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Going Blackwater
May. 11th, 2007 10:06 pmI've just been reading a disturbing bit of Congressional testimony in The Nation, or on their website, at least. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070528/scahill
It discusses a number of items, such as the number of troops whom we are paying to keep in Iraq. We are told about the 150-160 thousand U.S. Military folks there. We are not told about the 48,000 soldiers who work for private 'security' companies who are also over there.
Most of these security employees make more than U.S. soldiers. Some of them make more than out generals or the U.S. Sec'y of Defense. They have better armor and better weapons, often, too. "In January Gen. David Petraeus admitted that on his last tour in Iraq, he himself was protected not by the active-duty military but by private "contract security."" Is it any wonder that folks would leave the Army to work for these people?! Who, after all, is worth more? Better treated?
And of course, if somebody in the military commits a crime, there is a real chance that they will be court martialed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. "There have been some 64 courts martial on murder-related charges in Iraq alone. Compare that to the lack of prosecution of contractors. Despite the fact that tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, have streamed in and out of Iraq since March of 2003, only two private contractors have faced any criminal prosecution. Two. One was a KBR employee alleged to have stabbed a co-worker, the other pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison. In four years, there have been no prosecutions for crimes against Iraqis and not a single known prosecution of an armed contractor.
I really appreciate the next paragraph of the testimony. But it is horrifying.
That either means we have tens of thousands of Boy Scouts working as armed contractors or something is fundamentally wrong with the system. Brig. Gen. Karl Horst of the 3rd Infantry Division became so outraged by contractor unaccountability that he began tracking contractor violence in Baghdad. In just two months he documented twelve cases of contractors shooting at civilians, resulting in six deaths and three injuries. That is just two months and one general.
He neglects to mention - no prosecutions among those cases.
I suppose this is nothing new for this war. There is no oversight. There are no meaningful statistics of how many of these soldiers are dead or wounded, let alone how many they have killed or wounded.
But I cannot stop being outraged just because there is so much that is outrageous. Nor can you. We cannot afford it.
And is it any wonder that so many Iraqis do not trust us? We do not even know what we are doing - in the literal sense, not merely not understanding, which is the norm.
It discusses a number of items, such as the number of troops whom we are paying to keep in Iraq. We are told about the 150-160 thousand U.S. Military folks there. We are not told about the 48,000 soldiers who work for private 'security' companies who are also over there.
Most of these security employees make more than U.S. soldiers. Some of them make more than out generals or the U.S. Sec'y of Defense. They have better armor and better weapons, often, too. "In January Gen. David Petraeus admitted that on his last tour in Iraq, he himself was protected not by the active-duty military but by private "contract security."" Is it any wonder that folks would leave the Army to work for these people?! Who, after all, is worth more? Better treated?
And of course, if somebody in the military commits a crime, there is a real chance that they will be court martialed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. "There have been some 64 courts martial on murder-related charges in Iraq alone. Compare that to the lack of prosecution of contractors. Despite the fact that tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, have streamed in and out of Iraq since March of 2003, only two private contractors have faced any criminal prosecution. Two. One was a KBR employee alleged to have stabbed a co-worker, the other pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison. In four years, there have been no prosecutions for crimes against Iraqis and not a single known prosecution of an armed contractor.
I really appreciate the next paragraph of the testimony. But it is horrifying.
That either means we have tens of thousands of Boy Scouts working as armed contractors or something is fundamentally wrong with the system. Brig. Gen. Karl Horst of the 3rd Infantry Division became so outraged by contractor unaccountability that he began tracking contractor violence in Baghdad. In just two months he documented twelve cases of contractors shooting at civilians, resulting in six deaths and three injuries. That is just two months and one general.
He neglects to mention - no prosecutions among those cases.
I suppose this is nothing new for this war. There is no oversight. There are no meaningful statistics of how many of these soldiers are dead or wounded, let alone how many they have killed or wounded.
But I cannot stop being outraged just because there is so much that is outrageous. Nor can you. We cannot afford it.
And is it any wonder that so many Iraqis do not trust us? We do not even know what we are doing - in the literal sense, not merely not understanding, which is the norm.
