Mercenaries in the Marketplace of Violence*

H. Patricia Hynes
November 2009

The media spotlight on U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan and drawdown in Iraq obscures the prevalence of private military contractors in both conflicts. These corporate warriors are a potent but barely perceptible component of U.S. militarism and foreign policy. Private military employees relieved the government from instituting a draft to cover the personnel needs of two concurrent, stalemated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, these wars have been called the first U.S. contractor wars; and they herald a future in which waging war no longer requires citizens, only money. Ceding armed conflict and ultimately national security to the private market of military contractors is a dire and disastrous trend.

Overview

After 9/11 one of the few sectors to enjoy growth was the young market niche of private military contractors, known as “privatized military firms” or PMFs. These are lean, nimble global companies formed and managed in many cases by former military men and specialized in armed conflict services from combat in conventional and counterinsurgency warfare to intelligence and spying, war logistics and strategy; training militaries, operating drones, building and servicing military bases, post-war de-mining operations, and peacekeeping. Their clients include governments of all ilk from “democratic” to “rogue,” the UN and NGOs, rebel groups, paramilitaries and drug cartels. Sometimes they contract with both sides of a conflict. Some garner business concessions in oil and natural resources in client countries, thus the cachet of conflict in resource-rich countries.

It’s anticipated that PMFs, now found in every region of conflict and omnipresent in Africa, will continue enjoying generous growth despite current global economic contraction. According to Allison Stanger, author of One Nation Under Contract (2009), PMFs have made the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan possible, given the low support of Allies. In 2009, military contractors comprised half of the Department of Defense workforce in Iraq and more than half in Afghanistan. And the vaunted U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq leaves in place a substantial, shadowy private military occupation. Stanger observes that the core pillars of national security – intelligence, diplomacy, development and defense – are increasingly handled by private contractors, a troubling trend unremarked by most Americans.

Peter Singer of the Brookings Institute was an early analyst of this new growth industry, generating a detailed taxonomy of their militarized services and a litany of case examples of their clients and covert activities in his book Corporate Warriors (2003). Yet, while Singer raises many vital concerns about the impact of war profiteering by military mercenaries - namely the jeopardizing of human rights in war, the increased traffic in arms, the profit motive as stimulant for armed conflict, and little public scrutiny -- he draws a compromised conclusion in his calculus of their risks and benefits. Private military contractors are, after all, experts in war: If they can be reined in and regulated, maybe they can be re-directed to assuring effective national security.

Caveat Emptor

Here are five caveats regarding military merchants in corporate clothing:

1. Corporate profit vs. public good. Making a profit from war, for company owners and stockholders, is the bottom line for PMFs. National governments are, in principle, responsible for the security of citizens and this responsibility carries with it some obligation to use fully diplomatic and public policy means for conflict resolution before engaging in armed conflict. By contrast, private military corporations are in the business of assuring a steady supply of private soldiers, weapons and capacity for new wars. Being in the “marketplace of violence,” they rely upon, and are positioned to promote continuous armed conflict, with few, if any, public checks and balances.

2. Global glut in ex-soldiers and arms. Since the end of the Cold War, the market has been saturated with ex-soldiers and military weapons unloaded by governments to arms brokers. Further, the global arms bazaar is so unfettered that almost any buyer can purchase fighter jets, tanks and machine guns. Ex-soldiers from the apartheid era of South Africa, former U.S. special operatives, an estimated 70% of the former KGB, and ex-Israeli IDF members have formed or joined PMFs in what is a “revolving door” from public to corporate military. In fact, military companies brand themselves as assembling seasoned, elite warriors from the most sophisticated militaries in the world, while downplaying any personnel’s prior history of torture and human rights abuses. On the “demand” side of violence, the incidence of conflicts within countries has doubled since the end of the Cold War and zones of conflict have doubled as well, creating a perfect storm of opportunity for corporatizing war. “The consequence,” according to Singer, “is that governments no longer have control over the primary means of warfare.”

