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UN: Security Contractors Are Mercenaries
Well, Erik Prince won't like this.
A few weeks ago, the Blackwater CEO explained that he didn't like for his employees to be called "mercenaries," which he regards "a slanderous term, kind of an inflammatory word [used] to malign us." Unfortunately for Prince, the United Nations has just embraced that inflammatory word.
Private security companies operate without supervision or accountability in war zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and represent a new form of mercenary activity, a United Nations report said on Tuesday.The United States' reliance on private contractors has fuelled a growing demand for former police and military personnel in developing countries to be recruited as "security guards" who in fact serve as private armed soldiers, it said.
These forces enjoy de facto impunity under national laws that grant immunity to private military and private security company personnel, according to the U.N. working group on the use of mercenaries. Its report will be presented to the General Assembly on Wednesday.
"The trend towards outsourcing and privatizing various military functions by a number of member states in the past 10 years has resulted in the mushrooming of private military and security companies," the report said.
Companies like Blackwater represent "new modalities of mercenarism," according to the report. No word yet as to which private security contractor will be the first to make that its new corporate motto.
Comments (10)
V nagarajan wrote on November 6, 2007 1:33 PM:Very interesting, because these soldiers of fortune outfits, especially Blackwater have been trying to get "peace-keeping" contracts from the UN.
Michael wrote on November 6, 2007 1:57 PM:I don't know what the big deal is about how they are labled. Countries have been hiring mercenaries for thousands of years. It's the old addage, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, its a duck.
Call them what they are mercenaries. I would love to see the king tell the american people that he is hiring mercenaries from all over the world on tax payer dollars to go fight his war for him. Also, he should point out that they get paid 3 times what our soldiers do, and they get to kill with impunity. Sounds like the start of a great speach.
Dennis wrote on November 6, 2007 2:06 PM:Forget Congress, in time to come, these "businesses" will be doing the bidding of the corporations in the USA; union busting, mugging, intimidation, assassinations, against any single American or group who protest against the corporations or get in the way of profits.
Let us not be surprised if one day, a "business" is involved in the assassination of a foreign leader (remember Iran - Contra?) at the orders of a corporate head.
Let us not be surprised to see anything that the imagination can visualize that may come from one of these "businessess".
These "businessess" will become the "private armys" of corporations.
Watch and see. That's the next step.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
bwindrip wrote on November 6, 2007 2:40 PM:The scary part about giving these creeps the boot from Baghdad is that they would be coming back to the states where Prince and company have been aggressively chasing new markets.
They are positioned to become the new "Corpos"*.
*("It Can't Happen Here", by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1935.)
hwalsh wrote on November 6, 2007 2:54 PM:Dennis,
Not the next step, but part of a long tradition. Pinkertons, for example, and many more.
After Katrina, according Jeremy Scahill in The Nation, Blackwater and several other mercenary organizations were on the job in New Orleans "protecting" private estates and businesses.
I was involved in a vicious New York waterfront strike in 1988. The tug boat companies employed a strike breaking "private security" company from Ohio. An army of these mercenaries occupied all the docks in the harbor.
The real danger comes when the right wing crazies employ these experts to interrupt vote counts more efficiently than the volunteer rioters they sent to Miami in 2000. You can bet on it. Blackwater will be used against non compliant working and middle class Americans regular in the future.
Dennis wrote on November 6, 2007 3:48 PM:hwalsh wrote on November 6, 2007 2:54 PM: Dennis, Not the next step, but part of a long tradition. Pinkertons, for example, and many more."
I've never been involved in a strike, although I called for a statewide strike of teachers one time. I'd have gotton it too, except that I was inexperienced and spoke at the beginning of the meeting instead of waiting until the meeting was a little more "heated".
I protested at the G8 meeting in Savannah, Ga. It really didn't pan out, but one out of every nine was a "buster/undercover" of some sort; cop, military, feds.... That's how scared they were of protestors.
What we teach the kids in school, "liberty and JUSTICE??? for all" is a big joke.
That some of the Democrats are so damned afraid of indicting the White House for war crimes is pathetic.
And they want Aamericans to vote for them?
And Republicans aren't going to do that. Yet nothing would bolster the U.S. in the eyes of the rest of the world than to try our own war criminals.
Yeah. You can bet that in the future all protests of any sort will have Blackwater "busters" in the crowd - in fact, that has already become a standard tactic.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
Jeff wrote on November 6, 2007 9:55 PM:In light of where most of the money for Iraq is really going: Instead of saying "support our troops" the king should say "support our mercenaries".
Kelvin Phillips wrote on November 7, 2007 7:43 AM:(Michael wrote on November 6, 2007 1:57 PM:
I don't know what the big deal is about how they are labled. Countries have been hiring mercenaries for thousands of years. It's the old addage, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, its a duck.)
---snip---
Except that the U.N. several years ago passed a resolution banning mercenaries, in part because of their ability to destablized Third world nations, especially on the African continent. This is why mercs now call themselves security
Dieter Heymann wrote on November 7, 2007 9:44 PM:I first encountered the word mercenaries when I learned about the French Foreign Legion. Ever since a mercenary to me is a citizen of state A hired by the Government of State B to do some dirty work for B. Blackwater is a nasty and probably criminal outfit but, in my book, they are not mercenaries. Hirelings will do for me.
mohammad wrote on November 13, 2007 4:08 AM:how can i get ajob in security fields,
whome i should contact.
thank you