21 August 2010 Un-trustworthy at all pay grades

"OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Making Afghanistan More Dangerous

By JASON THOMAS

Published: August 20, 2010

“UNDER orders from President Hamid Karzai, over the next four months Afghanistan will be phasing out almost all foreign private security companies, a move meant to bring the country’s vast security apparatus under tighter government control.

It’s a laudable goal. But it also means that foreign aid workers, government officials and companies will have to rely instead for security on the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army — arguably two of the most corrupt and incompetent organizations in the country. Without a more effective replacement for foreign security companies, Mr. Karzai’s order could make the situation in Afghanistan significantly worse.

More than 30,000 private armed personnel are employed by more than 50 companies across Afghanistan. They provide security for the allied forces, the Pentagon, the United Nations mission, aid and nongovernmental organizations, embassies and Western news media. Foreign contractors also provide security for helicopter flights by the United States Agency for International Development and other civilian organizations.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/21/opinion/21Thomas.html?th&emc=th


I fail to find any justification for the use of private contractor – read mercenary- manpower to pull security duty for any official arm or agency of the United States Government. I’ve listened to right wing supporters of these private armies maintain that it is not cost effective to use our armed forces for one of the purposes every army is assembled, the protection of leaders, bases of operations, logistics dumps, etc.

The same people will claim that we have too few members of our armed forces to provide troops to fill these duties. They will claim the low rates of pay and retention to be at fault. Then they will justify the use of mercenaries at exorbitant rates of pay rather than pay our troops living wages. As long as the almighty free market can provide private armies to show profits by billing the government for jobs that troops can and should be doing, they will never object to the use of mercenaries.

There is a fairly steady stream of men who have left the employ of the U.S. armed forces in order to sign on with the various private contractors providing security guards, convoy drivers, and other manpower needs at a higher compensation rate than that authorized by Congress for our men and women in uniform. The parent contractor companies such as Xe (formerly Blackwater) operate with little or no military command oversight; they have been implicated in murders, rapes, and other crimes that would result in the death sentence under the UCMJ. But these private armies operate in lands with poorly defined security and public safety services. They often operate outside all civil and military law, their only restraint coming in the form of dropped contracts.

These billion dollar contracts are awarded to cronies of Congress people and high ranking or formerly-high-ranking military officers. They have been demonstrated to be essentially private crusader forces, claiming to be fighting for Christianity while being paid by the U.S. Such action is directly opposed to the 1st Amendment restraints regarding establishment of a state religion.

And each time such a contract is granted, the question of loyalty is raised. Private armies don’t arm and fight under the auspices of the United States government. They are hired out to the highest bidder for a particular purpose. At some time in the not too distant future I foresee the loyalty decision falling toward opponents of the United States. After all, mercenary armies are loyal only to the money they receive. It is conceivable that these former United States soldiers will be lured to a foreign power of foreign agency while under contract to the U.S. It’s happened to us when we were paying mercenaries in South East Asia. The cost is immeasurably high. It needs to be illegal for the U.S. to employ contract forces comprised of former service personnel. If we need more troops, the answer is to pay our own troops livable wages and to recruit the numbers of people we actually need to field a self-contained army. That will be substantially cheaper than hiring uncontrollable and potentially traitorous mercenaries.