U.S. Mercenaries detained in Iraq after shooting at U.S. Marines

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After the CPA granted U.S. hired mecenaries immunity from prosecution in Iraq, there was a controversy about accountability. The reasons were quite simple questions, like: Who's liable if one of those cowboys shoots a civilian, damages his property?

Atm, there are more mercenaries in Iraq than non-U.S. coalition troops.

Some have said that calls for trouble. Well, today the U.S. military investigates contractors - for firing at U.S. Marines.

Of course, there also is a contractor side of this story - they complain they were treated like insurgents.

The serious question this poses to me is the commercialisation of war - who's accountable for outsourced spying, interrogation, outsourced war? Is this erosion of the monopoly of force of the state?

What about the costs? Aren't mercenaries interested in prolonged war to maintain employment and good profits and isn't it thus in the best interest of a country willing to end a war not to hire them?

I'd like to hear your thoughts.

[ June 09, 2005, 16:42: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Using mercenaries is allways risky, especially at the point when you stop paying them. They might easily form guriella armies to fight against the US and the Iraq government. They fight for the ones who pay the most and often do not have any particular loyality to any master. They might be necessary though if you don't have enough troops yourself, but one should allways keep an eye on them and never rely too much on their performance.

 

Well, commercialization of war is hardly new. See: Xenophon's Anabasis

As far as the erosion of monopoly of force...nah. America's been using mercs at least since (and during) Vietnam, and most likely earlier. Unless and until it becomes feasable for "normal people" to acquire significant amounts of military grade weaponry without the consent of the state, the state will always have a monopoly on serious force.

The contractors may have automatic rifles, but the military has tanks. And gunships. And strategic bombers. And...yeah.

 

"more than 20,000.." That's two divisions, maybe more. Quite a lot of unregulated firepower running around. It's surprising there haven't been a lot more incidents. Or maybe they just go unreported. The Bush administration seems to be willing to outsource everything except themselves.

 

It would appear that both sides put out good arguements against each other, but then again both sides are not telling the complete story... Only time will tell.

 

Is the sexual humiliation theme ever going to end in the American enforcement? How to prepare prisoners for interrogation? Strip them. How to show prisoners their place? Strip them. What to do with arrested people to show them how serious this is? Strip them. Preferably with opposite gender folks around. Preferably with cameras.

 

I have an idea!

How 'bout the UK sends over all its Happy Slappers to be trained as military prison guards at Gitmo, Abu Graib, etc. Not only will the UK get rid of a social ill, but the US Army will solve its recruitment problems, in one, single elegant gesture... everybody wins!

 

Why don' we just send the chavs instead?


ANyway, how many friendly fire incidences have their been before this?

Double standards here.

 

Question: Who is PAYING these mercs? The government? Private companies? Pet companies like Halliburton?

If these Mercs are American citizens, then they can still be charged with treason if they are caught working for any enemy of the state, am I right?

 

Yes.

Not if they are given immunity from prosecution.

They could have that immunity revoked, but then they could only tried for future infractions. You can't remove their immunity and then charge them with something they committed while they had immunity - that's ex post facto.

 

And as a result of that mercs in Iraq have a blanc cheque.

Even if they committed an cold blooded murder on Baghdads streets, with a thousand witnesses and documentation on video, they'd be free of proseution. Thanks to Bremer's CPA decree, Iraq must not prosecute them.

The worst thing they had to fear, after the Iraqi lynchmob (which, in case it succeeds, would justify the flattening of another Iraqi city, as it did in Fallujah), would be to be expelled from Iraq and losing employment with their contractor - pretty cheap.

Same for destruction of property or murting of civilians - the Iraqis can't demand compensation for it, because these folks are immune.

 

I wonder if, in the end, the armed services are just to "socialist" for this administration. I mean, think about it: the military has a massive government granted professional status, which gives it a great deal of protection from civilian interests, both political and private. It had a big say over its own budget and how to spend it, it runs its own courts, its own educational facilities, its own bureaucracies, its own pay scales and promotions, it has its own hospital system and pension plan, it encourages group identity and hierarchy (as opposed to individualism), and it continues a number of traditions along those lines. Not so free market, eh?

Off topic: a quick statistical analysis of Ragusa at AoLS. Out of the last 69 topics, 29 (42%) were started by Ragusa, while the remaining 40 (58%) were started by 20 other SPers. So, out of this pool of 21 AoLS New Topic Starters (AoLSNTSs), the non-Ragusa AoLSNTSs started on average 2 new threads, while the Ragusa AoLSNTS started on average 29 new threads. On aggregate, then, the Ragusa AoLSNTS is 14.5 times more likely to start a new AoLS topic than the individual non-Ragusa AoLSNTS (or, alternately: in the AoLS, Ragusa does the work of 14.5 SPers).

Statistical analysis remains to be done on whether or not Ragusa is to the AoLS what Aldeth the Foppish Idiot is to polls.

 

Hmm.. I wonder if Ragusa was ever interested in RPGs or CRPGs.

 

hehe, well, check the 'old' BG-2 SoA and ToB archives ... iirc I made my first 3.000 or so posts there, you NEWBIES

And then ... looking about the posts in AoLS, Tal transferred a lot of the controversal AoDA threads to AoLS - including many of mine. That is, their being here doesn't necessarily mean I wrote them in the short time AoLS is in existence, though admittedly, I have an impact.

Except for that, I sort of got tired of BG-2 as I -- still -- know the game by heart, just like BG, NWN, IWD, IWD-2, and for other RPGs I atm lack the time or patience - but maybe I'll give PST a try.

Politics have always been with me and now are a sort of a focus. Also, I take a degree of grim satisfaction from having been consistently righter than some of the right on Iraq, with a grain of salt, I, the renowned America hater , think I have earned a right to gloat a little and rub their noses into it.

 

What!? You haven't played PST!?!?

I *knew* it! Ragusa stands for RAG [on the] USA!

 

To paraphrase Orwell:

 

Hm, apparently the contractors have a lot worse picture of what happens to insurgents than some people in power do... or is it perhaps clearer?

At least they said what they understand by "being treated like insurgents."

By the way, really, who employs all these mercs? I'm pretty sure the corporations there keep some on the payroll, but I think some "security contractors" were hired by the armed forces... Anyone can shed a little more light on this?