Private military industry expanding

Great article in the National Journal by Rafael Enrique Valero on the burgeoning private military industry.

This industry is so large and powerful that Blackwater's competitors regard the 10-year-old firm as something of an upstart punk.

Perhaps through some cosmic accident, I got invited to a meet-and-greet event sponsored by the private security conference chronicled in the article. I RSVP'd, but I was told by organizers that the event was oversubscribed. Maybe next time.

Comments

[afterthought]

Maybe it was something I learned in high school history about the revolutionary war, but I have always loathed mercenaries. I haven't discovered any evidence to change my mind either.
If I had any power in this country I would cancel all U.S. contracts with mercenaries. If the U.S. military is not willing to do a U.S. security job, it shouldn't be done. I would also outlaw a parallel private military that holds arms not under control of the CIC. This seems common sense to me, which is why nobody in Washington sees it as a problem.
I'll go on to say that certain jobs must be the responsibility of the government. My list includes these: Military, Courts, Prisons, Police, Infrastructure.
We should not pass the buck on these tasks because we must confront the ugly to make sure we are aware of what gets done in our name. Private means no transparency and abuse will follow immediately. Running a prison is an obligation, not a profit center.

[rawdawgbuffalo]

yep and iraq is the perfect example ....the new efforts and focus on surge and money will not work . sunni or latter

[rawdawgbuffalo]

yep and iraq is the perfect example ....the new efforts and focus on surge and money will not work . sunni or latter

[ChrisR]

I got invited to a meet-and-greet event sponsored by the private security conference chronicled in the article. I RSVP'd, but I was told by organizers that the event was oversubscribed. Maybe next time.

Has it happened yet? Is it in NYC? I'd try going anyway.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

It was in DC during the second week of December '07. I did go to DC that week, but I didn't go to the shindig. I did end up corresponding a bit with the IPOA organizer. If I ever get another invite, I'll tell you guys all about it.

[cfrost]

Google “private military corporations” for some sobering reading. Given the vastly increased complexity and scale of weapons systems and logistics, and that security, military, logistical, administrative, intelligence, national, and corporate, etc. interests and missions are becoming hopelessly blurred, mercenary corporations become inevitable. Capitalist fundamentalists are helping to fuel the process: some of the more extreme nut jobs (like Ron Paul) are even suggesting nations formally issue letters of marque.

It’s interesting that bin Laden and Bush/Cheney whose minds are parked respectively, in the ninth and sixteenth centuries, should have managed together to accelerate our regression to the time when excessive violence created the need for sovereign nations with military forces under formal control in the first place.

If Bush/Cheney at least aspired to competence (we can’t ask anything else of these cretins), they might read Machiavelli on the subject of privatizing the military:

"...if one holds his state on the basis of mercenary arms, he will never be firm or secure; because they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, unfaithful; gallant among friends, vile among enemies; with no fear of God, no faith with men; and one defers ruin insofar as one defers the attack; and in peace you are despoiled by them, in war by the enemy.”

[pretzelattack]

eisenhower warned us.

[Greensmile]

When 1st amendment rights were granted to corporations by the supreme court back in 76, we began the era of manipulation in the media that wound up with a "majority" thinking a shit-fer-brains like bush could run a country. I had not noticed that the 2nd amendment is also being distorted to fit corporations. Other than the private citizen, as spelled out in the Bill of Rights, the Armed Forces and police would be a good place at which to draw the line over who gets to operate organized groups with lethal weapons.
Do these murder-for-hire outfits operate with any more license or oversight than the Sunni and Shiite militias? I can not think of any time or place in history when the rise of militias attended anything but social collapse and vast suffering. Think of the Balkans or Lebanon.

[Gritsforbreakfast]

Thanks for pointing that out, good piece.

A recent report also mentioned a lot of these mercenary types are juiced up on steroids, see:

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2007/11/lawsuit-private-mercenaries-police.html

Also, one of Blackwater's competitors, Dyncorp, is the likely beneficiary of Bush's $1.4 billion anti-drug Valentine to Mexico, see:

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2007/10/will-dyncorp-or-other-corporate.html

best,
sh

[mudkitty]

Private miltaries do what private militaries must do, reproduce, ie. expand.