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Private Military Contractors - Data Dump - Ed Jewett - 15-05-2011
Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater's Founder
By MARK MAZZETTI and EMILY B. HAGER
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.
The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.
Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.
The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest or were challenged by pro-democracy demonstrations in its crowded labor camps or democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.
The U.A.E.'s rulers, viewing their own military as inadequate, also hope that the troops could blunt the regional aggression of Iran, the country's biggest foe, the former employees said. The training camp, located on a sprawling Emirati base called Zayed Military City, is hidden behind concrete walls laced with barbed wire. Photographs show rows of identical yellow temporary buildings, used for barracks and mess halls, and a motor pool, which houses Humvees and fuel trucks. The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, are trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, according to the former employees and American officials.
In outsourcing critical parts of their defense to mercenaries the soldiers of choice for medieval kings, Italian Renaissance dukes and African dictators the Emiratis have begun a new era in the boom in wartime contracting that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And by relying on a force largely created by Americans, they have introduced a volatile element in an already combustible region where the United States is widely viewed with suspicion.
The United Arab Emirates an autocracy with the sheen of a progressive, modern state are closely allied with the United States, and American officials indicated that the battalion program had some support in Washington.
"The gulf countries, and the U.A.E. in particular, don't have a lot of military experience. It would make sense if they looked outside their borders for help," said one Obama administration official who knew of the operation. "They might want to show that they are not to be messed with."
Still, it is not clear whether the project has the United States' official blessing. Legal experts and government officials said some of those involved with the battalion might be breaking federal laws that prohibit American citizens from training foreign troops if they did not secure a license from the State Department.
Mark C. Toner, a spokesman for the department, would not confirm whether Mr. Prince's company had obtained such a license, but he said the department was investigating to see if the training effort was in violation of American laws. Mr. Toner pointed out that Blackwater (which renamed itself Xe Services ) paid $42 million in fines last year for training foreign troops in Jordan and other countries over the years.
The U.A.E.'s ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, declined to comment for this article. A spokesman for Mr. Prince also did not comment.
For Mr. Prince, the foreign battalion is a bold attempt at reinvention. He is hoping to build an empire in the desert, far from the trial lawyers, Congressional investigators and Justice Department officials he is convinced worked in league to portray Blackwater as reckless. He sold the company last year, but in April, a federal appeals court reopened the case against four Blackwater guards accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007.
To help fulfill his ambitions, Mr. Prince's new company, Reflex Responses, obtained another multimillion-dollar contract to protect a string of planned nuclear power plants and to provide cybersecurity. He hopes to earn billions more, the former employees said, by assembling additional battalions of Latin American troops for the Emiratis and opening a giant complex where his company can train troops for other governments.
Knowing that his ventures are magnets for controversy, Mr. Prince has masked his involvement with the mercenary battalion. His name is not included on contracts and most other corporate documents, and company insiders have at times tried to hide his identity by referring to him by the code name "Kingfish." But three former employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements, and two people involved in security contracting described Mr. Prince's central role.
The former employees said that in recruiting the Colombians and others from halfway around the world, Mr. Prince's subordinates were following his strict rule: hire no Muslims.
Muslim soldiers, Mr. Prince warned, could not be counted on to kill fellow Muslims.
A Lucrative Deal
Last spring, as waiters in the lobby of the Park Arjaan by Rotana Hotel passed by carrying cups of Turkish coffee, a small team of Blackwater and American military veterans huddled over plans for the foreign battalion. Armed with a black suitcase stuffed with several hundred thousand dollars' worth of dirhams, the local currency, they began paying the first bills.
The company, often called R2, was licensed last March with 51 percent local ownership, a typical arrangement in the Emirates. It received about $21 million in start-up capital from the U.A.E., the former employees said.
Mr. Prince made the deal with Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates. The two men had known each other for several years, and it was the prince's idea to build a foreign commando force for his country.
Savvy and pro-Western, the prince was educated at the Sandhurst military academy in Britain and formed close ties with American military officials. He is also one of the region's staunchest hawks on Iran and is skeptical that his giant neighbor across the Strait of Hormuz will give up its nuclear program.
