I've spent most of the past week in Galena, IL at my in-laws. While flipping back-and-forth between football games I kept passing a hip-looking, very earnest young man giving a talk on what looked like a local cable-access channel. After about the tenth time passing through, I decided to stop and see what he was selling. It turns out the guy was Jeremy Scahill. The video was from May and he was talking about America's use of mercenary soldiers in Iraq in general and a group called Blackwater in particular. Blackwater wanted to buy a facility in Jo Davies County to train their people for service in Iraq. Mr. Scahill is opposed to Blackwater's activities and wanted to enlighten the citizens as to the nature of the business. As it turns out, we have something like 130,000 mercenary soldiers in Iraq (this is nearly half of our military manpower!). They get paid better than our troops and they have little-to-no accountability to our military. Our government doesn't have to report their deaths. Whereas our soldiers are under an imperfect judicial system whereby they can be prosecuted for crimes committed, mercenaries are accountable to no one. They also can't be prosecuted in Iraqi courts. Basically, they're a reckless, irresponsible, expensive adjunct to our own soldiers.
I make no claim to be an expert in war, foreign policy, or government contracts, but it seems to me that if a country's military can't handle a conflict with their available manpower, they shouldn't be at war. Shame on us.
Mr. Scahill's Blackwater Blog
Mr. Scahill on the Daily Show:
I found out from a guy at church the next day that the deal had in fact gone through and that mercenary soldiers were being trained in the old army depot in Savannah, Il. Too bad.
