Don't blur the line between mercenaries,
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| Sat, 04-10-2004 - 1:31pm |
Op-ed: Don't blur the line between mercenaries, U.S. military.
http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Apr/04102004/commenta/commenta.asp
Many Americans seem to be passing through the Iraq War in a state of ambivalence.
In polls, they say they're glad that Saddam Hussein is gone, but they feel misled about the reasons for the invasion. They support the troops, but they have serious misgivings about administration policy. They're confident that the world is a safer place without Saddam, but they still expect more terrorist attacks here at home.
It wouldn't surprise me if what happened last week in Fallujah only winds up intensifying the ambivalence. Americans are right to feel outraged when we see televised images of four of our countrymen savagely murdered -- bodies mutilated, burned, dragged through the streets and hanged from bridges like morbid trophies. We are right to want to dig in our heels and declare our determination not to be frightened off by thugs and ghouls.
The U.S. military did the right thing -- indeed, the only thing it could do -- when it sent more than 1,000 Marines to seal off the city in what it labeled Operation Vigilant Re- solve.
But here's what I've been struggling with: The Americans who died on that dreadful day in Fallujah weren't U.S. soldiers. They were soldiers for hire.
It had to happen. In their daily lives, Americans now rely more than ever on private schools, private hospitals, private courier companies, and private security guards and police forces. Why not private armies?
Welcome to the world of the modern-day mercenary.
The idea of individuals who are willing to go to war (or at least to step into a war zone) for profit isn't new. Nor is it new in our country -- which, in fact, became a country despite the best efforts of the British, who relied heavily on mercenaries in trying to squelch the colonial uprising.
What is new, however, is the degree to which the American government relies on private military companies to stand in for U.S. troops in global hot spots. Barry Yeoman, a writer who has studied the industry, attributes much of this new reliance to the individual who occupies the White House. In a New York Times op-ed article, Yeoman writes that "things started booming" thanks to President Bush, who has shown a fondness for farming out what are normally government functions to private companies.
Few spots on the globe are hotter than Iraq, which is, the experts say, now home to between 10,000 and 15,000 private military servicemen associated with two dozen companies from all over the world.
It is one of the largest of those companies, Blackwater USA, that now finds itself grieving the loss of four of its employees. The Blackwater employees were escorting food delivery convoys when they were attacked. Other companies also provide security for everything from diplomats to oil companies to journalists.
After the incident in Fallujah, the company -- which was founded in 1998 by former Navy Seals -- issued a statement from its 5,200-acre headquarters compound in North Carolina. It said that the attack illustrated the "extraordinary conditions under which voluntarily work to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people.''
For its volunteer work, Blackwater USA makes a bundle. In 2002, it snagged a five-year, $35.7 million contract to train Navy personnel. It pays its operatives six-figure salaries -- quite a leap from what the former Green Berets, Army Rangers, and Navy Seals earned on active duty. It's no wonder that finding recruits doesn't seem to be a problem for the private military industry, which reportedly brings in, annually, about $100 billion worldwide.
I admit that when I first saw the images from Fallujah, I wanted the administration to send a message that we wouldn't be scared off from what is, I am still convinced, a just war. Now that I know more about what these four men were doing in Iraq in the first place and at what price, I feel manipulated. Here we were originally told that these were civilians killed while doing humanitarian work. Someone left out the part about how these civilians were also hired guns.
The administration had the right response, but we shouldn't blur the line between these modern-day mercenaries and U.S. military personnel. The U.S. military goes into harm's way to serve its country and to represent its people. The private soldiers for hire go into harm's way to cash in on their unique skills and turn a profit.
One group takes with it the prayers of a grateful nation. The other takes its chances.


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In answer I posted part of that article which I found at- http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/rnavarrette/stories/040704dnedicybernavarrette.42057.htm
Yesterday I caught the end of an interview with a former mercenary He called himself a commando. He talked about recruiting commandos and the competition to create the “largest private army” in the world. The thoughts of a "largest private army" made me very uneasy. Mercenaries owe their loyalty to money not country. They could switch sides tomorrow if they get a better offer or contract. Hasn’t the argument been put forth that the use of mercenaries contributed to the fall of Rome?