"He sees the logic of war dominating the region, and this thinking explains his near-obsessive efforts to build up his armed forces," said a November 2009 cable from the American Embassy in Abu Dhabi that was obtained by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
For Mr. Prince, a 41-year-old former member of the Navy Seals, the battalion was an opportunity to turn vision into reality. At Blackwater, which had collected billions of dollars in security contracts from the United States government, he had hoped to build an army for hire that could be deployed to crisis zones in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He even had proposed that the Central Intelligence Agency use his company for special operations missions around the globe, but to no avail. In Abu Dhabi, which he praised in an Emirati newspaper interview last year for its "pro-business" climate, he got another chance.
Mr. Prince's exploits, both real and rumored, are the subject of fevered discussions in the private security world. He has worked with the Emirati government on various ventures in the past year, including an operation using South African mercenaries to train Somalis to fight pirates. There was talk, too, that he was hatching a scheme last year to cap the Icelandic volcano then spewing ash across Northern Europe.
The team in the hotel lobby was led by Ricky Chambers, known as C. T., a former agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who had worked for Mr. Prince for years; most recently, he had run a program training Afghan troops for a Blackwater subsidiary called Paravant.
He was among the half-dozen or so Americans who would serve as top managers of the project, receiving nearly $300,000 in annual compensation. Mr. Chambers and Mr. Prince soon began quietly luring American contractors from Afghanistan, Iraq and other danger spots with pay packages that topped out at more than $200,000 a year, according to a budget document. Many of those who signed on as trainers which eventually included more than 40 veteran American, European and South African commandos did not know of Mr. Prince's involvement, the former employees said.
Mr. Chambers did not respond to requests for comment.
He and Mr. Prince also began looking for soldiers. They lined up Thor Global Enterprises, a company on the Caribbean island of Tortola specializing in "placing foreign servicemen in private security positions overseas," according to a contract signed last May. The recruits would be paid about $150 a day.
Within months, large tracts of desert were bulldozed and barracks constructed. The Emirates were to provide weapons and equipment for the mercenary force, supplying everything from M-16 rifles to mortars, Leatherman knives to Land Rovers. They agreed to buy parachutes, motorcycles, rucksacks and 24,000 pairs of socks.
To keep a low profile, Mr. Prince rarely visited the camp or a cluster of luxury villas near the Abu Dhabi airport, where R2 executives and Emirati military officers fine-tune the training schedules and arrange weapons deliveries for the battalion, former employees said. He would show up, they said, in an office suite at the DAS Tower a skyscraper just steps from Abu Dhabi's Corniche beach, where sunbathers lounge as cigarette boats and water scooters whiz by. Staff members there manage a number of companies that the former employees say are carrying out secret work for the Emirati government.
Emirati law prohibits disclosure of incorporation records for businesses, which typically list company officers, but it does require them to post company names on offices and storefronts. Over the past year, the sign outside the suite has changed at least twice it now says Assurance Management Consulting.
While the documents including contracts, budget sheets and blueprints obtained by The Times do not mention Mr. Prince, the former employees said he negotiated the U.A.E. deal. Corporate documents describe the battalion's possible tasks: intelligence gathering, urban combat, the securing of nuclear and radioactive materials, humanitarian missions and special operations "to destroy enemy personnel and equipment."
One document describes "crowd-control operations" where the crowd "is not armed with firearms but does pose a risk using improvised weapons (clubs and stones)."
People involved in the project and American officials said that the Emiratis were interested in deploying the battalion to respond to terrorist attacks and put down uprisings inside the country's sprawling labor camps, which house the Pakistanis, Filipinos and other foreigners who make up the bulk of the country's work force. The foreign military force was planned months before the so-called Arab Spring revolts that many experts believe are unlikely to spread to the U.A.E. Iran was a particular concern.
An Eye on Iran
Although there was no expectation that the mercenary troops would be used for a stealth attack on Iran, Emirati officials talked of using them for a possible maritime and air assault to reclaim a chain of islands, mostly uninhabited, in the Persian Gulf that are the subject of a dispute between Iran and the U.A.E., the former employees said. Iran has sent military forces to at least one of the islands, Abu Musa, and Emirati officials have long been eager to retake the islands and tap their potential oil reserves.
