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"Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion."
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From: Johannes Schneider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date sent: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 09:07:55 +0200
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Subject: [Marxism] Shadow Soldiers in Iraq
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New York Times, April 19, 2004
Security Companies: Shadow Soldiers in Iraq
By DAVID BARSTOW
[...]
Far more than in any other conflict in United States history, the Pentagon
is relying on private security companies to perform crucial jobs once
entrusted to the military. In addition to guarding innumerable
reconstruction projects, private companies are being asked to provide
security for the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul
Bremer III, and other senior officials; to escort supply convoys through
hostile territory; and to defend key locations, including 15 regional
authority headquarters and even the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, the
center of American power in Iraq. With every week of insurgency in a war
zone with no front, these companies are becoming more deeply enmeshed in
combat, in some cases all but obliterating distinctions between
professional troops and private commandos. Company executives see a clear
boundary between their defensive roles as protectors and the offensive
operations of the military. But more and more, they give the appearance of
private, for-profit militias — by several estimates, a force of roughly
20,000 on top of an American military presence of 130,000. [...]
Full text:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/international/middleeast/19SECU.html
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