Barack’s Mercenaries
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now caught up with Barack Obama in New York City. She pressed him on his intentions regarding a withdrawal from Iraq, but when she got specific about what a real withdrawal would mean, it kind of sounds like the O man needs to think about how to answer the harder questions. Then again, since he’s not likely to get asked again by the complacent corporate media, he’s probably fine. Here’s the juiciest snippet:
GOODMAN: Can you call for a ban on the private military contractors like Blackwater?
OBAMA: I’ve actually—I’m the one who sponsored the bill that called for the investigation of Blackwater in [inaudible], so—
AMY GOODMAN: But would you support the [Sen. Barry] Sanders [bill] now?
OBAMA: Here’s the problem: we have 140,000 private contractors right there, so unless we want to replace all of or a big chunk of those with US troops, we can’t draw down the contractors faster than we can draw down our troops. So what I want to do is draw—I want them out in the same way that we make sure that we draw out our own combat troops. Alright? I mean, I—
GOODMAN: Not a ban?
OBAMA: Well, I don’t want to replace those contractors with more US troops, because we don’t have them, alright?
Gee, that was kind of a snippy answer. Maybe if we can get another hundred thousand mercenaries in there, we can replace our troops altogether? Oh, better yet: let’s just sell the Army and USMC units that are over there now to Halliburton! I’m sure they could come up with the money somehow, like another cost-plus Pentagon contract.
By the way, Hillary has signed on to the Sanders bill, which would “ban the use of all State Department private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Just a quick note - the overwhelming majority of those contractors are Iraqis, so they ain’t going to be withdrawn from the country even if they lose their jobs. Less than 2,000 of the 140,000+ contractors are Americans doing security - mostly doing the high end diplomatic security.
Obama is quite realistic on this issue, and it is good to see he ain’t going to stoop to pandering.
Regards,
Doug Brooks
IPOA
Just so our readers know, the IPOA stands for “International Peace Operations Association” which is the disturbingly Orwellian name for the group that represents mercenary contractors. “Peace Operations”? Give us a break…
Mr. Brooks is using standard spin here. Of the 140,000 private contractors, we’re only talking about a minority who are actually mercenaries. The estimates I’ve seen are 20,000 to 40,000. Those are the rednecks that are driving around shooting the shit out of civilians just for kicks. Mr. Brooks could tell us how many there are for sure, but then he’d have to kill us
Of those, I believe a vast majority are internationals, whether American, British, South American, South African, etc. I’m not sure many are Iraqi at all, for obvious reasons.
Brooks and Obama are both trying to spin the idea as removing all private contractors from Iraq (hence the 140k references), when Goodman and the Sanders bill were clearly referring to “security contractors,” AKA mercenaries.
Maybe someday one of them will address the actual question, instead of their preferred version of it.
I’m not hiding my organization at all, I included the web site didn’t I? Indeed, I hope people will visit it and understand what we’re about.
The name comes from the academic terminology for peacekeeping, peace enforcement and humanitarian rescue.
Now a clarification: The vast majority of security contractors are Iraqis. DoD has about 6,000 security contractors (17% American, the rest split between ‘third country nationals’ and Iraqis), State has another 1,500 (mostly Americans). Others work for USAID, the press (NY Times, Post etc.), NGOs the Iraqi government etc. If you count Iraqis doing security for Iraqi companies, government, NGOs etc. the numbers could be upwards of 20,000 - but yes, mostly Iraqis.
The biggest contractor numbers are logistics and reconstruction.
As a rule of thumb companies will use locals whenever their contracts allow it. Iraqis are fine at security, know the language and terrain, self cater, and are a hell of a lot cheaper than importing labor. For a company to be competitive it just makes sense.
In terms of replacing the State department security: State estimates putting DSS agents in to replace the private security would cost the government $1m per person per year. The contractors cost half that. If Sanders and Goodman (and Clinton) are prepared to increase State’s budget to accommodate the growth in security, they should say so.
You should put me on your radio show, I’d be delighted to clarify these issues for your listeners.
Regards,
doug
You definitely should Doug! We’d all be delighted to hear your perspective on the matter. Call in, Pete’s very good about getting to callers.
I don’t agree with the ban on civilian security contracts. However, I do think that the contracts need to be severely regulated and also that the troops need to be paid as much, if not more for their terms over there. If you (as a civilian) want to go risk your life, you go for it, but our troops don’t have a choice. they signed up with the military (whatever branch they decided upon) in order to protect and serve our country, however they don’t decide where and when. they aren’t doing it just for the money (if that was they case there are many jobs less risky where they could make more) they do it for the honor (mostly…some do actually do it just to fight as a job…but not most) for the opportunities (such as my mother, who had no money for college when she graduated high school at the top of her class) and for the sake of preserving our way of life. The troops deserve to be paid more….anyway, back on the subject [steps off the proverbial “soap-box”]. I don’t agree with the ban because simply put: We shouldn’t be there in the first place, and I don’t agree with sending more of our troops there when there are obviously many civilians who are more than willing to volunteer for the job.
Tessa, good points.
Obviously the troops get paid lots more than the third country nationals and Iraqis who make up the overwhelming bulk of the employees of these companies.
Compared to American contractors the pay is closer and it really depends on the rank and how many of the benefits are included in the comparison. All in all the compensation is a lot closer than most people realize (the Army claims it favors their soldiers already!), and keep in mind that the security contractors are mostly retired military who have already done their ten/twenty or even thirty years as soldiers - it would be odd to pay them less than a 19 year old just starting a military career.
Finally, contractors don’t make the decisions about where to go, that is a governmental choice. We have IPOA member companies working not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in support of the UN and AU in Darfur, Mogadishu, Haiti etc. Policy-makers make those decisions on interventions, not the private sector - as it should be.
Travis, I’d really love to do the show! Convince Pete . . .
best,
doug
pete
i wanted to coment on a show you did last week. you were talking about elections and the fact that turnout is usualy not very good. i think that low turnout benifits both the rep. and dem. party’s. if they energize there base and tturn off the rest of the voters they have a better chance of winning. i think that has been the formula for so long that they all go dirty at some point because it is so effective. making it easier to vote and thus increasing voter turnout would be conter productive. i also believe that we have to many elections to often and would benefit as a nation if we could energize the american public to participate in the election process, to that end i think if we had elections only on even years we could improve the public participation. i also support obama, and hope he truly can change america.
mark b.