The Emirates have a small military that includes army, air force and naval units as well as a small special operations contingent, which served in Afghanistan, but over all, their forces are considered inexperienced.
In recent years, the Emirati government has showered American defense companies with billions of dollars to help strengthen the country's security. A company run by Richard A. Clarke, a former counterterrorism adviser during the Clinton and Bush administrations, has won several lucrative contracts to advise the U.A.E. on how to protect its infrastructure.
Some security consultants believe that Mr. Prince's efforts to bolster the Emirates' defenses against an Iranian threat might yield some benefits for the American government, which shares the U.A.E.'s concern about creeping Iranian influence in the region.
"As much as Erik Prince is a pariah in the United States, he may be just what the doctor ordered in the U.A.E.," said an American security consultant with knowledge of R2's work.
The contract includes a one-paragraph legal and ethics policy noting that R2 should institute accountability and disciplinary procedures. "The overall goal," the contract states, "is to ensure that the team members supporting this effort continuously cast the program in a professional and moral light that will hold up to a level of media scrutiny."
But former employees said that R2's leaders never directly grappled with some fundamental questions about the operation. International laws governing private armies and mercenaries are murky, but would the Americans overseeing the training of a foreign army on foreign soil be breaking United States law?
Susan Kovarovics, an international trade lawyer who advises companies about export controls, said that because Reflex Responses was an Emirati company it might not need State Department authorization for its activities.
But she said that any Americans working on the project might run legal risks if they did not get government approval to participate in training the foreign troops.
Basic operational issues, too, were not addressed, the former employees said. What were the battalion's rules of engagement? What if civilians were killed during an operation? And could a Latin American commando force deployed in the Middle East really be kept a secret?
Imported Soldiers
The first waves of mercenaries began arriving last summer. Among them was a 13-year veteran of Colombia's National Police force named Calixto Rincón, 42, who joined the operation with hopes of providing for his family and seeing a new part of the world.
"We were practically an army for the Emirates," Mr. Rincón, now back in Bogotá, Colombia, said in an interview. "They wanted people who had a lot of experience in countries with conflicts, like Colombia."
Mr. Rincón's visa carried a special stamp from the U.A.E. military intelligence branch, which is overseeing the entire project, that allowed him to move through customs and immigration without being questioned.
He soon found himself in the midst of the camp's daily routines, which mirrored those of American military training. "We would get up at 5 a.m. and we would start physical exercises," Mr. Rincón said. His assignment included manual labor at the expanding complex, he said. Other former employees said the troops outfitted in Emirati military uniforms were split into companies to work on basic infantry maneuvers, learn navigation skills and practice sniper training.
R2 spends roughly $9 million per month maintaining the battalion, which includes expenditures for employee salaries, ammunition and wages for dozens of domestic workers who cook meals, wash clothes and clean the camp, a former employee said. Mr. Rincón said that he and his companions never wanted for anything, and that their American leaders even arranged to have a chef travel from Colombia to make traditional soups.
But the secrecy of the project has sometimes created a prisonlike environment. "We didn't have permission to even look through the door," Mr. Rincón said. "We were only allowed outside for our morning jog, and all we could see was sand everywhere."
The Emirates wanted the troops to be ready to deploy just weeks after stepping off the plane, but it quickly became clear that the Colombians' military skills fell far below expectations. "Some of these kids couldn't hit the broad side of a barn," said a former employee. Other recruits admitted to never having fired a weapon.
Rethinking Roles
As a result, the veteran American and foreign commandos training the battalion have had to rethink their roles. They had planned to act only as "advisers" during missions meaning they would not fire weapons but over time, they realized that they would have to fight side by side with their troops, former officials said.
Making matters worse, the recruitment pipeline began drying up. Former employees said that Thor struggled to sign up, and keep, enough men on the ground. Mr. Rincón developed a hernia and was forced to return to Colombia, while others were dismissed from the program for drug use or poor conduct.
And R2's own corporate leadership has also been in flux. Mr. Chambers, who helped develop the project, left after several months. A handful of other top executives, some of them former Blackwater employees, have been hired, then fired within weeks.