3. Under the radar screen and outside the law: The Department of Defense alleges that private military contracts are more cost-effective than U.S. military personnel. However, this is highly suspect, given the lack of any definitive life-cycle cost comparison between public and private military by DOD and frequent allegations of fraud, bid inflation and overcharge by PMFs. PMFs enjoy a greater freedom of movement from public scrutiny than the Department of Defense. Contracts less than $50 million require no Congressional oversight and approval; and, unlike DOD, the contractors are not obliged to answer Congressional and press inquiries when U.S. forces are abroad. (Singer)

Contract and subcontract oversight of private firms in Afghanistan and Iraq is severely compromised, due to distance and dependency. Case in point: a two year paper trail and a recent lawsuit reveal that ArmorGroup security guards for the U.S. embassy in Kabul have been involved in security lapses, drunken and lewd hazing rituals, intimidation of whistleblowers, petty corruption abusive work conditions, and sex trafficking of women for prostitution. With little evidence of disciplinary action, except company assurance, and with virtually no other option, the State Department renewed the ArmourGuard contract in 2008 and 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/world/asia/12secure.html

Historically, the U.S. Uniform Military Code of Justice has applied only to U.S. military, a lacuna in law which left PMFs in conflict zones virtually free of the threat of disciplinary action, court martial or arrest for fraud, drunken and reckless behavior, assault, rape, insubordination, leaving the battlefield, and so on. In 2005, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act was amended to permit prosecution of private federal contractors and their employees. Enforcement is another story, however. Journalist and author of Blackwater: the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (2007), Jeremy Scahill, testified in a 2007 congressional hearing that private military contractors are almost never prosecuted under U.S. military or civil law. http://www.democracynow.org/2007/5/11/author_and_dn_correspondent_jeremy_scahill

In fact, in the international arena, PMFs are not covered by international law in warfare so that these armed mercenaries operate fairly immune from any justice system. This convenience for the military companies and their clients creates great risk for their victims, whistleblowers, and female employees. In sum, PMFs operate outside of military law and the justice system of countries and under the radar screen of government oversight, public awareness, and media, except for abuse highlights which surface time to time from their netherworld.

