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Down The Middle - Feb 20, 2005 - Printable Version
- The Dogs of War
by Down the Middle
Throughout the history of organized warfare, and nearly as old as the art of war itself, they have fought side by side, with such armies as King George's British "red coats" against the American Revolutionaries, and Alexander the Great's Greek phalanxes against Darius and his Persian hosts. During the Italian Renaissance, they were hired by the Condotierri for the protection of the cities www.geocities.com/wirepaladin.geo/c-wh3-ren-essay.htm , and even the Pope hired them for the Church's...and his own personal protection. www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/dalston/138/swisshp.htm They rushed to the aid of Rhodesia's white supremacist government against black nationalists in the 70's, and to the aid of the C.I.A. in Angola's civil war. They are the guns for hire, they are the soldiers of fortune, they are the "dogs of war". They are the mercenaries.
This age-old practice of hiring free-lance soldiers has found new life in the United States war in Iraq. Citing an almost invisible savings in the budget, the U.S. Defense Department has out-sourced many jobs that have traditionally fallen to the American soldier. Indeed, private military companies (PMCs) now account for more than twenty thousand of our "soldiers", in country. They have handled everything from "riding shotgun" on convoys and "street combat" in Fallujah to military "interrogations" at Abu Ghraib Prison.
Many of these soldiers of fortune are recruited from the ranks of the regular army, but there is nothing regular about the laws (or lack thereof) that govern these "irregulars". Although they can be prosecuted in U.S. Federal court, they cannot be held to the code of military justice because they are, in fact, private contractors. Another advantage of private contractors is that their deaths in combat are never tallied along with the regular army, avoiding the reality of even higher numbers of friendly K.I.A.s to the American and British audiences. www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6031.htm
The largest contingency of mercenaries in Iraq is provided by British firms who mainly recruit former SAS (Special Air Services). These former SAS commandos are highly regarded throughout the world for their skill and professionalism, but the British and American "security" firms are also recruiting soldiers from South Africa, Venezuela, the Ukraine, Israel, Bosnia, the Philippines, Nepal, the United States and......Figi? (I, myself, met a recently retired SAS commando just last year, who told me in a long conversation how he had "earned" his U.S citizenship by "helping us out" in Iraq and Columbia.)
In this era of privatization and out-sourcing, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that the Halliburton subsidiaries, Kellogg Brown & Root and Bectel, have hired Gurkas (Nepalize) to protect their executives in the war zone, but I would think most Americans are probably unaware that the U.S. Department of Defense has contracted mercenaries with such questionable back-grounds as former Chilean soldiers who trained under the regime of the notorious Agusto Pinochet and former South African secret police that stand charged with murdering anti-apartheid activists. www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/293982.html They are probably also unaware of the strain being put on U.S. and British special forces, as PMCs "hire away" our best at a time when we need them the most, in our fight against terrorism. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2004%2F03%2F31%2Fwspec31.xml
Although large numbers of mercenaries are once again being considered an integral, if not essential, part of the modern battlefield, the questions still remain. Should private armies be paid to do the fighting for our country, and should they be doing it for much higher pay than our own soldiers, who put their lives on the line for their country every day. (A skilled combat mercenary can make up to a thousand dollars a day in Iraq) There is no doubt, PMCs on the battlefield can give the Anglo-American alliance great advantages on the Iraqi battlefield, but is there something inherently immoral about hiring someone else to do your nation's fighting?
In Angola, several mercs, including American Daniel Gearhart, father of four who had only been in country for a few days, were captured and executed by the leftist MPLA.......
"Packs of dogs of war with blood-stained muzzles are out to cut down people's revolutions," the MPLA judges declared. "The only protection is to regard wars-to-order as a crime that covers all who fight for personal profit."
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