Comments on: Subcontracting war

By: Niklais Pfirsig

Niklais Pfirsig — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:27:35 +0000

Merks are the way to go if you are a high ranking politician trying to destroy your own government.
First, As private contractors, they has less oversight and accountability.
The high pay buys their loyalty, and at the same time weakens our govt troops as the government is willing to let the contractors pick and choose what they want to do and the regular army gets the leftover crap work. which is usually more dangerous.
This resulting in hardships for the soldiers which can be spun in the media as proof of the incompetence of the government and justification for more Merks.

When do the merks come home and take control of Washington D.C. ?

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:34:38 +0000

It occurs to me that this contractor situation is unseemly in many ways. Really, why are we hiring private soldiers when we have U.S. soldiers? How dare our leaders convince themselves that U.S. soldiers are not as capable as paid mercenaries (most of whom formerly fought as soldiers on the public payroll). The whole situation smells of payola/corruption. We’ve already got the world’s most expensive military. That we feel the need to supplement through the use of contractors who are gouging the taxpayers is atrocious.

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:51:05 +0000

Alternet reports that that 250,000 of our “soldiers” in Iraq and Afghanistan are high-priced private soldiers:

According to new statistics released by the Pentagon, with Barack Obama as commander in chief, there has been a 23% increase in the number of “Private Security Contractors” working for the Department of Defense in Iraq in the second quarter of 2009 and a 29% increase in Afghanistan, which “correlates to the build up of forces” in the country. . . Overall, contractors (armed and unarmed) now make up approximately 50% of the “total force in Centcom AOR [Area of Responsibility].” This means there are a whopping 242,657 contractors working on these two U.S. wars.

Here’s the full story.

By: Brynn Jacobs

Brynn Jacobs — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:57:30 +0000

Jay-

You’ve nailed exactly the philosophy underpinning the expansion of the use of mercenaries. Bush’s emphasis on extreme privatization (excluding losses on Wall St.) was visible in so many areas of his presidency.

Erich-

I read similar stories about military joining up with mercenary forces at thousands of dollars per day. Scahill covers some of that in Blackwater, and he also explains that there was no small part of hostility from active-duty military towards Blackwater and other contractors. One can understand the position of the average guy in the military- they thought they were signing up to nobly serve their country, but Uncle Sam is paying the mercenary next door at least twice as much. The perception exists that therefore, the military is intrinsically worth less than the mercenary, especially when the contractors can afford to buy all the armor and other equipment that there have been problems in acquiring through the military. Remember military families were holding fundraisers to raise money to armor humvees and send body armor and camel-baks to their loved ones in the field? I imagine the debauchery profiled in Afghanistan this week by the mercenary forces there will do nothing to improve that perception.

And you’re exactly right, despite sending additional forces there, there are no signs that a turning point in Afghanistan is near. When even arch-conservative George Will says it’s time to get out, it’s time to go.

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:30:05 +0000

Brynn: Through friends I know of several U.S. military personnel who were serving in Afghanistan, who left the U.S. military only to be rehired at several multiples of their military salaries to do the same jobs. I’m talking about people working as glorified soldiers who are making well into the six figures, which corresponds to the information to which you’ve linked.

So, why pay exorbitant salaries to people outside the military instead of having soldiers continue to do that work? Think military industrial complex. To compound things, we are once again trying to use guns to solve social problems.

When we’re spending tens of billions of dollars on Afghanistan, wouldn’t you expect to hear detailed optimistic progress reports by now? It repeatedly occurs to me that Obama ramping up Afghanistan to look tough to conservatives. It’s time to cut the BS and level with American voters that this is yet another occupying military adventure that has failed.

If we can’t identify MILITARY objectives that resonate at a gut level, we should pull our military (and our incredibly expensive private military) out.

By: Jay Fraz

Jay Fraz — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 01:57:46 +0000

But its the ‘free market’ kind of warfare

Our government hiring Mercenary = Bad.