Mercenaries in Iraq

[PatrickHenry]

The US military may be the largest army in Iraq. But they may be outnumbered by private "security contactors." Nobody knows the precise numbers.

These are actually mercenary armies which have no unified rules of engagement. Apparently they can kill anyone (except US personnel) with impunity.

Is this a good thing to have US military adventurism supported by taxpayer dollars going to for-profit companies as Uncle Sam seeks to take over the world?

Are Uncle's soldiers just nincompoops for not going for the money when the mercenaries are actually doing the same job for high salaries? Is this the wave of the future?

Here's an informative article with links to some of the primary contractors in Iraq: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6881

[1Samuel8]

Is this the wave of the future?Yes.

A recent article in the Washington Post reports the growth of private law enforcement in the US. It gives examples from the States of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and the District (see The Private Arm of the Law).

At present, there are about 700,000 sworn US law enforcement officers (paid by taxpayers). In contrast, there are 1 million contract security officers and another 1 million security guards who work for the private sector. Private security guards have outnumbered police officers since the 1980s. As the article puts it: "You can see the public police becoming like the public health system. It's basically, the government provides a certain base level. If you want more than that, you pay for it yourself."

Unlike what many economists have said for decades, the enforcement of the law is (most of the time) not a public good. The services that private police agencies provide are private, i.e., delivered to a set of clients in a given area.Private Law Enforcement in the US (http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/2007/01/private_law_enf.html)

However, it is not such a bad idea. However, in complex modern societies self-defense will constitute only a small part in the overall production of security. In today's world we do not produce our own shoes, suits and telephones; we partake in the advantages of the division of labor. This is also true of the production of security. To a large extent, we rely on specialized agents and agencies to protect our life and property. In particular, most people rely on freely financed and competing insurance companies for their protection, and this reliance on insurers will tend to increase and intensify the greater and more valuable the quantity of one's property. Insurance companies in turn will associate and cooperate with police and detective agencies, either directly as a subdivision of the insurance company or indirectly as separate business entities. At the same time, insurance agencies will cooperate constantly with internal and with independent, external arbitrators and arbitration agencies.

How would this competitive system of interconnected insurance, police, and arbitration agencies work?

Competition among insurers, police, and arbitrators for paying clients would bring about a tendency toward a continuous fall in the price of protection (per insured value), thus rendering protection more affordable. In contrast, a monopolistic protector who may tax the protected can charge ever higher prices for his services.The Idea of a Private Law Society (http://www.mises.org/story/2265)

The only thing that makes it bad in Iraq is, as you pointed out, the American tax-payer is funding the security for the crony-corporations. That is not fair.

[PatrickHenry]

Law enforcement in the US and mercenary soldiers in Iraq are really two different subjects, Sam.

[heyjude]

Yes. A private security guard would be held accountable in the US if he killed 8 unarmed people. In Iraq, he probably gets a promotion. And the State Department telling his government, snicker, snicker, to suck it up.

[Labrocca]

Huge page with a TON of information. I read maybe 20% of it skimming it. I didn't find one single item that was out of the ordinary for a global security firm.

These are actually mercenary armies which have no unified rules of engagement. Apparently they can kill anyone (except US personnel) with impunity.

Any proof of this impunity? It's the statement that's the most inflammatory and I think you should back it up.

[ViolaLee]

Labrocca, they don't have to abide by US law, Iraqi law or military law.

That's pretty much impunity.

Gates is sending a team to investigate what law Blackwater actually does have to follow, so maybe they will finally be held accountable. But up to now, they've had free reign to do anything they please.

[1Samuel8]

Law enforcement in the US and mercenary soldiers in Iraq are really two different subjects, Sam.Correct.
However, law enforcement in Iraq and mercenary soldiers in Iraq are the same subjects.

You asked if it is the way of the future and I believe we are gradually moving towards it. In Iraq, they are moving faster.

[Scorpion]

The US military may be the largest army in Iraq. But they may be outnumbered by private "security contactors." Nobody knows the precise numbers.

These are actually mercenary armies which have no unified rules of engagement. Apparently they can kill anyone (except US personnel) with impunity.

Is this a good thing to have US military adventurism supported by taxpayer dollars going to for-profit companies as Uncle Sam seeks to take over the world?

Are Uncle's soldiers just nincompoops for not going for the money when the mercenaries are actually doing the same job for high salaries? Is this the wave of the future?

Here's an informative article with links to some of the primary contractors in Iraq: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6881
[hr]
The US military may be the largest army in Iraq. But they may be outnumbered by private "security contactors." Nobody knows the precise numbers.

These are actually mercenary armies which have no unified rules of engagement. Apparently they can kill anyone (except US personnel) with impunity.

Is this a good thing to have US military adventurism supported by taxpayer dollars going to for-profit companies as Uncle Sam seeks to take over the world?

