with the situation in Iraq.”
In many ways these companies are worse than traditional defense industries, which doesn’t necessarily need war to justify their existence. Security companies like Blackwater, on the other hand, can only continue to rake in the government cash so long as there are war zones or “crises” to which to deploy their “employees” for the provision of “security services.” Which begs the question: what happens if the government decides it has to withdraw from Iraq? Do you honestly believe these companies will go quietly away from billions of dollars of fat, wasteful government contracts and forgo millions/billions of dollars of profits?
I don’t. Indeed, I suspect these companies even now are investing heavily in the upcoming political campaigns of both Democrats and Republicans to insure that the money trough at which they feed stays full. I won’t be surprised if in the future a Democratic President decides that we must continue to fund the activities of these “privatized armies” or even find them new things to do. After all, not only do they have money to throw at Washington lobbyists and political campaigns, but they also have the most heavily armed force outside the US military.
In the words of Joe Wilson: “[T]he question will arise at some time: to whom do they owe their loyalty?” One thing of which we can be sure: it isn’t to the US Constitution or the American people. Blackwater’s principal shareholder is Edgar Prince, former Navy Seal, and Trust fund baby, who turned his inheritance and right wing connections into making Blackwater the largest “security company” in the United States. And his loyalties, like those of President Bush, lie with a higher authority:
The founder and CEO of Blackwater is Erik Prince, son of Edgar Prince, the now deceased businessman from Holland, Michigan. Prince’s background as a Western Michigander is not just limited to geography, the brother of Betsy DeVos has also embraced the conservative religious beliefs that his family promoted zealous, particularly with their money. Erik began his political career working as an intern for Gary Bauer at the Family Research Council and also worked in the Bush I White House, although he thought that this administration was too liberal. Prince disapproved of the Bush I administration to the extent that in 1992 he supported Patrick Buchanan for President …
… Prince himself writes about this relationship and it’s importance, particularly with the mission of Blackwater. Prince says “Everybody carries guns, just like the Prophet Jeremiah rebuilding the temple in Israel – a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other.”
Scared now?
