Cause and Effect World

Rambo in Baghdad

This is the tipping point - Americans are about to find out in excruciating detail the dirty little secret about the Iraq war - while the American public has been muzzled as criticism of the war is equated to betraying our troops, we are about to learn that there is a shadow army of mercenaries populated by men who are not loyal to our constitution and our principles.  No, these men are not fighting to protect us liberals or to defend the shining beacon on the hill.

They are fighting for money. 

They come from not only the US, but also the UK, Australia and South Africa.

They are exempt from Iraqi law:

“A provision originally called Order 17, signed by L. Paul Bremer III in 2004, while he was the top American administrator in Iraq, was later enshrined into Iraqi law, effectively giving security companies working for the United States immunity from prosecution here.”

This is going to be big folks, because even the military has expressed concern over their recklessness.  As Brig. Gen. Karl R. Horst of the Third Infantry Division told the Washington Post in 2005 (reported by the New York Times, September 23, 2007):

“These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff,” the paper quoted the general as saying. “There’s no authority over them.” 

Yesterday, the Iraqi government announced it expects to refer criminal charges to its courts within days in connection with a shooting here by a private American security company, and the Interior Ministry gave new details of six other episodes it is investigating involving the company. 

Not only that, “the News and Observer newspaper in Raleigh, N.C., reported that United States federal investigators were looking into whether the company shipped unlicensed automatic weapons and military goods to Iraq. The Department of Justice would not confirm whether an investigation was under way; Blackwater, in a statement issued Saturday, said it had not done anything wrong.”

Sounds like Abu Graib II, coming soon to a theater near you.

See, there IS a difference between our military and mercenaries - a distinction that will soon become very apparent to Americans who haven’t been focused on this.  A former soldier who now does security work in Iraq who did not want to be identified eloquently described this difference in a private note to the NY Times reporter:

“Being motivated, and also somehow restrained, by the trappings of history, and by being part of something large, collective, and, one hopes, right,” this man wrote. “But being a security contractor strips much of this sociological and political upholstery away, and replaces it with cash.”

Next issue, if we don’t have enough troops, and Iraqis won’t tolerate the mercenaries we hire and send over, just where are we going to get the troops to finish this thing off without leaving all the equipment and people grabbing onto to helicopters as they lift off the US embassy roof?

Three other options:

1. Bribe our own poor people with more money into the military - problem, this will cost more and Americans refuse to pay more taxes;
2. Bribe poor people from other countries with the offer of citizenship - problem, they are foreigners and if they don’t die, they’ll have the right to live here which will upset conservatives;
3. Impose the draft on US citizens - well, ya suppose that’s going to fly??

Stay tuned….