mercenaries

An increasing reliance on "private security companies" by the United States has led to a recent report by Amnesty International accusing it of "war outsourcing."

Amnesty's Executive Director Larry Cox states that "War outsourcing is creating the corporate equivalent of Guantánamo Bay — a virtual rules-free zone in which perpetrators are not likely to be held accountable for breaking the law." He goes on to claim that the U.S. "has sacrificed its most fundamental principle [human rights] by abusing prisoners as a matter of policy, by 'disappearing' detainees into a network of secret prisons and by abducting and sending people for interrogation to countries that practice torture." This doesn't seem like the sort of thing a country leading the war against terror should be doing.

In a somewhat related matter, the "military contractor" Blackwater USA is being sued for the wrongful death of four employees killed in Falluja, Iraq. Blackwater is a "professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations firm" according to its website. Essentially, the U.S. pays them to do the same job as the military. Well, not quite. The U.S. pays Halliburton, which pays another security firm, ESS, slightly less. They then pay another firm, Regency, slightly less, which pays Blackwater slightly less. Blackwater then goes on to pay its employees slightly less. Profit for everyone.

The mind-boggling details are a bit too complex to relate here, but The Nation does a good job.

Blackwater doesn't discriminate, though. They've profited nicely from Hurricane Katrina, are prepared to take on "the Darfur account."