Merc is the new crack: America's contractor addiction

From my latest story for In These Times:

The United States is in throes of a deadly addiction, according to Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution. In “Can’t Win with ‘Em, Can’t Go To War without ‘Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency,” a report released this month, Singer argues that America is hooked on private security contractors.

“[Our reliance on private security contractors] has created a dependency syndrome on the private marketplace that not merely creates critical vulnerabilities, but shows all the signs of the last downward spirals of an addiction,” Singer writes. “If we judge by what has happened in Iraq, when it comes to private military contractors and counterinsurgency, the U.S. has locked itself into a vicious cycle. It can’t win with them, but can’t go to war without them.” [Read the rest...]

The novelist David Foster Wallace defined addiction as the point at which the addict starts using a substance to cope with the problems caused by their substance abuse.

America is addicted to mercenaries: We don't have enough troops to accomplish the administration's goals, so we hire contractors. But as the litany of human rights abuses and out-and-out crimes involving private security contractors (PSC) in Iraq and Afghanistan shows, these unaccountable private forces are running amok and undermining US efforts to win hearts and minds. Every innocent Iraqi maimed or killed by Blackwater is another propaganda point for the insurgency. Every Iraqi driver who gets run off the road by mercenaries is reminded that Iraq is not a free country and that the American presence there is not benign. The insurgency gets worse. So, we need more troops...

Politicians like private security contractors because they allow them to wage wars the public doesn't want while enriching their corporate cronies. Mercenaries are a very expensive, but ultimately disposable commodity.

Blackwater contractors and their colleagues kill and die off the books. They operate with effective impunity in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mercenaries now outnumber uniformed military in Iraq. They have become the public face of the American occupation. Iraqis don't distinguish between the public and private US-backed forces. Why should they?

These companies claim to offer "private security," not soldiers of fortune. Allegedly, the difference between a mercenary and a private security contractor is that mercenaries engage in active combat. Blackwater has engaged in combat operations and even given orders to active-duty US troops in battle, according to Jermy Scahill's new book, Blackwater.

Hired guns have fundamental conflict of interest. Erik Prince claims that his "professionals" are part of the US force in Iraq. Yet, the interests of PSCs often conflict with the objectives of the larger mission. PSCs answer to the people who sign their checks. It's their job to protect the people who pay them, even if it means terrifying, humiliating, or hurting Iraqis in the process. That's why Blackwater has so many satisfied customers and such a bad reputation.

Comments

[cfrost]

The novelist David Foster Wallace defined addiction as the point at which the addict starts using a substance to cope with the problems caused by their substance abuse.

The author best suited to capture the surreal malevolence of addiction in this case would have been William Burroughs. The best depiction of the grotesque battlefield profiteering favored by BushCo. and their Blackwater - Halliburton cronies, lately called “disaster capitalism” by Naomi Klein, remains Joseph Heller’s Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder of Catch-22.

[cfrost]

The novelist David Foster Wallace defined addiction as the point at which the addict starts using a substance to cope with the problems caused by their substance abuse.

The author best suited to capture the surreal malevolence of addiction in this case would have been William Burroughs. The best depiction of the grotesque battlefield profiteering favored by BushCo. and their Blackwater - Halliburton cronies, lately called “disaster capitalism” by Naomi Klein, remains Joseph Heller’s Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder of Catch-22.

[ssc-athens]

The correlaory to "contractor addiction" is "outsourcing addiction", which the US technology and call center sector went through beginning about ten years or so ago.

Wouldn't it be funny if some of the battle-scarred veterans of the Iraq war were to call their insurance company (CHAMPUS, I think) to make sure a claim was honored, and their call was mishandled by some call center in Pakistan...or Afganistan...or maybe someday "free" Iraq?

No, that wouldn't be funny. Not at all.

[weedcrakzr]

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