Death and Killing is being outsourced. Call it international coalition. All the flowery words of liberty and freedom are no longer worth to fight for. Use an international coalition of mercenaries is the vogue.
Yep, America has become the merchant of death and destruction, and the biggest supporter of one big RACIST tribe, the chosen one called zionists. YIKES!!! Let's not remain delusional on the overall scheme of things. OOOPS!, maybe you're one of them, not of the gentiles?
<<Peaceful disposition of that good ole boy, US trained and raised, and favorite status Saddam was never the intent. Destruction and chaotic Iraq was and is the best suited condition for the chosen tribe to take advantage of.>>
Message 19833199
Message 19833146
"Palestinians should not have equal rights with Jews, and why expelling them and killing them is not morally wrong, for they are "barbarians"."
Message 19832544
crystalinks.com
Outsourcing Death
2.18.2004 Travis Daub
We’re paying foreigners to die in Iraq, so we don’t have to.
The U.S. is hunting mercenaries -- so we can put them to work. Some of the most dangerous jobs in Iraq, formerly carried out by American and British service people, have been handed over to soldiers of fortune.
The continuing strain on coalition forces in Iraq, coupled with a desire to shift casualties from the "U.S. service people" column to the "We don't legally have to report some foreign guy getting blown up by a bomb" category, has led to a massive shifting of duties. Mercenaries, some provided by private military companies, some hired independently, are now guarding U.S. bases, manning checkpoints, providing security to travelers and driving unarmored trucks loaded with fuel, food, weapons, and other supplies.
The use of commercial forces to bolster U.S. military action is nothing new. Increasingly over the last ten years, the U.S. has relied on private military companies to provide additional personnel when the Pentagon finds itself short. Hiring help is cheaper than maintaining a standing army -- even if it will cost the defense department an estimated $30 billion this year alone. In practice, however, the ethical ramifications of paying for war sometimes outweigh the economic benefits. Private soldiers aren't held to as many regulations, and their actions rarely end up in Defense department reports open to the prying eyes of FOIA. In Bosnia, for instance, the U.N. discovered that the private military personnel provided by a company called DynCorp, were buying and selling prostitutes on the side. One of their victims was a 12-year-old girl.
The U.S. Department of State provides a short list of security companies operating in Iraq, just a small sample of the hundreds known to be carrying out operations. Most of these organizations, self-defined as "risk management agencies" are based in the U.S. or in the U.K., but some hail from India, Kuwait, and South Africa.
India, which is not officially involved in the "Coalition of the Willing" is now trying to determine whether or not the U.S. violated international law when it attempted to recruit 500 Indian mercenaries in early January. South Africans, also not members of the coalition, have been surprised in recent months to learn that as many as 1,500 of their countrymen are fighting in Iraq. In fact, by some estimates, private soldiers outnumber British troops, making up the second largest fighting force behind the U.S.
As dangerous as private military companies can be, the story here isn't the fact the U.S. is hiring commercial soldiers to fight in Iraq, but WHY the U.S. is hiring commercial soldiers to fight in the place of our volunteer military. Sure, personnel is stretched thin, especially at a time when forces are undergoing the biggest "turnover" (Soldiers at the end of their tours are coming home, new troops are heading out) since World War II. But that has little to do with this equation. So why hire help? The Bush Administration doesn't want dead U.S. soldiers in the press.
Take this into consideration. According to the Washington Post Planeloads of injured soldiers return to the U.S. via Andrews Air Force Base nearly every day. Hundreds of soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and their bodies are all handled by the Pentagon's morgue in at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware-in fact, morticians are said to be in high demand by the National Guard across the country. How often do you hear about these stories? Almost never. The military has blocked press access to these locations because dead soldiers don't help election-year politics. Analysts, like Duke University Political Science professor Peter D. Feaver, predict that the death toll could eventually reach a tipping point. Public sentiments will turn against the war, and the current administration. More dead U.S. service people push us closer to the tipping point. No news about casualties in Iraq is good news.
Still, the Pentagon is beholden to the families of the dead and injured. Casualties must be reported, even if there is debate over the circumstances of a death or injury. So take the soldier out of the equation. Replace him with an Indian willing to risk his life for $20,000 per year. When the Indian dies, no voter in the United States will ever know.
We outsource our call centers, our computer programming, our manufacturing and even our medicine. Our lowest wage jobs are scraped up by immigrants and foreigners, willing to do what Americans are not. Outsourcing, blamed for stealing away millions of U.S. jobs, will be one of the hot-button topics in the Presidential election, yet there is still one bigger hot button topic: Death. Death trumps outsourcing when it comes to losing votes. Otherwise, we wouldn't pay mercenaries to die for our country in our frivolous wars -- we'd be willing to do it ourselves.
knotmag.com |
