War is Peace

17May07

I went on the Army recruiting web site to see just what is in that goodie bag we’re handing out to those who enlist.  I found: “Depending on how long you enlist with the Army and the job you choose, you can get up to $72,900 to help pay for college.”  And, “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently estimated that the average Active Duty service member received a compensation package worth $99,000.”  But it seems even that is not enough.

In an article entitled “Outsourcing the War”, The Nation reported:

Jeremy Scahill…testified May 10 before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on the impact of private military contractors on the conduct of the Iraq War.

“… there are at least 126,000 private personnel deployed alongside the official armed forces. These private forces effectively double the size of the occupation force, largely without the knowledge of the US taxpayers that foot the bill.”

“[W]e face the widespread use of private forces seemingly accountable to no effective system of oversight or law.”

“These forces work for US companies like Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp as well as companies from across the globe. Some contractors make in a month what many active-duty soldiers make in a year. Indeed, there are private contractors in Iraq making more money than the Secretary of Defense and more than the commanding generals. The testimony about private contractors that I hear most often from active duty soldiers falls into two categories: resentment and envy.”

“[American Soldiers] are in a war zone where they see the private soldiers whiz by in better vehicles, with better armor, better weapons, wearing the corporate logo instead of the American flag and pulling in much more money. “

“In closing, while I think this Congress needs to take urgent action on issues of oversight, accountability and transparency of these private forces operating with our tax dollars and in the name of the United States, there is a deeper issue that often gets overlooked. This war contracting system has intimately linked corporate profits to an escalation of war and conflict. These companies have no incentive to decrease their footprint in the war zone and every incentive to increase it.”

After reading his testimony I don’t see what the big deal is.  Where is the salient difference between private war contractors and our own defense department?  Sure, the private war contractors have a record of being prosecuted for war crimes far less often than their enlisted and less paid counterparts; so they get more freedom and more money.  No downside there.  And, they don’t have to be factored into the total number of fighting or dying men and women; so they don’t get to be buried in Arlington, nor will their names be announced by PBS.  Sorry, no publicity; big deal.  Even Mr. Scahill’s final warning about defense contractors needing war to survive holds true for the Dept of Defense.  Both private contractors and the D.O.D. require conflict for sustenance.

The private firms skim off the top by recruiting from the ranks of the military itself.  They even have a name for it, “going Blackwater”, which means to cash in on one’s military experience.  Soldiers will sign a contract with some independent contractor or other instead of re-upping with the armed forces.  This tells me the kind of person who gets recruited by Blackwater is the same as gets recruited by the Army, but with a little more experience.  Basically our military is the minor league farm system for the professional private warriors:  the mercenaries.

Mercenaries go fight (by definition someone else’s) war for money.  Judging from the recruiting literature available online, it seems the best recruiting sales pitch the armed services have is to promise money or some other quantifiable bonus (tax credits, no cost college loans, etc.).  It must work; it is the most visible and repeated promise. 

Besides the monetary gain, there is little else promised to a prospective soldier.  There are occasional references to “protecting America’s freedom”.  Then there is the ever-appealing vague improvement promise, but these appeals are indistinguishable from the promises made to me by recruiters at my first job.  ‘Develop your leadership potential’ and similar hogwash rings equally hollow in the for-profit and defense sectors. 

I suppose these must be poor kids if they are willing to risk their lives for cash, but some folks are willing to put themselves through hellish treatment to win the proverbial carrot.  We’ve seen this in reality TV, mixed martial arts, etc.  Is the only difference between going to war and being a contestant the odds and extent of potential harm? 

We don’t call our service men and women mercinaries, because they are our military and we are at war.  Why do we, the American populace, allow the lie and lie to ourselves that ‘we are at war’?  In his article, “Are We at War?”, Zizek says, “The problem is that America is, precisely, not in a state of war, at least not in the conventional sense of the term (for the large majority, daily life goes on, and war remains the exclusive business of state agencies). With the distinction between a state of war and a state of peace thus effectively blurred, we are entering a time in which a state of peace can at the same time be a state of emergency.”

The point is this: we are sending mercenaries to wage war so the ‘American’ way of life can remain unaffected (or else the terrorists win).  What is so shocking about these mercenaries is they are home-grown mercenaries, farmed from our own country.  We are not at war, the kids in the military and the career soldiers contracted out are at war.  Average Americans are not at war; our military is simply gainfully employed. 

Filed under: Iraq, Poitics   |  2 Comments