The Poet's Eye
commentary by Lightning Rod
The Poets' Eye is skeptical without being cynical, innocent without being naive and critical without being judgemental.
War Anonymous Inc.
04-07-05
"Building up a surrogate military force, along the lines of the French Foreign Legion or the Gurkhas, has been the ambition of conservatives for many years." James Ridgeway --Villiage Voice
One thing that historians cite when listing the causes for the fall of the Roman Empire is the shift from citizen soldiers to paid mercenaries. With the fruits of empire flowing into Rome, the citizen soldiers became more inclined to hire the fightning done rather than leave the comfort of their estates.
Now we see that the second largest contingent, behind the US Military, in Iraq is not the tauted 'Coalition' but private mercenaries. In fact there are more mercenaries deployed in Iraq than all the combined non-American coalition forces. "Private Security Forces" is a Newspeak euphemism for 'Mercenary.' In other words, they are irregular soldiers who are fighting for money rather than conviction or the defence of homeland.
Here in Northern Virginia the countryside is fairly bristling with private security firms who are getting rich on the lucrative contracts from the dream customer (rich, dumb and slow)--the US government. Just south of here, in North Carolina, we find the secret compound of Blackwater Security. They are busily importing recruits from Chile, The Phillipines, Bosnia as well as Special Forces exes trained by the US military. Perhaps you saw several of them decorating the bridge in Fallujah last week. These are experienced military thugs that are working for as much as a thousand bucks a day while a typical army grunt gets a couple of thousand per month. Sure beats army pay (especially if you are from Chile.) But private soldiers are not accountable to the usual rules of engagement and decorum. They are handy to have around when the dirty work needs to be done quietly, but are they entitled to the rights of regular soldiers under the Geneva convention?
War has long been the province of States. These are huge corporations with CEO's called Kings or Prime Ministers or Seiks or Dictators or Presidents. Now, with the advent of globalization and free enterprise, even upstart companies like Al Queda, Islamic Jihad Inc, The Crips and Blackwater Security can play with the Big Boys and start their very own wars in their basements.
The Poet's Eye sees that If there is such thing as a 'Coalition,' it is a coalition between the American military and Halliburton, Bechtel and a handful of other favored corporations who are reaping large profits by virtue of this imperial adventure, and private armies like Blackwater Security where the soldiers are paid ten times what a National Guardsman from Hometown USA is getting.
War profiteering is certianly nothing new. Ever since soldiers have been wearing shoes there has been someone making money by selling them those shoes. But rarely have the shoemakers been in a position to Start a war in order to sell thier shoes. Dick Cheney's once and future alma mater, Halliburton, is the biggest contractor in Iraq. How cozy.
By siezing the oilfields in Iraq (second largest reserves in the world behind Saudi Arabia) Bushco has positioned it's corporate cronies to make literally billions of dollars by maintaining and protecting and servicing the production of that oil. They may even give the Iraqi people a little share of it.
A few days ago Edward Kennedy compared George Bush to Richard Nixon in terms of honesty and has asserted that Iraq is Bush's Viet Nam. There are similarities. Both countries were experiencing intramural religious conflicts in which the minority was in power and both countries had attractive natural resources. Viet Nam was a quagmire for the same reason that Iraq is bound to become one: No matter how well equipped and determined an invading and occupying army may be, it is almost impossible to overcome an enemy who is fighting for his own land. They will fight for generations. As soon as we discovered that Viet Nam didn't have the oil that we thought it had, we were quite content to abandon the place 'with honor.'
For all the rhetoric you hear from the parrot mouth of the President about democracy building and liberating the Iraqi people, now that we have our hands on the oilfields, Bushco is quite ready to cut and run by this Summer and let the Sunnis and the Shi'ites duke it out. In the meantime our armies and the armies of the private thugs that we've hired will continue to keep enough order so that the oil can flow.
The Poet's Eye squints. If Bush and Cheney want to garrison the world, let them reinstate the draft and see what that does to their political fortunes. They would rather pour the taxpayer's money into the pockets of their buddies rather than take the political heat of having another 50 or 60 thousand troops stationed in Iraq.
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