Private armies march into a legal vacuum

[rainbow4321]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=6bc04f50923f58a7&cat=187cf2a69985adcf


With US forces increasingly overstretched, private companies are providing a record number of armed personnel in conflict zones around the world - part of a wider trend towards using private contractors to perform duties once carried out by official military units.


More than 20,000 armed personnel employed by private contractors are estimated to be operating in Iraq alone, making up the second largest foreign armed force in the country after the US.

These "private soldiers" have been operating in effect in a legal limbo, with precious few rules governing their activities. However, a handful of legal cases in the US are beginning to define the legal boundaries under which these companies can operate.

<snip>


In practice, then, contractors have enjoyed broad immunity from prosecution for acts committed abroad. In the recent Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, for example, US soldiers were quickly court-martialled. By contrast, the civilian contractors from CACI and Titan alleged to have been involved have not yet been subject to any government prosecution


http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=53f07274a5c554ca&cat=187cf2a69985adcf

WASHINGTON URGED TO SAVE MONEY BY RAISING PRIVATE MILITARY 'CONTRACTOR BRIGADE'


The head of a prominent US private military company has proposed an unusual remedy for an overtaxed US military: raising a private force for service in places such as Iraq, Nathan Hodge reports from Washington

Speaking last week at a symposium in Washington, Erik Prince, the CEO and founder of Blackwater USA, proposed raising a "contractor brigade" to supplement regular US military forces. "There's consternation in the DoD about increasing the permanent size of the army," said Mr Prince. "We want to add 30,000 people, and they talked about costs of anywhere from $3.6bn to $4bn <€3.1bn, £2.2bn> to do that. Well, by my math, that comes out to about $135,000 per soldier," he added. "We could do it certainly cheaper."


Such a force, Mr Prince said, would not carry out offensive combat operations but would perform critical military missions such as traffic control, presence patrols and convoy security. Four Blackwater employees were killed by insurgents in Falluja last year, leading to an aborted assault by US Marines on the rebel stronghold. US forces - particularly the army - have been stretched thin by the high pace of worldwide military operations


Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, has acknowledged that the "stress on the force is real" but the Bush administration has been reluctant so far to request a permanent addition of troops, opting instead to use discretionary money and emergency measures to boost the size of the force temporarily. Questions also linger about the ability of Iraqi security forces to take control of their own country. The Pentagon insists there are currently 136,000 trained and equipped Iraqi security forces, but critics say the figure is largely meaningless and only a much smaller number are capable of fighting the insurgency




edited for extra article link...

[saigon68]

1. AAH HA---- A Real MERCENARY army in the making.

A "Private Military Contractor Brigade"--- Wow, am I excited. I won't have to go to Horror movies or watch Freddy Krueger slash some woman to death. I can watch Mercenaries bayonet children and the men of Fallujah barbecue these creepy guns for hire and Hang their Corpses from Bridges, as their relatives wail about how Patriotic this $2,000.00 per day SCUM WAS.</sarcasm>

[Kolesar]

3. I can tell you are a little bit upset

Cynical me thinks that the Bush imperialist cabal is going to try to see how much of the world they can dominate using private forces. It is a pretty elegant scheme. They have a Congress who gives them unlimited funding for military-stuff, so salaries can be sky high. When they die, there are no flag-draped coffins or death count at the end of Jim Lehrer. If one of these mercs really fucks up, the US can leave them twisting in the wind (literally, see above) in their legal limbo.

There has to be supply of men who like the "action" and would retire their Army stripes for a private job paying 10x as much. It would probably be easy to get around the stop-loss indefinite servitude if the bureaucracy knew that you were off to do Rumsfeld's bidding, too.

[struggle4progress]

14. The mercenaries abroad today are the private domestic police tomorrow.

<edit: spelling>

[Chicago Democrat]

9. Yeah, and when they're done, they can be military man on man prostitutes!

Its like an education and an adventure! Gays welcome! And then work in the White House press corp!

[Redstone]

15. People wouldn't listen to me

when those four guys got crispied and hung from the bridges.

I would say, "Hey, they're in a combat zone, driving around wearing flak jackets and waving automatic weapons out the windows of their SUVs. Fuck 'em if they get fragged; they're mercenaries and as such have to take their chances."

But everyone argued with me because all the news media would say was to describe them as "civilian contractors." Like they were fucking cooks or volunteer doctors or something.

Redstone

[Kolesar]

16. ...not when they have a billion dollar propaganda machine....

...blaring the bush message into their brains everytime they turn on the tv or the radio.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Isn't smaller government just a wonderful thing?? There are so

many creative ways to reduce the size of government... I expect this is just one of them.

[RC]

4. Question: How does this private army

save the tax payer money when they are paid many, many times what the military gets for doing the same job?

[teryang]

5. Bremer's law

"Two days before leaving the country last June, Paul Bremer, the US administrator, signed a decree granting foreign contractors immunity from Iraqi law."

Also known as the hated colonial legal feature of "extraterritoriality."

Under international law "private soldiers" are little more than criminals when they kill someone. They are not military personnel subject to protection of international law.

[FloridaPat]

6. I understand we don't need a passport to go to Iraq because we

own it. So any US citizen who is a contrator wouldn't be a foreign contractor?

[cosmicaug]

7. Geneva convention.

Are they "unlawful combatants"?

[brainshrub]

8. Ha! Geneva convention is for wimps!

Full speed ahead! The French can suck my liberty-fries!!!

[saigon68]

13. There will be no rules whatsoever

It will be the rule of Powerful Rich "Men" not Law.

[teryang]

11. I would say that they were except that Bremer and any

Status of Forces Agreement would effectively preclude any effective prosecution as a political matter subject to American control.

[MisterP]

10. we can have the Saxons garrison Alaska, the Franks the Gulf Coast,

the Burgundians the Mexican border, the Visigoths with nominal control of the Carolinas...

[Kimber Scott]

12. Now, the corporations are raising their own armies, the planet is doomed

...unless Frodo can destroy the ring.