I'd still like to know why the media turns mercenaries into civilian contractors. PC? Whitewash? Is the idea that mercenaries are hired in many instances because they are not bound by the Geneva Convention, as is the American military, so repugnant that they gloss over the word mercenaries with contractors? Yet haven't there been some efforts toward obtaining some of the rights for mercenaries who are taken prisoner that the U.S military has under the Geneva Convention.
I have noticed that they have gone from civilian contractors to security contractors over the past few days. Maybe some day they'll call'em what they are.--Mercenaries.
Those contractors aren't engaged in offensive combat operations as are our regular military forces (and as true mercenary's would be), but as defensive units protecting convoys and other resources. Aside from their location they're no different (aside from being better trained and more heavily armed) than domestic security forces at hospitals, federal facilities, etc.
To my mind too much is being made of them, too many people throwing the term "mercenaries" around as if they were being used to conduct offensive military operations against the Iraqi insurgents, something which isn't happening. It might just be a matter of semantics, but it's happening nonetheless.
~mark~
Have you looked up the word "contractors" in a dictionary? I've have & so far
Is more and more privatization of the military inevitable? I find the idea of "private armies" or mercenaries distasteful. More than that, I fail to see how this can be cost effective when mercenaries are paid so much more than regular military. I thought the purpose of streamlining the military was supposed to result in lowering costs and making it more efficient. It bothers me that we are becoming more and more dependent on mercenaries. It bothers me that we, the taxpayers, spend a lot of money training military like Special Forces only to lose them to these private armies.
Like your name, Marc. French, isn't it? I have a friend whose name is Marc. I accidentally spelled it Mark once. He almost handed me my head on a platter. LOL Not really, but I got such a chilling look that the air turned frosty.
I've worked that before, during the Gulf War, responsible for physical security at a couple of Army airfields. I wasn't DoD per se, but the company I worked for was under contract with the DoD to handle security for it. And that's what we're discussing here, a company and it's employees hired by the DoD to provide security. I don't consider myself as being a "mercenary" on the basis of my being hired to provide security and authorized to carry arms and use lethal force to defend my area of responsibility. Anyway, that's my take on it.
As for my name, no, it's just "Mark", with a K, nothing exotic or Eurospeak about it I'm afraid. About the only relationship to the French language it has was me taking French one year in HS .
~mark~
Me, too. You can dress them up as "contractors", but if you hire them to fill what would be normally be considered military duties they are mercenaries. You can call a spade a shovel, but that doesn't make it one.
I am so so sorry I got your name wrong. People are always trying to shorten my name or misspell it. There are at least 5 different ways to spell it in English alone and who knows how many derivatives in other languages. Drives me crazy, so I try to get other peoples' names right. Although it's hard to get it right when you meet someone with 5 or 6 syllables in their surname and none of them seem contain any vowels.
I never realized "contractors" wasn't in the dictionary. It is a word common to many trades, it means people (firms) who are under contract to perform a specific job as opposed to employing the personnel directly. For example, a county can contract a speciality firm to run the waste management or water systems. It is cheaper to contract than to train and employee personal. Contractors are commonly used in engineering and construction. I think the term is more appropriate than mercenaries. Now in my mind, mercenaries are men who are hired to fight, and the word is somewhat unsavory. I think it is more appropriate to use word contractors. That's what the DOD does it contracts out all services, including food preparation, that are not directly related to fighting. Contractors is a very broad category including such companies as Halliburton.
"Contractor" is there, without the "S", unlike the plural use of an S in other words.
I've seen it used as "contractor's" with the apostrophe.
Person that signed a contract or someone that is contracted for some work.
So then even companies like, Well Fargo, Burns, Wackinghut and dozens and dozens of other private security companies in the USA who hire people who have a "G" and "F" licenses are all Mercenaries?
I know they do the same thing, hired to protect something, carry guns and are only working for $, not for a government.
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