Private Military Companies Pursue the Peace Dividend

[LauraK]

As the US ponders over whether to intervene in the civil war in Liberia, an Anglo-American company has offered to deploy a battalion of peacekeepers and arrest President Charles Taylor. Northbridge Services, a private military company (PMC) founded by retired UK and US soldiers, says it could deploy 500 to 2,000 armed men in Liberia in three weeks to halt the fighting, which has raged around the capital, Monrovia. "These personnel can work in accordance with the international community and prevent the (need) for US soldiers to be placed in harm's way." The proposal has not received US support, which would be needed to finance the operation. But it represents an idea being taken seriously by the US and other governments reluctant to commit their own forces.

Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, said in 1998 that he considered using a private company to keep fighters and refugees apart in the Rwanda crisis. But he concluded: "The world may not be ready to privatise peace." It may be readier now. Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution, an expert on PMCs, says there is discussion in the Bush administration, and particularly the Pentagon, about using such companies. It is being driven by concerns about the US army: half of its 33 active divisions are in Iraq, while it is also committed in Afghanistan, South Korea, Kosovo and elsewhere.

More here

[Rose Siding]

1. That seems incredibly dangerous.

A private army, motivated by money, becoming more capable with each new business deal, able to overturn govts? Talk about rogue states and blackmail. Pledge allegiance to the almighty dollar or whatever happens to float your boat.

[NYC]

2. This is a bad idea.

EVERYTHING is being privatized. How will anything ever be done for the national good? (It won't.)

[gbwarming]

3. Connection (NPR) did a show on this last week. Chilling.

One of the guests said it was pure coincidence that it was the 507th maintainance Co (Pfc Lynch outfit) and not contracters that ran into trouble.

http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2003/07/20030731_a_main.asp
In the first Gulf War one in 50 boots on the ground were not members of the U.S. military, but employees of private companies. In the current Iraq conflict, one in 10 are private soldiers. Spot a trend? But privatizing the frontlines is more than a trend, it's a business, a $100 billion-a-year business. And it's going to get bigger.

A confluence of an overstretched military, the Republican urge to privatize, and the Bush administration's willingness to use American power abroad is creating a new market for private soldiers, and not just for administration friends like Halliburton. Frontline and logistical, planners and paramilitaries: the new American mercenaries -- or should we say outsourced military employees?