WaPo: “New allegations of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay released by the FBI on Tuesday put private contractors at the center of interrogation operations, raising questions once again about where they fit in the military’s chain of command.”
Contractors have traditionally not been subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the body of laws that governs the behavior of soldiers. Other laws apply to contractors, but many remain untested.
“You have two different types of people operating under different sets of rules,” said Scott L. Silliman, executive director of the center on law, ethics and national security at Duke University.
Noah, as Professional Liability underwriter who reviewed Blackwater prior to their Falluja incident, I’d like to post a PDF article (1382KB) that I got from the US Naval Institute’s Proceedings issue together with some comments that I added when I was looking at Blackwater in a professional perspective.
Is that possible?
The more things change the more they stay the same. If america is at war why do we need mercenaries to do our dirty work?
Given the current breach of contract/negligence lawsuits against Blackwater over wrongful contractor deaths, that might be bad, unless the docs are more or less public domain, inwhich case they might be an interesting read.
just my $.02
Yes, I’d agree with you, but the article is from Proceedings magazine and my comments simply reflected what I thought in general at the time about the issue of PMC’s and how they stand outside of the civilian/military legal jurisdiction. It was not directed to any specific firm, but the security industry in general and the trends or direction it might take (for the worse, I might add.)
WILL WE GET TRUTHFUL REPORTS NOW ??
Blackwater USA is an out-of-control outfit indifferent to Iraqi civilian casualties, according to a picture painted in a critical report released by a key congressional committee. Blackwater has had to fire 122 people over the past three years for problems ranging from misusing weapons, alcohol and drug violations, inappropriate conduct, and violent behavior,
BUSH CONNECTION: The connections include the firm’s chief operating officer Joseph Schmitz, who was tapped by President Bush in 2002 to “oversee and police the Pentagon’s military contracts as the Defense Department’s Inspector General.“
Blackwater has received more than $832 million in contracts from the State Department. (Almost $4 billion has been spent on security contracts since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Waxman’s committee estimates.)
Bush administration and Republican party, including:
Blackwater is war profiterring. Let them die like the overpaid mercenaries that they are. They are not American’s. They are bloodsuckers off the taxpayers whom we dont need them at all. Let the rain fall. The military needs to show them the door.
very nic
very goooooooood
thank you
They all teach me many skills of defence and how to make cheap eve isk.
Although I already buy dofus kamas to you, and you will not put this in your heart.
nice one.