To bolster the force, R2 recruited a platoon of South African mercenaries, including some veterans of Executive Outcomes, a South African company notorious for staging coup attempts or suppressing rebellions against African strongmen in the 1990s. The platoon was to function as a quick-reaction force, American officials and former employees said, and began training for a practice mission: a terrorist attack on the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, the world's tallest building. They would secure the situation before quietly handing over control to Emirati troops.
But by last November, the battalion was officially behind schedule. The original goal was for the 800-man force to be ready by March 31; recently, former employees said, the battalion's size was reduced to about 580 men.
Emirati military officials had promised that if this first battalion was a success, they would pay for an entire brigade of several thousand men. The new contracts would be worth billions, and would help with Mr. Prince's next big project: a desert training complex for foreign troops patterned after Blackwater's compound in Moyock, N.C. But before moving ahead, U.A.E. military officials have insisted that the battalion prove itself in a "real world mission."
That has yet to happen. So far, the Latin American troops have been taken off the base only to shop and for occasional entertainment.
On a recent spring night though, after months stationed in the desert, they boarded an unmarked bus and were driven to hotels in central Dubai, a former employee said. There, some R2 executives had arranged for them to spend the evening with prostitutes.
Mark Mazzetti reported from Abu Dhabi and Washington, and Emily B. Hager from New York. Jenny Carolina González and Simon Romero contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia. Kitty Bennett contributed research from Washington.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/world/middleeast/15prince.html
Private Military Contractors - Data Dump - Magda Hassan - 15-05-2011
Just wanted to mention here some similarities of some thing that happened in Austrlaia under the former Howard government. The attempted to break the Maritime Union, one of the better more organised and stronger unions here. This was so once they got the stonger unions down all the other ones could be easily picked off. One of the main stevedoring companies, Patricks, an employer of waterside workers and union members, opened a $2 company and moved all the employees there from the main solvent company with out their knowledge or permission. When the workers arrived for their shift at Easter morning they found the gates locked and security guards and dogs everywhere. Patricks said the company was insolvent but they could be employed again if they worked for a pittance. It was once of the biggest industrial show downs here is decades. In the mean time Patricks had either established or was working with another stevedoring company, Fynwest Pty Ltd, sought to recruit former and current Australian Defence Force members to counter the MUA. In particular, from December 1997, Fynwest began a campaign to recruit former and current members of the Special Air Service (SAS), paratroopers from 3RAR, commandos from 4RAR and other military specialists, to become stevedores. Others were recruited from controversial private military and security consulting companies, such as Sandline International and the Control Risks Group.
Fynwest planned to send these recruits to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where training could be provided. The newly-trained stevedores would then take part in an Australian non-union dock workers training program.
The MUA was 'tipped off' about the planned Fynwest operation and took the matter to the media who met the departing Fynwest employees as they boarded a flight to Dubai and questioned their 'tourist' status. Intense criticism and the spotlight on the visa irregularities and the threat of international industrial retaliation forced the Dubai Government to cancel visas for the Fynwest company employees. The Australian government denied all knowledge of the plan which has since been disproved in Howard's autobiography, despite still-serving defence personnel being involved, and evidence provided by some of these members that the government was actively involved in supporting the plan.
I just found the similarities interesting between this and Balckwaters reincarnation in the desert.
Private Military Contractors - Data Dump - Ed Jewett - 15-05-2011
Not The Onion: Blackwater Alumni Start Corporate Intelligence Firm Called Operation Jellyfish
May 15th, 2011
I'm standing by to hear that this is a hoax. (Please, tell me this is a hoax.) Until then, why not put these slimy, primitive tentacles to use for all of your corporate intelligence needs?
I think that Operation Cthulhu would have been better.
http://cryptogon.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/cthulhu.jpg
Cthulhu Awakening Front
Via: Wired: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/blackwater-datamining-vets-want-to-save-big-business
Veterans from the most infamous private security firm on Earth and one of the military's most controversial datamining operations are teaming up to provide the Fortune 500 with their own private spies.
Take one part Blackwater, and another part Able Danger, the military data-mining op that claimed to have identified members of al-Qaida living in the United States before 9/11. Put em together, and you've got a new company called Jellyfish.
Jellyfish is about corporate-information dominance. It swears it's leaving all the spy-world baggage behind. No guns, no governments digging through private records of its citizens.
