Years ago, Edwin Starr asked the musical question, “War – what is it good for?” and the rhetorical answer was “absolutely nothing.” Problem is, Ed asked the wrong question. If instead, he’d asked, “War – who is it good for?” he’d have gotten a very different answer.
War was not good for the four Americans who were killed and whose bodies were mutilated in Fallujah last week, nor was it good for their families back home, subjected to grisly images of their loved ones’ deaths.
There is some misinformation circulating about these men. They are described in the media as “contractors who worked for Blackwater Security Consulting.” That’s a euphemism. The men were mercenaries, soldiers for hire. There are 20,000 mercenaries in Iraq, working for the U.S. government through the Coalition Provisional Authority, heavily armed and engaging in firefights with Iraqis. In Najaf last week, mercenaries fought side by side with U.S. troops against the Shi’ite Madhi Army.
These mercenaries, almost all of them former military personnel of the U.S or other armies, are hired to guard and escort and provide security – things the military used soldiers for in past wars. War is good for mercenaries, at least while they’re alive. They’re paid around $1,000 a day, many times what a soldier earns. They don’t have to sign up for four years at a stretch and their employer can’t shoot them for desertion if they run away. The security company provides the equipment mercenaries need, like body armor. GIs have to ask mom and dad to spend hundreds of dollars buying body armor and shipping it to Iraq because the Pentagon is falling down on the job.
War is good for the companies that hire the mercenaries, like Blackwater Security Consulting of Moyock, North Carolina, because if the guys with the boots on the ground are making a grand a day, you know there’s plenty to go around back at corporate HQ. If this reminds you of Halliburton, it should. Besides shooting at Iraqis, the CPA has hired private firms to take over military tasks from building mess halls and digging latrines to transporting supplies and fixing equipment. The bodyguards who protect American Proconsul L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer are not U.S. soldiers, but Blackwater mercenaries. The huge contracts let in Iraq may be the apotheosis of the government privatization schemes conservatives have been pushing for decades, although in practice it looks like the kind of taxpayer ripoff perpetrated by Milo Minderbinder in Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22.”
War, and the mercenary armies that fight them, are good for the Bush administration. First, it’s part of the vast Republican money-laundering machine. The Bushies take over a billion dollars of taxpayer money each week and spend it on the Iraq war. Much of it goes to contractors like Blackwater and Halliburton and Bechtel. These contractors skim off some of the money and donate it back to the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, the Republican National Committee, a host of GOP candidates across the country and right-wing think tanks. After years of feeding like pigs at the public trough, executives at these corporations decide to “serve the public” by running for political office, from where they steer more taxpayer money to their cronies on the outside and the cycle perpetuates itself. This is what Karl Rove means when he talks about “the party of permanent majority.” (Of course, this not only applies to the Pentagon, but also the Agriculture Department, the Food and Drug Administration, etc. etc.)
Mercenaries are good for Mr. Bush politically because it’s not newsworthy when they die, unless their bodies are dragged through the streets for video crews. Over 60 “contractors” have died in Iraq, with very little press. Since mercenaries operate outside the military, their rules of engagement are not as clearly defined and there is less pressure for an investigation if the rules are bent. Those qualities come in handy when there’s a messy job to be done.
Best of all, with tens of thousands of mercenary soldiers and construction and transportation workers in Iraq, the Bush administration can push back the day when it must call for a politically-suicidal draft. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been widely quoted in the last week saying that if the generals in Iraq want more troops, he’ll send them. As if Don Rumsfeld lets the guys in the field call the shots. As if we didn’t know Mr. Rumsfeld has given the generals direct orders NOT to ask for more troops, at least not now.
This war – so far – has been good for mercenaries, good for the corporations that hire them and good for the Bush administration. It has not been good for American taxpayers who have been ripped off, it has not been good for soldiers short on gear because billions have been diverted to mercenaries, it has not been good for the stability of the volatile Middle East and it has not been good for the bereaved parents, widows and orphans of American war dead.
Who Is It Good For?
