What if Our Mercenaries Turn on Us?
June 5th, 2007If?
Via: Philadelphia Enquirer:
Armed units from the private security firm Blackwater USA opened fire in Baghdad streets twice in two days last week. It triggered a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, a reminder that the war in Iraq may be remembered mostly in our history books for empowering and building America’s first modern mercenary army.
There are an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 armed security contractors working in Iraq, although there are no official figures and some estimates run much higher. Security contractors are not counted as part of the coalition forces. When the number of private mercenary fighters is added to other civilian military “contractors” who carry out logistical support activities such as food preparation, the number rises to about 126,000.
“We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense,” said House defense appropriations subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D., Pa.). “How in the hell do you justify that?”
The privatization of war hands an incentive to American corporations, many with tremendous political clout, to keep us mired down in Iraq. But even more disturbing is the steady rise of this modern Praetorian Guard. The Praetorian Guard in ancient Rome was a paramilitary force that defied legal constraints, made violence part of the political discourse, and eventually plunged the Roman Republic into tyranny and despotism. Despotic movements need paramilitary forces that operate outside the law, forces that sow fear among potential opponents, and are capable of physically silencing those branded by their leaders as traitors. And in the wrong hands, a Blackwater could well become that force.
American taxpayers have so far handed a staggering $4 billion to “armed security” companies in Iraq such as Blackwater, according to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.). Tens of billions more have been paid to companies that provide logistical support. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) of the House Intelligence Committee estimates that 40 cents of every dollar spent on the occupation has gone to war contractors. It is unlikely that any of these corporations will push for an early withdrawal. The profits are too lucrative.
Mercenary forces like Blackwater operate beyond civilian and military law. They are covered by a 2004 edict passed by American occupation authorities in Iraq that immunizes all civilian contractors in Iraq from prosecution.
Blackwater, barely a decade old, has migrated from Iraq to set up operations in the United States and nine other countries. It trains Afghan security forces and has established a base a few miles from the Iranian border. The huge contracts from the war – including $750 million from the State Department since 2004 – have allowed Blackwater to amass a fleet of more than 20 aircraft, including helicopter gunships. Jeremy Scahill, the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, points out that Blackwater has also constructed “the world’s largest private military facility – a 7,000-acre compound near the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina.” Blackwater also recently opened a facility in Illinois (“Blackwater North”) and, despite local opposition, is moving ahead with plans to build another huge training base near San Diego. The company recently announced it was creating a private intelligence branch called “Total Intelligence.”
Erik Prince, who founded and runs Blackwater, is a man who appears to have little time for the niceties of democracy. He has close ties with the radical Christian Right and the Bush White House. He champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. His employees, in an act as cynical as it is dishonest, take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. But what he and his allies have built is a mercenary army, paid for with government money, which operates outside the law and without constitutional constraint.
Mercenary units are a vital instrument in the hands of despotic movements. Communist and fascist movements during the last century each built rogue paramilitary forces. And the appearance of Blackwater fighters, heavily armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, may be a grim taste of the future. In New Orleans Blackwater charged the government $240,000 a day.
“It cannot happen here’ is always wrong,” the philosopher Karl Popper wrote. “A dictatorship can happen anywhere.”
Related: The Sack of Washington
A poor kid making what a GI makes, like I used to many years ago, might very well “question” his orders, but some dude pulling down the bucks like these mercenaries do would more than likely say, “Damn!… Who do I shoot first?!” Your life won’t, and doesn’t, mean a damn thing to that kind of a soul-less robot.
I appreciate the gist of The Enquirers article that a society can become prisoner of its mercenaries, but their Roman History knowledge is miserable.
The Praetorian Guard were formed after the fall of the Republic, they did not cause the fall of the Republic. Sure enough with the death of Caligula and the subsequent rise of Claudius they did make and break emperors. Also, the notion that they were a “paramilitary” force is misleading, they were the most elite of the army. A better simile of them would be if the Secret Service and Delta Force were one and the same with the responsibly of protecting the beloved leader, and keeping Washington under control from rival militias.
As for the fall of the Republic, it fell because the elites started quarreling with each other and they couldn’t find a way to divvy up the spoils with each other. Everyone wanted everything and nothing else would do. The Republic started to fall with the revolt of the Gracchus brothers (121 BC), and it was finally laid to rest in 31 BC when Octavian defeated Anthony and Cleopatra. There were of course many twists and turns along the way, but this is in essence what happened.
Again, I agree with the gist of the article, but I wish people who don’t know Roman History would refrain from using it to incorrectly support their position, because it is no better than Oliver North chattering on that Caligula caused the decline of the empire. In the case of the Enquirer I suspect their mistakes are unintentional, whereas Norths mistake was quite intentional with the purpose of demonising the Clinton’s.
I supposed something like that on my site http://somethinghappeninghere.blogspot.com regarding Blackwater. My own position is that, as long as Americans are allowed to own guns (or, as long as Americans DO own guns…I am sure the first thing Hillary will do when she becomes Prez is try to take them away from us…I daresay she won’t succeed but will make it seems like she has), all the mercenaries of the power elites will do is scare the crap out of the sheeple who don’t. I DO see some kind of armed struggle coming within the next 20 years. And I DO see Blackwater trying to protect the DARK SIDE…some (perhaps many) will come over to our’s.
The Camouflage of Democracy
The ‘Germany Playbook’ has been set into motion to decapitate the USA from within just as Germany was in WWII. Blackwater will provide SS services with a smile and nice bottom line profits to boot.
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“It is possible that the next world war also will be staged, this time to undermine the United States. We can already see the outlines of this war in the “conflict” being generated between fellow Illuminists George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin.”
http://www.savethemales.ca/
William Stevenson provides a suitable conclusion: “Bormann represented secret power; and in our disheveled human condition, we suspect that the trappings of democracy are more of a dangerous camouflage…that real power begins where secrecy begins. Martin Bormann … possessed that secret power…to such a degree that he was able to escape the gallows.” (9).
The lesson of this story is that the “news” upholds the “camouflage of democracy.” Don’t pay too much attention or invest your best energies. History is a play. The Illuminati control all the politicians who stand a chance.They control the mass media.
If these neocons would actually read what Machiavelli wrote instead of “Straussian reading” their own interpretations into it, they’d have never started fucking around with this mercenary stuff.