"Our organization is not going to be controversial," pledges Keith Mahoney, the Jellyfish CEO, a former Navy officer and senior executive with Blackwater's intelligence arm, Total Intelligence Solutions. Try not to make a joke about corporate mercenaries.
…
Jellyfish's chief technology officer is J.D. Smith, who was part of Able Danger until lawyers for the U.S. Special Operations Command shut the program down in 2000. Also from Able Danger is Tony Shaffer, Jellyfish's "military operations adviser" and the ex-Defense Intelligence Agency operative who became the public face of the program in dramatic 2005 congressional testimony.
Posted in COINTELPRO, Covert Operations, Outsourced, Surveillance, Technology, War
Private Military Contractors - Data Dump - Ed Jewett - 17-05-2011
UAE Hires Blackwater to Establish 800-Member Mercenary Battalion
May 16th, 2011
Via: Washington Post:
The crown prince of Abu Dhabi has hired the founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide to set up an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the United Arab Emirates, the New York Times reported Sunday.
The Times said it obtained documents that showed that the unit being formed by Erik Prince's new company, Reflex Responses, with $529 million from the UAE would be used to thwart internal revolt, conduct special operations and defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from attacks.
Posted in Dictatorship, Outsourced, War
http://cryptogon.com/?p=22359
Private Military Contractors - Data Dump - Ed Jewett - 22-05-2011
![[Image: baesystems.gif]](http://mssparky.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/baesystems.gif)
U.S. fines BAE $79 million, Rock Island rewards BAE with $10 million (updated)
http://mssparky.com/2011/05/u-s-fines-bae-79-million-rock-island-rewards-bae-with-10-million/
Private Military Contractors - Data Dump - Ed Jewett - 23-05-2011
The Threat of Private Military Companies
by Devon DB
Global Research, May 22, 2011
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24896
Text:
Introduction
Private Military Companies (PMCs) have been in the national and international spotlight in recent years, most famously known are the actions of the PMC Blackwater (now renamed Xe Services) in Iraq. There are many mixed feelings about PMCs, some say that they are a "good thing" and that they help countries to save money while others argue that they are not regulated and many times go about killing innocent people.
PMCs are a major problem in that they are a threat to state sovereignty as they threaten the role of the state in overseeing its armed forces. They also have major legality issues that need to be addressed, threaten democracy, and aid in continuing the influence of multinational companies in the third world.
While I will delve into the above issues, I will not be able to give the full picture of the effect that PMCs have on states nor how they operate, thus I recommend that anyone who finds themselves wanting to know more about PMCs read the book Servants of War: Private Military Corporations and the Profit of Conflict by Rolf Uesseler (translated by Jefferson Chase; it also provided the research for this essay), as it provides a comprehensive analysis of PMCs and the manner in which they do business, from interviewing owners of PMCs to discussing how PMCs effect international conflicts and concluding by exploring if there is way to properly handle PMCs.
State Sovereignty
PMCs threaten state sovereignty because they threaten the state's monopoly on "the use of force". In the German Parliament, the conservative faction submitted a proposal in 2004 which stated that the privatization of the military "could lead to a fundamental shift" between a nation's armed forces and its government as "the state's monopoly on force could be called into question or even possibly eradicated." [1] By bringing PMCs into the picture, it creates a "hollowing out of the state," where the military itself can become weakened due to its reliance upon private organizations to do things such as gather intelligence.
"A third emphasis of the modern military companies is the area of intelligence, which includes everything from information collecting to outright spying. In the wake of the electronics revolution, many firms have developed techniques for information gathering and analysis that only they are able to master and offer as a service." [2]
The effect that having PMCs gather intelligence for the military is that people then realize that the real intelligence jobs are with PMCs and use government institutions like the military and the CIA as resume-builders for when they go to apply for a position at a PMC. It also creates a dependency on PMCs to do the intelligence work for the government and thus the influence of PMCs in the Pentagon increases.
