The Guardian on Blackwater and PMCs

The Guardian had a wonderful editorial by John Hillary about The Blackwater scandal. He suggested the rethinking of the outsourcing of combat operations to private military companies and estimates there are at least 48,000 PMC boots in the country. The issue was raised by Blackwater’s massacre of Iraqi civilians last Sunday. These soldiers for cash are immune from all national and international laws thanks to Paul Bremer.

Hillary said: “Far from being an isolated incident, these killings are the latest in what has become an established pattern of human rights violations by private military and security contractors in Iraq, making them the most hated symbol of the occupation to many Iraqis. Widely publicised cases include the "sports shooting" of civilian cars by a Triple Canopy mercenary in Baghdad; the trophy video http://youtube.com/watch?v=XwvPh5LhrQU posted on the internet by an employee of UK private military company Aegis, which has none the less just won a massive $475m contract to provide security services to the US military over the next two years; and the involvement of Titan and CACI contractors in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Blackwater's private army was again the cause of a major stand-off between US and Iraqi troops last December when one of its soldiers shot dead an Iraqi security officer in Baghdad.”

His concluding paragraph sums up my feelings exactly “According to commentators more favourable to the continued deployment of mercenaries, our forces are now incapable of carrying out their duties without this private paramilitary support. (Diplomats are now in lockdown in the Greenzone) US and UK troops are so overstretched, the argument goes, that they would not be able to sustain occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan were it not for the private military and security companies operating alongside them. Given the horrors which have been inflicted on the people of those countries, however, that sounds like one of the most compelling arguments in favour of their demise.”

When people tell me I shouldn’t be ashamed to be an American, I only think of the horrors we have inflicted on the Iraqi people, which far surpass what Hussein ever did. So many nights I lay awake in my bed, realising I have so much, I am safe, warm, have electricity and water, but my country has stolen those things from the 27 million people living in Iraq today (figure from the CIA fact book), not to mention the 4 million people who have fled and I cry in shame.