Years ago, Edwin Starr asked the musical question, “War – what is it good for?” and the rhetorical answer was “absolutely nothing.” Problem is, Ed asked the wrong question. If instead, he’d asked, “War – who is it good for?” he’d have gotten a very different answer.
War was not good for the four Americans who were killed and whose bodies were mutilated in Fallujah last week, nor was it good for their families back home, subjected to grisly images of their loved ones’ deaths.
There is some misinformation circulating about these men. They are described in the media as “contractors who worked for Blackwater Security Consulting.” That’s a euphemism. The men were mercenaries, soldiers for hire. There are 20,000 mercenaries in Iraq, working for the U.S. government through the Coalition Provisional Authority, heavily armed and engaging in firefights with Iraqis. In Najaf last week, mercenaries fought side by side with U.S. troops against the Shi’ite Madhi Army.
These mercenaries, almost all of them former military personnel of the U.S or other armies, are hired to guard and escort and provide security – things the military used soldiers for in past wars. War is good for mercenaries, at least while they’re alive. They’re paid around $1,000 a day, many times what a soldier earns. They don’t have to sign up for four years at a stretch and their employer can’t shoot them for desertion if they run away. The security company provides the equipment mercenaries need, like body armor. GIs have to ask mom and dad to spend hundreds of dollars buying body armor and shipping it to Iraq because the Pentagon is falling down on the job.
War is good for the companies that hire the mercenaries, like Blackwater Security Consulting of Moyock, North Carolina, because if the guys with the boots on the ground are making a grand a day, you know there’s plenty to go around back at corporate HQ. If this reminds you of Halliburton, it should. Besides shooting at Iraqis, the CPA has hired private firms to take over military tasks from building mess halls and digging latrines to transporting supplies and fixing equipment. The bodyguards who protect American Proconsul L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer are not U.S. soldiers, but Blackwater mercenaries. The huge contracts let in Iraq may be the apotheosis of the government privatization schemes conservatives have been pushing for decades, although in practice it looks like the kind of taxpayer ripoff perpetrated by Milo Minderbinder in Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22.”
War, and the mercenary armies that fight them, are good for the Bush administration. First, it’s part of the vast Republican money-laundering machine. The Bushies take over a billion dollars of taxpayer money each week and spend it on the Iraq war. Much of it goes to contractors like Blackwater and Halliburton and Bechtel. These contractors skim off some of the money and donate it back to the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, the Republican National Committee, a host of GOP candidates across the country and right-wing think tanks. After years of feeding like pigs at the public trough, executives at these corporations decide to “serve the public” by running for political office, from where they steer more taxpayer money to their cronies on the outside and the cycle perpetuates itself. This is what Karl Rove means when he talks about “the party of permanent majority.” (Of course, this not only applies to the Pentagon, but also the Agriculture Department, the Food and Drug Administration, etc. etc.)
Mercenaries are good for Mr. Bush politically because it’s not newsworthy when they die, unless their bodies are dragged through the streets for video crews. Over 60 “contractors” have died in Iraq, with very little press. Since mercenaries operate outside the military, their rules of engagement are not as clearly defined and there is less pressure for an investigation if the rules are bent. Those qualities come in handy when there’s a messy job to be done.
Best of all, with tens of thousands of mercenary soldiers and construction and transportation workers in Iraq, the Bush administration can push back the day when it must call for a politically-suicidal draft. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been widely quoted in the last week saying that if the generals in Iraq want more troops, he’ll send them. As if Don Rumsfeld lets the guys in the field call the shots. As if we didn’t know Mr. Rumsfeld has given the generals direct orders NOT to ask for more troops, at least not now.
This war – so far – has been good for mercenaries, good for the corporations that hire them and good for the Bush administration. It has not been good for American taxpayers who have been ripped off, it has not been good for soldiers short on gear because billions have been diverted to mercenaries, it has not been good for the stability of the volatile Middle East and it has not been good for the bereaved parents, widows and orphans of American war dead.
(c) Mark Floegel, 2004