Policy of hiring mercenaries as bodyguards for U.S. officials raises question about Iraq mission

[ProSense]

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

From King George the Third to the Third President George: History Repeats Itself. Or, Why Blackwater is Worse Than Whitewater

Paul Finkelman

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The dangers of using a private army are clear. Employees of various companies, including Blackwater, USA, have been charged to senseless killings, reckless killings, and just plain cold blooded killings. I hesitate to say they have participated in murders, because “murder” implies a legal regime where murder is a crime. These mercenaries seem to above the law.

The new mercenaries are not merely civilian employees of western contractors. They have also been hired by Department of State to be bodyguards for U.S. officials in Iraq, including the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Thus we have the odd, utterly peculiar situation. The United States government is hiring mercenaries who are not even under our legal authority, to do the job that our own military or federal law enforcement agencies should do. We have outsourced the protection of our more important diplomatic and civilian officials to hired guns.

This policy raises significant questions about the nature of our mission in Iraq. It also seems to be an implicit insult to our own military. Are the U.S. Marines – the traditional embassy guards – no longer able to protect our ambassador? Are the Marines and other forces spread so thin that they cannot spare troops to defend the U.S. embassy and its staff? Or is the nature of the Iraq adventure such that we do not want marines and soldiers in this kind of “harm’s way.” Rather, we want mercenaries who do not have to answer to U.S. law or military law, to protect the ambassador, so that the mercenaries can always shoot first and ask questions later, and not be subject to any legal sanctions.

Jefferson was right on the mercenary issue. Nation’s that fight their wars with mercenaries run the great risk of having their hired guns carry out “Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny” under “circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.” Sadly, the more he sanctions the use of mercenaries, hired guns, and armed cowboys on helicopters, the more our Third President George begins to look like our nation’s first enemy, George the Third.

[uppityperson]

1. k&r

[ProSense]

2. Kick! n/t

[ProSense]

3. Kick! n/t