This Year, Contractor Deaths Exceed Military Ones in Iraq and Afghanistan

[cory777]

Source: ProPublica

More private contractors than soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, the first time in history that corporate casualties have outweighed military losses on America’s battlefields.

More than 250 civilians working under U.S. contracts died in the war zones between January and June 2010, according to a ProPublica analysis of the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Labor, which tracks contractor deaths. In the same period, 235 soldiers died, according to Pentagon figures.

This milestone in the privatization of modern U.S. warfare reflects both the drawdown in military forces in Iraq and the central role of contractors in providing logistics support to local armies and police forces, contracting and military experts said.

Steven Schooner, a professor of government contracting at George Washington University Law School, said that the contractor deaths show how the risks of war have increasingly been absorbed by the private sector. Private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan provide fuel, food and protective services to U.S. outposts — jobs once performed by soldiers.

Read more: http://www.propublica.org/article/this-year-contractor-deaths-exceed-military-ones-in-iraq-and-afgh-100923

---

Activist News http://activistnews.blogspot.com

[Ikonoklast]

1. These are mostly people that never carried a weapon.

Truck drivers, skilled trades, food service, and other support.


Not every military contractor is a mercenary.

[herbm]

2. Not so. The majority of these paycheck patriots are working security and they out numbered US troops

for a while in Afghanistan. Don't weep for these people, they bought into it and were paid very well for thier blood. All mercinaries are of a low low ilk and get no sympathy for thier "sacrifice" or any praise for thier outrages. Not from thier masters, not from thier victims.

[izquierdista]

3. This is a positive development

Let the 'contractors' absorb ALL the deaths. Then make them fight each other instead of brown people half a world away. Then move all the contractors to an arena and televise it. Then wait for the Huns and the Goths to sack Washington and be done with this damn empire.

[w8liftinglady]

4. if you look at their websites..there is a disproportionate amt of Veteran references...

http://www.americancontractorsiniraq.com/

which tells me there are more than a few iraq and Afghanistan war vets going.i should know-my son(an Army three-timer) and 2 of his buddies are leaving for Afghanistan...as contractors.Nothing for them here.