I was shocked a few weeks ago to learn that Blackwater, a company with a DOD contract, has more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than the US military has--a lot more, actually! And these troops, unlike our Department of Defense soldiers, have salaries in the 6 digits! These troops are not counted in any death toll of US soldiers because, well, they are not US soldier. In fact, I wonder who, if anyone, has any level of oversight over what this contracted company is really doing. My gut tells me that neither the Congress nor the President do.
I'm increasingly worried that our representative government is broken beyond repair, is bought and sold at the whim of national and transglobal corporations. "We the people?"
The fact is our all volunteer military has long since departed from the citizen soldier military our founders had in mind and is now professional force that is close to becoming a permanent class of mercenaries set apart in virtually gated communities rather than citizen soldiers. And with today's contractors we've taken the fateful next step: America now fields a truly imperial mercenary force. ...
Fighting wars without national mobilization is a sign of decadence. It means that sacrifice is denied and ignored by most while a few pay the price for a system that depends on an out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind military. This is also part of a crazy anti-government right wing nuttiness, wherein "privatizing" everything, now even our military, is seen as "good." Everything must turn a profit, right? Everything is about choice. right? ...
The United States needs to face the truth: If we don't have the stomach to reintroduce the draft and have a military large enough to do the military's job we should stop fighting wars around the globe. We should also stop lying to ourselves. If the American public doesn't support our wars to the extent that they will tolerate a draft and much higher taxes then our wars are bogus.
[From Frank Schaeffer: Military Contractors and Our Buck-Stops-Nowhere "Wars"]
Leave a comment