Ian Traynor: (Guardian Utd): The privatisation of war

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Wednesday December 10

The privatisation of war
· $30bn goes to private military
· Fears over 'hired guns' policy
· British firms get big slice of contracts
· Deals in Baghdad, Kabul and Balkans
By Ian Traynor

Private corporations have penetrated western warfare so deeply that they are now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq after the Pentagon, a Guardian investigation has established.
While the official coalition figures list the British as the second largest contingent with around 9,900 troops, they are narrowly outnumbered by the 10,000 private military contractors now on the ground.
The investigation has also discovered that the proportion of contracted security personnel in the firing line is 10 times greater than during the first Gulf war. In 1991, for every private contractor, there were about 100 servicemen and women; now there are 10.
The private sector is so firmly embedded in combat, occupation and peacekeeping duties that the phenomenon may have reached the point of no return: the US military would struggle to wage war without it.

Read more.

[Vitruvius]

1. Mercenary gunsels for a mercenary war for oil.

n/t

[JailBush]

2. Well, there are the seeds of our destruction.

I can envision thirteen dozen ways we could lose the next major war.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

3. Mercenaries

have always been around. It is the policy that is the problem, not the execution of the policy.

[cosmicdot]

4. had they been corporatized in a big business sort of way??

so, who else can subcontract above our sovereignty - General Electric? Bill Gates?

so many political decisions occur outside our State Dept., Laws of our Land and our national common good, etc., now as is while corporations act like resources of other nations, including our own, are their own

corporate feudalism shaping up


http://www.guardian.co.uk/enron/story/0,11337,1103600,00.html

"the phenomenon may have reached the point of no return"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1103566,00.html

of course, our corporate congress and the Donald Rumsfelds of our time only concern themselves with their portfolios, kickbacks and corporate donations ...

I see this as a dangerous trend.