This dependence is not only in the area of intelligence gathering, but also extends into what is arguably the most important aspect of warfare: logistics. Companies offer services "from the procurement of toilet paper to the organization of diverse types of vehicles." Also maintenance of military equipment "represents a huge portion of this spectrum, be it the upkeep and repair of motor vehicles, transport vans, helicopter warships, or other types of military aircraft." [3]
By supplying US troops, private corporations have increased their influence within the Pentagon to levels in which they hold major sway. Private corporations deeply undermine state authority because due to the fact that they build and supply weapons to our military as well as supply them with the needed materials so that the military can fight wars, they profit from when the US goes to war and may be likely to encourage American military action abroad.
Legality Issues
There are major problems with the legality of private companies and how they operate in countries where they are deployed. One example pertains to Iraq in 2004 when Blackwater employees entered into the city of Fallujah and "under the pretense of looking for terrorists, [they] had carried out nighttime raids, mistreated women and children, and tortured and murdered local men and teenage boys." [4] Due to this, the local Iraqis took the law into their own hands and killed the Blackwater employees. However, whether one agrees with what the Iraqi people did or not, what occurred would have been the only justice the employees received for their crimes.
It is extremely hard to investigate PMCs due to the secrecy that is guaranteed by government contracts, as well as the fact that they are not accountable to the US military and "receive their orders directly from the Pentagon, and both the Department of Defense and the headquarters of the companies concerned keep their lips strictly sealed." [5]
The secrecy begins with the contracts themselves where the government leaves out certain legal passages that specify exactly what the companies are supposed to do, how they are supposed to go about doing it, and if they will be held legally responsible for anything that occurs under their watch. Uesseler cites an example of this, one that should be quoted at length:
DynCorp received a contract for more than a million dollars from the US State Department to organize the Iraqi criminal justice system. In June 2004, four of their employees, heavily armed and in battle gear, led Iraqi police on a raid of the former Iraqi leader in exile, Ahmed Chalabi. It is doubtful whether this action was in keeping with the spirit of the original contract. But that fact that DynCorp did not receive an official warning suggests that the contract is vague enough to allow for such "violations." [6]
The fact that the contracts are so vague as to the point where companies can virtually decide what they want to do has the potential to create serious problems, one example private companies doing night raids which result in the deaths of civilians and thus aggravating the local population and whipping up anti-American sentiment. That would make the job of US solders that much harder because they would bear the brunt of the backlash, not the employees that created the situation in the first place.
The situation gets worse, however, when one goes to the national levels. In the United States, no one is able to hold any private companies accountable. The parties that "issue the contracts are barely capable of doing much in the way of monitoring, because, for example, they are tied down in Washington, and the state military, which would have the capabilities, has little interest in babysitting private soldiers that aren't part of its chain of command." [7] Thus the military cannot do it and Congress isn't much better as they don't allocate funds to the oversight of private companies. This allows them to "exist in a state of near anarchy and arbitrariness."
Private companies and their personnel are not "subject to strict regulations that determine to whom they are ultimately accountable." Private corporations only have to go as far as declarations of intent in which they "maintain that they instruct their personnel to respect national laws and international human rights standards." [8] Even if major crimes are done, the state cannot do anything as mercenaries enjoy significant protection. "In passing Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17 of June 2003, the Iraqi provisional government granted exemption from prosecution to all personnel action on behalf of the coalition- including PMC employees." [9] This allows for PMCs to go about and do literally whatever they please, without fear of any consequences whatsoever and could potentially have the employees do things that they wouldn't have done so before if they were under the law, like torturing and killing civilians for example.
Internationally, things have the potential to get complicated quickly. The Geneva Convention clearly distinguishes between civilians and armed combatants. However, the employees of private companies aren't civilians "since they are involved in the machinery of war, are employed by governments, and frequently carry arms." Combatants are defined by the Geneva Convention "as people directly and actively involved in hostilities," yet new forms of warfare muddle this definition. "To take an illustrative question: Is a private solider in Florida who presses a button launching a carpet bomb attack in Afghanistan only indirectly involved in war, while a regular soldier delivering supplies there is directly engaged in hostilities?" [10]
The legality issues of private soldiers need to be solved on an international level as they currently occupy a gray area in the legal system. However, the US government needs to hold these companies accountable for any crimes that their employees are involved in, if not, then situations like the one mentioned at the beginning of this topic will continue.
Democracy
Private military corporations threaten democracy solely because they are not accountable to anyone and can do as they please. By not having any accountability, private companies undermine democratic institutions.
