-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: Bill Gallagher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: June 5, 2007 7:40:30 AM PDT
To: politrix <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, silver news <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Kathy O <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, danny and suzi
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, jack <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, j e
smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, crow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: The Christian Right and the War on America
the civil war that england has been after for a long time now
you WILL sellout america, and worship lords and kings again, or you
will die
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/
20070603_What_if_our_mercenaries_turn
_on_us_.html
Philadelphia Inquirer
June 3, 2007
OP-ED
What if our mercenaries turn on us?
Chris Hedges is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and won a
Pulitzer
Prize as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times.
Armed units from the private security firm Blackwater USA opened
fire in
Baghdad streets twice in two days last week. It triggered a
standoff between
the security contractors and Iraqi forces, a reminder that the war
in Iraq
may be remembered mostly in our history books for empowering and
building
America's first modern mercenary army.
There are an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 armed security contractors
working
in Iraq, although there are no official figures and some estimates
run much
higher. Security contractors are not counted as part of the coalition
forces. When the number of private mercenary fighters is added to
other
civilian military "contractors" who carry out logistical support
activities
such as food preparation, the number rises to about 126,000.
"We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more
than the
secretary of defense," said House defense appropriations subcommittee
Chairman John Murtha (D., Pa.). "How in the hell do you justify that?"
The privatization of war hands an incentive to American
corporations, many
with tremendous political clout, to keep us mired down in Iraq. But
even
more disturbing is the steady rise of this modern Praetorian Guard.
The
Praetorian Guard in ancient Rome was a paramilitary force that
defied legal
constraints, made violence part of the political discourse, and
eventually
plunged the Roman Republic into tyranny and despotism. Despotic
movements
need paramilitary forces that operate outside the law, forces that
sow fear
among potential opponents, and are capable of physically silencing
those
branded by their leaders as traitors. And in the wrong hands, a
Blackwater
could well become that force.
American taxpayers have so far handed a staggering $4 billion to
"armed
security" companies in Iraq such as Blackwater, according to House
Oversight
and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D.,
Calif.).
Tens of billions more have been paid to companies that provide
logistical
support. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) of the House Intelligence
Committee
estimates that 40 cents of every dollar spent on the occupation has
gone to
war contractors. It is unlikely that any of these corporations will
push for
an early withdrawal. The profits are too lucrative.
Mercenary forces like Blackwater operate beyond civilian and
military law.
They are covered by a 2004 edict passed by American occupation
authorities
in Iraq that immunizes all civilian contractors in Iraq from
prosecution.
Blackwater, barely a decade old, has migrated from Iraq to set up
operations
in the United States and nine other countries. It trains Afghan
security
forces and has established a base a few miles from the Iranian
border. The
huge contracts from the war - including $750 million from the State
Department since 2004 - have allowed Blackwater to amass a fleet of
more
than 20 aircraft, including helicopter gunships. Jeremy Scahill,
the author
of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary
Army, points
out that Blackwater has also constructed "the world's largest private
military facility - a 7,000-acre compound near the Great Dismal
Swamp of
North Carolina." Blackwater also recently opened a facility in
Illinois
("Blackwater North") and, despite local opposition, is moving ahead
with
plans to build another huge training base near San Diego. The company
recently announced it was creating a private intelligence branch
called
"Total Intelligence."
Erik Prince, who founded and runs Blackwater, is a man who appears
to have
little time for the niceties of democracy. He has close ties with the
radical Christian Right and the Bush White House. He champions his
company
as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. His employees, in an
act as
cynical as it is dishonest, take an oath of loyalty to the
Constitution. But
what he and his allies have built is a mercenary army, paid for with
government money, which operates outside the law and without
constitutional
constraint.
Mercenary units are a vital instrument in the hands of despotic
movements.
Communist and fascist movements during the last century each built
rogue
paramilitary forces. And the appearance of Blackwater fighters,
heavily
armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the
streets of
New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, may be a grim
taste of
the future. In New Orleans Blackwater charged the government
$240,000 a day.
" 'It cannot happen here' is always wrong," the philosopher Karl
Popper
wrote. "A dictatorship can happen anywhere."
The word contractor helps launder the fear and threat out of a more
accurate
term: "paramilitary force." We're not supposed to have such forces
in the
United States, but we now do. And if we have them, we have a potential
threat to democracy. On U.S. soil, Blackwater so far has shown few
signs of
being an out-and-out rogue retainer army, though they looked the
part in New
Orleans. But were this country to become even a little less stable,
outfits
like Blackwater might see a heyday.
If the United States falls into a period of instability caused by
another
catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown that triggers
social
unrest, or a series of environmental disasters, such paramilitary
forces,
protected and assisted by fellow ideologues in the police and
military,
could ruthlessly abolish what is left of our eroding democracy.
War, with
the huge profits it hands to corporations, and to right-wing
interests such
as the Christian Right, could become a permanent condition. And the
thugs
with automatic weapons, black uniforms and wraparound sunglasses who
appeared on the streets in New Orleans could appear on our streets.
Chris Hedges ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) is author, mostly recently, of
"American
Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."
www.ctrl.org
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