Civilian contractors: Invisible casualties of Iraq

[leftchick]

http://shns.abc15.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=CONTRACTDEATHS-02-23-06&cat=WW


WASHINGTON - During his year in Iraq as a top security contractor, Michael Heidingsfield watched his employees perish at the rate of one a month, all victims of roadside bombs set by anti-American insurgents.

Heidingsfield, now safely home in Germantown, Tenn., lost 13 colleagues in just 13 months. They were seven American and six South African security experts recruited by DynCorp International to help train Iraqi police.

"What is even more tragic is that I have been back six weeks and eight more have been killed," said Heidingsfield, 55, who in December ended his tour as contingent commander of the State Department's Police Advisory Mission in Iraq.

<snip>

"The lack of numbers - missing on everything from how much we are spending to how many are being killed or wounded - is just stunning for this day and age," said Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based research and policy center.

[ClintonTyree]

1. "Contractors", ot war profiteers?

Anyone who's willing to go to Iraq to make money. lots of it, should know the risks they're taking. There's other ways to, "put food on your family", and making money at the expense of other people's misery doesn't sit well with me. I'm not wishing harm upon anyone, but when you put yourself in that position to make almighty dollar don't come crying to me when the worst case scenario happens.

[Webster Green]

2. Good riddance!....Fuck those assholes!

I hope they all get killed! :rofl:

[Sub Atomic]

5. That's uncalled for.

[Webster Green]

7. Uncalled for?........kind of like the occupation of Iraq?...

These asshole mercenaries are scum. Almost as low as DEA agents.

Good riddance!:rofl:

[RazzleDazzle]

3. DynCorp: very evil corp

and not the only one.

Privatization --> fascism, I now realize. We should never ever have allowed the privatization of ANYthing in the military.

If you think about it, it actually defies common sense: how can a corporation provide equal services at the same or better costs/price when a corporation is obligated to add PROFIT on top of its costs?

I loathe all privatization, but I also fear it in this realm. We don't need no freakin' private armies. And the U.S. Govt doesn't need to be PAYING for private armies.

All that said, I also know in my heart that DynCorp (and the rest) aren't any less evil in regard to how they treat employees. It's no doubt exploitation all the way.

[coalition_unwilling]

4. Would you please stop calling them "contractors"?

They're "mercenaries." While I'm sorry when anyone dies a violent death before his\her time, these mercenaries attract the least amount of my sorrow, when compared to Iraqi civilians or poor dumb U.S. enlisted who joined for a college education.

BTW: The Iraqi resistance are not "insurgents" (which implies that at some point in the past they were satisfied and then somehow became dissatisfied and "surged"). Call them the "resistance"

[RethugAssKicker]

8. Hear... Hear... brother

[leftchick]

14. hey I have to print the actual headlines per DU rules

I agree they are mercenaries and I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for their ilk.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

6. necessary for the GREATER awareness here at home-We are NOT the Good Guys

These "contractors"--( most people assume they are "construction" project managers and workers)
must be exposed.

it's Good they are pissed-->If they start demanding their deaths be counted then the public must first be
made aware of their existence.

That would be a big step for our "bought and paid for" media
that acts as an indentured servants to this _misAdministration

.

and once the word is "out" these guys signing up can see
EXACTLY what they're getting into before they sign up with some company
to carry a weapon...
it ain't 28 days on an offshore oil rig-
(These mercenaries risk a 50/50 life/death gamble---Very bad odds)

NOTE:And for those who say good riddance---
---realize that they DON't deserve what they get by going over there-
They likely don't realize the gravity of the situation--
Our demand for the almighty dollar drives prople to take risks...
...but these risks are just too great --

I think many who sign up are NOT aware of this.

[gratuitous]

9. Oh, who will mourn for the mercenaries and war profiteers?

I can barely type, my hands are wringing so fretfully over the unfortunate demise of those who seek their personal enrichment out of such a sorry situation. Just breaks my heart that someone making a quarter million dollars tax free (whilst his company collects half a million dollars from Uncle Sam to pay him) should be kilt in such a heartless fashion with no one to weep and wail at his funeral.

Where's the parade for the mercenary? How come he doesn't get a hero's welcome home?

[uppityperson]

10. A friend's brother was killed, working in Iraq. NOT security, but contract

Yes, some of them are mercenaries (like the guys in this story), perhaps ready to sell their souls to whoever will pay them the most, trading sides at the drop of a dollar, etc, but many contractors are just plain people, trying to help out by doing their jobs. Some are trying to help by working on fixing up the infrastructure that the USAmilitary has destroyed and saying "fuck them all those evil people" is way too simplistic and nasty thinking and shame on you. My friend's brother was working on fixing up some of the war damage and got killed. His death is not counted as war-dead. I don't care about hearing "oh but it is our fault he was there so he got what he was asking for" because that is total bs. He was there to help fix up some of the damage caused by his country, rather like people are going to our south gulf coast to help fix up some of the damaged caused by our country in MS and LA.

[Ben Ceremos]

17. I often think that

general condemnations are emotional, not rational. No need to take it personally. It does pertain to "evil ones" and NOT to those who may have "noble" motives. I get a kind of "Pat Tillman feeling about 'signing up' for an illegal war" and that informs much of what I think about Iraq and those contractors who are there to "fix up some of the damage caused by his country".
May have been a sign of real peaceful and fraternal intent to have protested the war, as opposed to abetting it. My opinion...

[suffragette]

11. And the administration keeps the casualty count lower

than it actually is by outsourcing military functions to merceneries and then not adding them in the overall count.

[Jacobin]

12. Bingo. That is what is going on

'Hey, they're not soldiers, just 'contractors'...pay no attention to those deaths.'

[suffragette]

13. Yep, and they siphon money to the now partially privatized

military, which goes into the pockets of the rich owners of these corporations.
I also wonder how much of the "job creation" numbers are from these types of operations.

It's a win, win, win situation from the administration's point of view.
But, the rest of us lose.

[Hekate]

15. The military privatized essential support functions like mess halls

There's a whole bunch of civilians over there who aren't mercs -- truck drivers, cooks, you name it.

There's a whole bunch of people in the US on the brink of financial ruin because their middle class blue collar jobs are gone, replaced by Wal-Mart wages, on which no one can support a family.

So the contractor recruiter puts an ad in your paper for interviews and the salary looks REAL good, and you figure what the hell, a year there and you can catch up on the mortgage and the medical bills and come out ahead, and then come home to the wife and kids. After all, they wouldn't be hiring civilians if the job was really dangerous -- would they?

So yes folks, I have sympathy for the unnamed, maimed, and dead civilian contractors, because they, too, have been screwed over by Bushco and Halliburton.

Hekate

edited for typo

[ronnie624]

16. "Security contractor"

Mmm hmm.

I wish death on no one, but I have little sympathy for mercenaries. They are a legitimate target for those resisting aggressive war and occupation.