One of the many roles of government is "to maintain security, which includes democratic control over the use of force." However, PMCs undermine this because citizens do not have any influence over the services offered by PMCs. For example, "The standards that govern the military, the police, customs officials, border guards, and state intelligence agencies do not apply at all to contracts given to PMCs." [11]
Due to citizens having no control over the actions of private companies, democracy is put on the line because in a democratic society, there is a need for checks and balances on all forms of power. By not having this, PMCs are able to go and do as they please due to having no restrictions and, as was noted earlier, this could lead to potential problems.
The Third World
PMCs will do business for anyone who has the money to hire them, from governments, to non-governmental organizations, to rebel movements. However, PMCs will also gladly work for other companies and in the process, have aided in US corporations maintaining undue influence in the third world.
One major example is Colombia. From the viewpoint of US corporations, unions, the FARC, and the ELN threaten the status quo. In order to remedy this, "Lobbyists for US firms active in Colombia- above all oil, arms, and military companies- made $6 million in campaign contributions to convince the US Congress to approve of Plan Colombia, which was sold to the public as a humanitarian assistance program for the crisis-ridden Andean nation. Yet of the $1.3 billion initially approved for the program, only 13 percent went to the Colombian government to improve its security infrastructure. The rest flowed into the coffer of US firms." [12]
Since the majority of the money went to American firms, the question that must be asked is: Exactly what did those PMCs do in Colombia? They did a variety of things that were connected with one another, which all ended up aiding US corporations maintain their influence in Colombia. For example PMCs would "collect via satellite or reconnaissance flights information about guerilla troop movements that they then pass onto the military. They plant informants within the workers' movement or village populations and share what they learn with the police and paramilitary groups." [13] This has led to workers being killed, wages decreasing, increased unemployment, and human rights violations, all of which are sanctioned or supported by foreign companies. [14]
A counterargument would be that the FARC and ELN are recognized as terrorist organizations by the US and thus it is in American interests to aid in their destruction, however, this ignores the reasons why the FARC attacks US corporations. "Their attacks against business are largely directed at transnational oil companies and are, they say, aimed at ensuring that some of the profits from Colombia's petroleum reserves go to the country in general, instead of being siphoned off by oligarchs, members of the government, and high-ranking military leaders." [15]
By maintaining US corporate interests in Colombia, PMCs are aiding in the destruction of left-wing movements and backing right-wing governments. The situation is reminiscent of how the US, during the Cold War, overthrew left-wing governments and installed and backed military dictators that allowed US corporations to move in, this is just a new version of it.
Conclusion
In conclusion, PMCs are a threat on multiple levels and need to be dealt with. Most pressingly are the legal issues and the international community as well as governments within nations need to establish a new classification in their laws specifically for the employees of PMCs so that they will be held liable for any crimes committed. PMCs, without a doubt, need massive reform as to lead to a better society at large.
Endnotes
1: Rolf Uesseler, Servants of War: Private Military Corporations and the Profit of Conflict, trans. Jefferson Chase (Brooklyn, New York: Soft Skull Press, 2008) 146.
2: Ibid, pg 24
3: Ibid, pgs 25-26
4: Ibid, pg 160
5: Ibid, pg 161
6: Ibid, pg 163
7: Ibid, pg 164
8: Ibid, pgs 168-169
9: Ibid, pg 169
10: Ibid, pgs 170-171
11: Ibid, pg 207
12: Ibid, pg 149
13: Ibid, pg 151
14: Ibid, pg 152
15: Ibid
Devon DB is 19 years old and studies political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University
Private Military Contractors - Data Dump - Ed Jewett - 23-05-2011
The Spy Who Bilked Me: Meet Bush's War Profiteering Chief Bin Laden Hunter
Penn Bullock and Brandon K. Thorp
You've probably never heard of Marty Martin. He spent most of his life as an anonymous CIA operative. But he very recently came out of the closet as the man Bush put in charge of finding Osama bin Laden in the aftermath of 9/11, and guess what? It turns out the man Bush put in charge of finding bin Laden is an extremely shady and allegedly corrupt war profiteer. Who would have thought?
