Blackwater giving the private security business a bad name
Unlike many on the left, I don’t see private security firms in Iraq as a great boogie-man. Nearly universally vilified by some, most of the guys I met while I was in Iraq seemed like decent people. Yeah, there were some who acted pretty scary, but we had some of those types in the Army too.
I can’t blame a guy for taking his military training and turning it into a paycheck on the outside. I’ve got a buddy who just retired from the Army as a Sergeant Major, and is now working for EODT in Baghdad managing Ugandan security guards. Is he a loose cannon and a racist? Not hardly. He’s one of the most stable men I know. While we were on our tour together, he always treated the Iraqis we employed with respect and like fellow human beings. I never saw him say or do anything disrespectful to them.
Is my Sergeant Major friend a mercenary? I don’t know that he’d characterize himself as one. I believe he sees himself providing a security service. He’s not participating in raids or other offensive actions, only providing protection to the inhabitants of the base he’s on. By definition, a mercenary is someone who is paid by a foreign government to fight as a soldier. That, he is not.
Some of the things I hear out of Blackwater, however, give me pause - like patrolling the streets of New Orleans during Katrina. Today, another one of those things has cropped up.
A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested area.
Now, both of these incidents could have been completely legitimate uses of force. Frankly, I don’t know. I don’t mind the use of private security in a defensive mode - working guard posts, providing VIP security, etc. When those private security firms take offensive action - that’s where I’ve got a problem, and that’s where I finally agree that they are acting more as mercenaries rather than security forces - despite the fact that they are working for the U.S. government.
Normally, this probably wouldn’t have made the papers, but it’s Blackwater, and they have a certain reputation. Plus, the incidents angered enough Iraqis that the repercussions have begun.
Matthew Degn, a senior American civilian adviser to the Interior Ministry’s intelligence directorate, described the ministry as “a powder keg” after the Iraqi driver was shot Thursday, with anger at Blackwater spilling over to other Americans working in the building.
Degn said he was concerned the incident “could undermine a lot of the cordial relationships that have been built up over the past four years. There’s a lot of angry people up here right now.”
Again, I don’t know if these were legal uses of force or not. The mere fact that these companies operate in a gray area of the law is what continues to undermine their legitimacy. If the U.S. government is going to continue to use the contractors in the future, we need to tighten up the reins on how they are used - and what they are held responsible for.
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Well considering what a piss poor job Mayor Nagin was doing in New Orleans and what Govenor Blanco was doing for the state during the Katrina fiasco, a fiasco that was the making of liberal Democrats over a period of decades having Blackwater around wasn’t a bad idea…
BTW the Washing comPost played a nice little part in the news disinformation of what was happening in New Orleans…
My question is, “why would anyone take what the Washinton Post has to say at face value?”
An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State
by Robert Tracinski (www.intellectualactivist.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1026)
Media Lied, People Died (www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=101405D)
Regarding Blackwater shooting that Iraqi driver, well cry me a river…
Personally I think Bush’s ROE for Iraq should’ve been more like this: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/images/iraq-crater.jpg
“Why?” you may ask and I would reply consider the following:
Saddam, Al Qaeda Did Collaborate, Documents Show
By ELI LAKE
Staff Reporter of the Sun
March 24, 2006
(www.nysun.com/article/29746)
Where the WMDs Went
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 16, 2005
(frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=20154)
Jack Kelly: A Syrian sidestep?
About those Iraqi WMDs: More signs are pointing to a neighborly transfer
Sunday, February 05, 2006
(www.post-gazette.com/pg/06036/649858.stm)