Blackwater Founder Wants to Provide “Turn Key” Mercenary AF for Afghanistan
thedrive.com
thedrive.com
How embarrassing :( I wonder how many Americans are un/aware of this.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80...
The whole thing is obfuscated in a web of foreign governments, three-letter agencies, contractors and tech giants, endless acronyms and euphemisms (e.g. 'disposition matrix', 'extraordinary rendition', 'enhanced interrogation techniques', 'collateral damage'), and as others in this thread have said, a lot of it is about creating distance from culpability. Barack Obama was a remarkably adept and slick PR guy, possessing the perfect confluence of personal attributes to make Americans not care about whatever their government was doing. But now Trump is letting the cat out of the bag! It's a dangerous course of events but maybe has more opportunity for creating lasting change if people unite against him.
Can I suggest this news network?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_News
They have a Youtube channel with all their videos up. The name pre-dates the "real" vs. "fake news" thing. It's a rare example of American journalists speaking candidly about the US war & arms industry. They have other content too, along the lines of Democracy Now but with less focus on social justice issues, but I know that the CEO / editor Paul Jay believes that US war profiteering is presently the main existential threat to humankind:
The decision of the International Court of Justice in June 1986 condemning the United States for the “unlawful use of force” and illegal economic warfare was dismissed as an irrelevant pronouncement by a “hostile forum” (New York Times). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States
War profiteering is a rent-seeking activity. It's public fraud. And its adherents are aristocratic. They believe they're better than others, murder is completely ethical and available for a price, which is its only inhibitor. Thing is, when this class get out of control, their fellow little primates, who happen to be the vast majority, can go ape shit and build things like guillotines. Yes, there were so many victims that needed execution the streets ran with blood for days. They'd obviously let them accumulate unchecked for far too long. Oh well.
There are significant implications to what you suggest beyond just the mere possibility of the potential benefit you claim.
I think it is a very disconcerting notion that we would allow a private entity to possess the equipment and infrastructure to wage war.
How do we ensure they don't go rogue?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DynCorp#Controversies
Edit: A good documentary to check out about military contractors in Iraq is Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers
Historically, that's hardly unusual.
> How do we ensure they don't go rogue?
How do we ensure anyone and anything doesn't go rogue? What does "going rogue" even mean in this context? Are you imagining that they might behave worse than officially state backed forces? How is that even possible, given how horrible state backed forces routinely behave?
I'm not trying to be flippant, but I just don't get the distinction you're trying to make. This doesn't seem especially new, or different, or dangerous.
And the US-backed groups variously called paramilitaries, anti-communist insurgents, moderate rebels, etc. are essentially foreign-run PMCs by another name.
Why? Do you feel you have any real say in what our public entity does with its equipment and infrastructure to wage war? Those capabilities are already in the hands of the highest bidder.
>How do we ensure they don't go rogue?
The public entity is already rogue.
We have 30x the number of bases than the rest of the nations of the world combined!
Our military budget is larger than the next 19 countries, many of whom are allies. Is this also a result of the US population's wishes and hitting the target goals? Perhaps if your paycheck had a list of where your taxes are going, like they do in France, you'd see just how much discretionary spending goes towards the military, and the taxpayers would send a message to Congress that enough is enough.
And the public army faces no market competition, so the Pentagon can't account for $8.7 trillion with a T dollars - yet our politicians always say that our army is always running out of funds and we need to increase our funding to support the national defense.
Politicians always say "we just didn't have enough money, give us more". However the definition of (institutional) insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a better result.
I am not talking about replacing the military with the free market. I am talking about shrinking it. Yes using democratic means. But good luck with that!
More people should read Smedley Butler.
In the Israel-Palestine situation he criticizes Democratic Israel far more than, say the Kingdom of Jordan. He criticizes Likud more than the PLO, and writes about the USA's imperialism in supporting a democratic state in the Middle East, while ignoring that during the 50s and 60s the KGB trained the PLO as part of explicit support to undermine Western-backed countries.
I correspond with Chomsky from time to time, and I think he is set in his ways. But I hardly think he would say our democracy has a good track record. You're thinking of Michio Kaku :)
But that doesn't address what we're discussing, it distracts from it.
Historically the concept of private fighting forces is not in any way radical.
I repeat, then, that of all kinds of troops, auxiliaries are the most dangerous; for the prince or republic that calls them to their assistance has no control or authority whatever over them, as that remains entirely with him who sends them. ... A prince or republic, then, should adopt any other course rather than bring auxiliaries into their state for its defence, especially when their reliance is wholly upon them; for any treaty or convention with the enemy, however hard the conditions, will be less hard to bear than the danger from auxiliaries. ... And in truth no more favourable opportunity could be presented to an ambitious prince or republic for seizing a city or province, than to be asked to send troops there to assist in its defence. And therefore any one whose ambition so far misleads him as to call in strangers to aid in his defence, or in an attack upon others, seeks to acquire that which he will not be able to hold, and which after acquiring will be easily taken from him.
Truly depraved criminal actions by personnel in the employ of his merc company.
what if we take this to extreme, and have everyone be capable of waging war? That is, take the right to bear arms to the extreme where you cannot go to war with anyone, because it would be Mutually Assured Destruction.
I don't think the private, for-profit operation of a unit or facility of a military is inherently flawed in any distinct way. The onus is on the government to draft and enforce the contracts appropriately, and make sure they retain control over the force.
Ultimately, war is in the hands of the armed; not governments, not corporations. The governments and corporations which organize armed men are responsible for setting up the correct incentive structures to achieve the goals, with as few mistakes as possible.
At least with nation states there's some feeble international law.
Conversely, how well is international law working for the residents of eastern Ukraine?
Although I wish it were otherwise, when I look around the world, I see a system governed by force, not laws. Private military forces fit tidily into this system.
Now obviously force in the moment is what decides everything but the decisions that may lead to that moment or away from it are at least possible with the international framework of relations.
if something 'goes wrong' who gets the blame?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/murder-co...