More here:
http://gawker.com/5803556/the-spy-who-bilked-me-meet-bushs-war-profiteering-chief-bin-laden-hunter
Private Military Contractors - Data Dump - Ed Jewett - 23-05-2011
In 2006, Darpa, the Department of Defense's R&D arm, commissioned AeroVironment, a company specializing in remote aircraft, to create an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) small enough to fly through an open window. AeroVironment had already built the 4.5-foot-wingspan Raven, which first saw combat over Afghanistan in 2003, but making a UAV so much smaller took five years and 300 different wing designs.
More here:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-05/darpas-tiny-robotic-hummingbird-hovers-and-films
Private Military Contractors - Data Dump - Bernice Moore - 16-06-2011
Sent by someone in the know, dealing with the military.
Frog
> You can get lists of military investigations pertaining to a particular
> company or contractor or organization. Then once you have the lists, you
> can ask for the investigation reports themselves.
>
> This is a very powerful investigative tool, and the materials you will get
> back can be quite stunning.
>
> Simply write to each of the following agencies, and ask them for a list of
> all investigations pertaining to the particular company, contractor or
> organization. I recommend against combining multiple requests into one
> letter; instead I suggest a separate letter for each company, contractor
or
> organization.
>
> In your letter, ask for a printout/listing of investigations/files at the
> agency identified through a search of the DCII for the company XXXXXXX.
You
> should also mention the Freedom of Information Act and identify if you are
a
> newsmedia requester. You should mention that you want them to retrieve a
> complete list for all years.
>
> Note: the term DCII has been used to stand for different words over the
> years, so to prevent the possibility of a no records response, I suggest
you
> simply use the term DCII rather than spell out the words.
>
> You should send a letter about any particular company to each of the
> following offices to get a thorough reply.
>
>
> DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
> DoD IG FOIA Requester Service Center
> Office of Freedom of Information
> 400 Army Navy Drive, Suite 1021
> Arlington, VA 22202-4704
> FAX: 703-602-0294
> OR ELECTRONICALLY AT
> http://www.dodig.mil/fo/foia/NEWREQUEST.cfm
>
>
> AIR FORCE OFFICE OF SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS
> FOIA Office
> HQ AFOSI/XILI
> P.O. Box 2218
> Waldorf, MD 20604-2218
> FAX: 301-870-1116
> EMAIL: afosi.hq.foia@ogn.af.mil
>
>
> NAVAL CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES
> Naval Criminal Investigative Service Headquarters (Code 00LJF)
> 716 Sicard Street SE Suite 2000
> Washington Navy Yard DC 20388-5380
> FAX: 202-433-9242
> EMAIL: NCISFOIA@navy.mil
>
>
> ARMY CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION COMMAND
> ARMY CRIME RECORDS DIVISION
> Department of the Army
> U.S. Army Crime Records Center
> 6010 6th Street, ATTN: CICR-FP
> Fort Belvoir, Virginia 22060-5585
> FAX: 703-806-0462
> EMAIL: CRCFOIAPA@conus.army.mil
>
> ===
>
> Once you get your list in the mail, which typically takes only 2-3 weeks,
> you can write back to the agency and get copies of the closing memo and
> final report for any of the investigations listed. You should ask for the
> investigations by case number. Don't worry that this will get voluminous
--
> typically the closing memos and final reports are not more than a couple
of
> dozen pages. To protect yourself against getting a monster report, you
can
> of course limit it to the first 50 pages of each report, or the first 100
> pages of each report, etc. The reports take about 4-6 weeks to get.
>
> ==========
>
>
Private Military Contractors - Data Dump - Ed Jewett - 28-06-2011
2nd ex-Blackwater worker gets 30 months for manslaughter
June 27, 2011 by legitgov
2nd ex-Blackwater worker gets 30 months for manslaughter 27 Jun 2011 A second former Blackwater mercenary was sentenced to prison for involuntary manslaughter today in the 2009 shooting death of a civilian in Afghanistan. Justin Cannon of Corpus Christi, Texas, was sentenced to 30 months by U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar. A Virginia Beach man, Christopher Drotleff, received a 37-month sentence earlier this month for his actions in the same incident.
http://www.legitgov.org/2nd-ex-Blackwater-worker-gets-30-months-manslaughter