Privatizing war

Josh Marshall at TPM 09/25/07 makes a key point about mercenary services and other privatization of military functions. He's discussing Condi-Condi's refusal to testify before Congress on the State Department's contract with the Blackwater mercenary firm.

I can't imagine that this argument flies far. But it gets us into the deeper issue of what's up and what's wrong with the explosion of use of private contracting by the Bush administration in Iraq. You'll remember that one of the many arguments the Bush administration put forward when they were trying to evade court scrutiny of the Guantanamo prison camp was to argue that it was not in the United States and thus wasn't subject to US laws or judicial scrutiny. In addition to making a ton of money for private firms, a lot of what the growth of the private contracting sector in US foreign policy is to create islands of unaccountability, areas of work by private contractors who don't have to follow the various regulations US military and civilian personnel have to follow and who aren't answerable to our democratic institutions like actual soldiers and government employees are. The case here with Blackwater, however, as evidenced by State's clampdown, seems to be an extreme example of that pattern. What is it they don't want Blackwater to say? (my emphasis)

The CIA has used private contractors for various functions for a long time. But the use of private contractors for direct military combat is a big expansion of that practice, and it carries just the danger Marshall mentions. It gives Dick Cheney a huge additional ability to make mischief (and worse) outside of the law.

More generally, I believe it's really time to rethink the government's basic approach to firms with which the Pentagon does major business. Those companies are effectively performing governmental functions and they should be regarded as such. In the case of Blackwater, it's been reported for years that their cowboy methods have helped fuel Iraqi hatred toward Americans. Understandably so. For all intents and purposes, they are acting as part of the US military there. They get paid several times what American soldiers get paid. And they are more free to take actions which undermine the mission and put American soldiers lives at risk. It's just not right.

Tags: blackwater, iraq war, mercenaries