Are Uncle's soldiers just nincompoops for not going for the money when the mercenaries are actually doing the same job for high salaries? Is this the wave of the future?

Here's an informative article with links to some of the primary contractors in Iraq: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6881


The highly partisan link which you provided doesn't support any of the claims which you stated in your post. How about some reliable, factual information from a credible source.

[PatrickHenry]

Any proof of this impunity? It's the statement that's the most inflammatory and I think you should back it up.
My apology, Labrocca. It has been a hot news topic lately, and I assumed the members would be aware.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7002974.stm
Armed guards contracted by US and other government agencies were granted immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law under an agreement dating from 2003.

It was extended just days before the Coalition Provisional Authority - the now-defunct interim body set up by the US-led coalition in the wake of the fall of Saddam Hussein - was disbanded in June 2004.

For Yahia Said, an academic of Iraqi heritage based at the UK's London School of Economics, the questionable legal status of such private soldiers - neither military or civilian - lies at the heart of the hostility felt towards them by ordinary Iraqis.

"They are contractors with legal immunity, beyond the reach of Iraqi legislation, completely above the law," Mr Said, Director of the Middle East Revenue programme at the LSE, told the BBC news website.

As sub-contractors, rather than direct government employees, they sit uncomfortably between international law, US regulations and Iraqi legislation, although technically they are subject to the law of their "sending state".

Congress has pressed the Pentagon to draw up regulations that would allow private contractors to be prosecuted under either US legislation or US military law, but little progress has yet been made.

With no clear formal safeguards, the private companies are self-regulating, which means that they set their own limits, says Mr Said.

"Beyond this legal vacuum everything depends on the firms' own personal values which you can't always count on. They should somehow be made accountable, otherwise it is up to them not to violate the law, to respect human rights." [hr]
The highly partisan link which you provided doesn't support any of the claims which you stated in your post. How about some reliable, factual information from a credible source.
Are you a fan of hired killers, Scorpion?

Hmm...maybe you are a soldier of fortune yourself?

[Labrocca]

I see they are immune from Iraq law..same goes for our soldiers if I am not mistaken. It would seem appropriate imho. Do you have an understanding of Iraq law?

Apparently they can kill anyone (except US personnel) with impunity.

This statement still hasn't been backed up with proof.

Labrocca, they don't have to abide by US law, Iraqi law or military law.

There is still international law so that's not impunity. And do you have proof they don't have to abide by US law? I have learned not to trust what people say on this site as fact.

[PatrickHenry]

Well, let's see, Labrocca.

US military have been prosecuted for crimes against Iraqi civilians whose land they occupy.

Can you point to any prosecutions against "contractors?"

Or maybe you think that scores of thousands of foreigners with guns in Iraq have never hurt anyone who didn't have it coming?

Here's an opinion I can agree with.
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/checkpointbaghdad/archive/2007/09/17/are-contractors-above-the-law.aspx
the dispute isn't really about whether the gunners for Blackwater USA were at fault for the deaths that occurred when a convoy of SUVs reportedly returned fire from unidentified gunmen in Nusoor Square. First accounts are often wrong and the full story may never be told. The question is whether anything would happen to the guards even if they did kill innocent people. Through multiple decrees by past American administrators in Iraq, later imposed on the Iraqi government, contractors are largely immune from prosecution for the force they use here against Iraqis. There are some 20,000 to 30,000 private security contractors here now, presumably about the same as their presence over the past three years, and none has been prosecuted for the use of excessive force against local residents.

Iraqis know this and point it out constantly with stories of deaths involving contractors. A notorious one in the Green Zone was the allegedly unprovoked killing of a guard for an Iraqi vice president by a Blackwater employee on Christmas Eve. (U.S. officials acknowledged a killing occurred and promised to investigate.) Iraqi politicians cry out for changes in the Iraqi law to end what they see as the impunity of the contractors and note the contradiction it poses amid American efforts to promote the rule of law by the Iraqi government. U.S. soldiers who commit crimes here can be punished and have been jailed under military codes, but those don't apply to contractors. They often just get a flight out of the country when they get in trouble.

Even Monday, a day after the incident, it seemed the U.S. Embassy did not understand the depth of the local resentment about the issue. Embassy officials held the routine Monday conference call for reporters and got hammered with questions about the Blackwater case. They gave few answers, repeating that the embassy would investigate and that it was discussing Blackwater's future with Iraqi officials. But there was little else: no answer on Blackwater's legal standing in Iraq, on whether the company has a license (which the Iraqi government said it was revoking), or how the company could be held accountable. (While security companies in Iraq need to register with the Iraqi government if they work for commercial firms, there apparently is not the same requirement for companies working for the U.S. government or military.)

[heyjude]

I suppose that there are some people who think any American in Iraq has a right to kill anyone they want to, for any reason. The government's refusal to investigate these shooting is just indictative of the attitude we have toward the Iraqi people in general. They are held in contempt.