Private military, why not?
Jan. 20th, 2015 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nairiporterWhat could possibly go wrong with that idea, right? It's not like all those examples of private military groups, or as they are called "mercenaries", are not already in place in abundance to draw lessons from. Blackwater already has a long history of atrocities, it runs so deep there are entire websites solely dedicated to listing their various shady activities. Just because they have renamed themselves to Academi, that cannot erase their record. For a while, they were even involved in a CIA death squad conducting dirty operations.
DynCorp, one of the most powerful private military companies in the world, with most of its several billion dollar revenue coming directly from the US government, has been marred by allegations about its code of conduct. From routinely abusing civilians in Bosnia, (the whistle-blowers who revealed those misdeeds being paid their due by being duly fired, the matter never to be brought to a conclusion), to sabotaging attempts of employees to actually report abuse, etc. There has even been a movie on that story.
What about the "trophy videos" from 2005 where Scottish and Irish mercenaries were seen randomly shooting Iraqi civilians (the doing of some Aegis Defence Services employees). If the goal was to win local hearts and minds and thus prevent the recruitment of more terrorists to the enemy cause, the nearly 25,000 private mercenaries stationed in Iraq at the time certainly did not help that cause - they were widely hated in the country, and had a reputation for abusing and even killing civilians at the slightest provocation. None of them have ever been brought to law, because the local law enforcement had been specifically forbidden to prosecute them. And the army's criminal investigation division also decided not to press charges, which means they were covering it all up. In the meantime, Aegis Defence is keeping its own internal investigations carefully under wraps. None of these incidents' investigative files have ever been released to the public. Talk about transparency and accountability? This is a complete joke.
And then of course there is the 2007 case of one Jamie Leigh Jones, an employee of private military contractor Halliburton/KBR, who was allegedly gang-raped by several of her co-workers. That only being the beginning of her woes, as her employer preferred to cover up the incident, sweep all traces of it under the rug in time so no one could be prosecuted, and lock the victim inside a shipping container with no food or water for 24 hours, and then warn her that they would fire her if she left Iraq to seek medical treatment.
Hey, we even have our own home-grown atrocity-generating private freedom-defenders here in South Africa, the infamous Executive Outcomes, a company that has participated in most war zones on this continent, and is probably the most influential group of this sort south of the Equator. Ironically, their slogan is that their mission is to bring peace, but they have been routinely involved in shady activities ranging from Sierra Leone based oil company shenanigans to blood diamond dealings with the jewel giant De Beers, etc. They are notorious for targeting the client country's mineral-rich regions, often regaining and securing control of gold, oil and diamond regions before paying attention to other matters. Some people have testified that they do not always return these possessions to the country. EO owns gold mines in Uganda, oil drilling facilities in Ethiopia, as well as a variety of other peace-time business ventures in the other countries it has fought for, or as they say, "brought peace to".
The list could go on and on. I have seen some of the consequences of these guys' activities first-hand, particularly when I was in Zambia and Malawi, and later in Angola. If you really want to convince those of us who have seen the results of private mercenary groups being delegated the legitimacy to operate in conflict areas on the behalf of the international community, that giving them MORE authority and legitimacy is a good idea in any shape or form, and with any rationale or justification, I am afraid you will have to do much, much better than this.
The most fascinating thing about reality is that when it slaps you in the face, all idealistic theorising tends to fall to pieces quite swiftly. From there on, there are two possible courses of action: either acknowledge that the idea is rubbish and move on, or stubbornly cling to it no matter what.
DynCorp, one of the most powerful private military companies in the world, with most of its several billion dollar revenue coming directly from the US government, has been marred by allegations about its code of conduct. From routinely abusing civilians in Bosnia, (the whistle-blowers who revealed those misdeeds being paid their due by being duly fired, the matter never to be brought to a conclusion), to sabotaging attempts of employees to actually report abuse, etc. There has even been a movie on that story.
What about the "trophy videos" from 2005 where Scottish and Irish mercenaries were seen randomly shooting Iraqi civilians (the doing of some Aegis Defence Services employees). If the goal was to win local hearts and minds and thus prevent the recruitment of more terrorists to the enemy cause, the nearly 25,000 private mercenaries stationed in Iraq at the time certainly did not help that cause - they were widely hated in the country, and had a reputation for abusing and even killing civilians at the slightest provocation. None of them have ever been brought to law, because the local law enforcement had been specifically forbidden to prosecute them. And the army's criminal investigation division also decided not to press charges, which means they were covering it all up. In the meantime, Aegis Defence is keeping its own internal investigations carefully under wraps. None of these incidents' investigative files have ever been released to the public. Talk about transparency and accountability? This is a complete joke.
And then of course there is the 2007 case of one Jamie Leigh Jones, an employee of private military contractor Halliburton/KBR, who was allegedly gang-raped by several of her co-workers. That only being the beginning of her woes, as her employer preferred to cover up the incident, sweep all traces of it under the rug in time so no one could be prosecuted, and lock the victim inside a shipping container with no food or water for 24 hours, and then warn her that they would fire her if she left Iraq to seek medical treatment.
Hey, we even have our own home-grown atrocity-generating private freedom-defenders here in South Africa, the infamous Executive Outcomes, a company that has participated in most war zones on this continent, and is probably the most influential group of this sort south of the Equator. Ironically, their slogan is that their mission is to bring peace, but they have been routinely involved in shady activities ranging from Sierra Leone based oil company shenanigans to blood diamond dealings with the jewel giant De Beers, etc. They are notorious for targeting the client country's mineral-rich regions, often regaining and securing control of gold, oil and diamond regions before paying attention to other matters. Some people have testified that they do not always return these possessions to the country. EO owns gold mines in Uganda, oil drilling facilities in Ethiopia, as well as a variety of other peace-time business ventures in the other countries it has fought for, or as they say, "brought peace to".
The list could go on and on. I have seen some of the consequences of these guys' activities first-hand, particularly when I was in Zambia and Malawi, and later in Angola. If you really want to convince those of us who have seen the results of private mercenary groups being delegated the legitimacy to operate in conflict areas on the behalf of the international community, that giving them MORE authority and legitimacy is a good idea in any shape or form, and with any rationale or justification, I am afraid you will have to do much, much better than this.
The most fascinating thing about reality is that when it slaps you in the face, all idealistic theorising tends to fall to pieces quite swiftly. From there on, there are two possible courses of action: either acknowledge that the idea is rubbish and move on, or stubbornly cling to it no matter what.
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Date: 2015-01-20 07:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-22 07:14 am (UTC)