4. Select history of abuses

Uneven Landmine Clearance: Companies hired to clear landmines have consistently cleared where it is easier and less risky to do so – along major roads, and avoided the more risky rural paths and areas around schools. (Singer)
Working Both Sides of Conflicts: In Sierra Leone, the PMF Lifeguard allegedly supplied arms to rebel forces at the same time that the company was hired as security by mining companies to protect operations from rebel forces and that their parent company Sandline was contracted by the government to defeat rebel forces. Another affiliate of Sandline simultaneously supplied aerial war support to the Sierra Leone government and weapons to the rebels. (Singer)
Conflict without Cash: Cash poor, natural asset rich countries – including Angola, Papua New Guinea and Sierra Leone - have signed over natural assets to PMFs in exchange for war-related services. Not only is there the high risk of extortion and theft on the part of the PMF, but the public assets of the country are siphoned and spent on war – mortgaging the public wealth of future generations. In 1997, Sierra Leone compensated Sandline $200,000 million in long-term diamond concessions for an estimated $10 million in military operations. (Singer)
Sexual Exploitation of Women with Impunity: As a KBR/Halliburton private military employee in Iraq, Jamie Lee Jones was drugged, gang-raped and brutally assaulted in the Green Zone by male co-workers in 2005. The company locked her in a shipping container under guard and threatened to fire her if she sought medical help outside Iraq. During Jones’ labyrinthine pursuit of justice, the Army turned the rape kit evidence over to Halliburton/KBR which then “lost” it; and the Departments of Justice, Defense, and State would not touch the case. Halliburton labeled her rape a “workplace injury” and touted a contract loophole which stated that Jones’ only recourse was to seek “mandatory binding arbitration” within the company (a contractual tactic that exempts the company from U.S. criminal law). In September 2009, Jamie Lee Jones won the right to take Halliburton to court. During the course of her multi-year legal battle, other women have come forward with accounts of sexual harassment and rape; their complaints resulted in threats or job loss while the rapist employees was protected. Former Halliburton /KBR employees have described the work environment as rife with sexual harassment. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/09/halliburton-loses-jamie-leigh-jones
Sex Trafficking of Women by Peacekeepers: In the late 1990s, DynCorp Technical Services was subcontracted by the U.S. State Department for military services in Bosnia, including recruiting American officers for the international UN police peacekeeping force there. Kathryn Bolkovac, a DynCorp employee, documented and reported that numerous UN peacekeepers were involved in sex trafficking of Eastern European women through Bosnia. The company’s response was to demote and then fire Bolkavac. Another DynCorp employee at one of the U.S. bases in Bosnia, who disclosed that co-workers and supervisors were involved in sex with minors, rape, and selling women for sex, was also fired. Subsequent investigations confirmed that sexual exploitation was fueled by well-paid military contractors but then determined that UN officials and contractors in the region enjoyed legal immunity from criminal investigations under the Dayton Peace Agreement. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/bosn-a21.shtml
Militarized Prostitution and Trafficking in Iraq: In her study of military prostitution and trafficking during the Iraq war, Debra McNutt concludes that privatization of war – through heavy reliance on military contractors – has worsened the prostituting of women in war zones. Private military contractors have more disposable income than the military (some earning between $650US and $1000US per day); they are not prosecuted when violating the U.S. military prohibition against involvement in prostitution; and they are accountable only to their companies. Investigations have found that KBR was involved in illegal labor trafficking to obtain cheap workers for the war effort, a context in which women laborers are extremely vulnerable to sexual exploitation. According to McNutt, the “most thorough documentation of prostitution in Iraq is…the on-line “International Sex Guide” (ISG). The ISG Iraq site was up and running a mere 2 days after the war was launched. Its participants were more sophisticated private military contractors familiar with prostitution around the world and lesser experienced and “more naļve” military personal. Rife with misogynist and racist comments, the ISG site sported private contractors brainstorming about setting up brothels and charging high rates – since it was pimp’s market -- that would keep the lower-paid military “riff-raff” away. http://www.counterpunch.org/mcnutt07112007.html

5. Risk of militarizing governments and non-state networks. There are many risks to peace and security in the proliferation of PMFs, among them: abetting repressive and criminal clients; promoting and sustaining conflict; enabling covert warfare; and moving the military industrial complex even more centrally from the public sphere to the private where the only checks and balances are shareholders. Over the objection of the U.S. State Department, MPRI (a company formed by ex-US military officers with high access to DOD, State and USAID funding) contracted with the repressive military dictatorship of Equatorial Guinea in 2000 to design an enhanced national security plan and build a coastal defense force. (Singer) Some PMFs are allegedly private extensions of the Department of Defense, and can covertly carry out U.S. military agenda in places where U.S. military cannot. For example, it is highly suspected that MPRI trained and armed the Croatian army in the mid-1990s, at the time of a UN cease fire, and devised the Croatian battle strategy that both defeated the regional Serbs but also created hundreds of thousands of refugees and perpetrated war crimes. (Singer)

Conclusion

In the end, the use of private military may be more palatable to the U.S. public whose media reports the numbers of U.S. military deployed, injured and killed yet rarely spotlights the number of corporate warriors employed in conflict, injured and killed. Thus, a private military can be politically expedient for the government, given the fear of arousing public “war fatigue” with news coverage of soldiers’ deaths. Private military employees – many of whom are not U.S. citizens -- relieved the government from instituting a draft to cover the personnel needs of two concurrent, stalemated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (the draft being a non- option after Vietnam). In fact, these wars have been called the first U.S. contractor wars (Stanger); and they herald a future in which waging war no longer requires citizens, only money.

Private militaries make it possible for even the poorest countries to buy the most sophisticated systems in the world and the capacity to use them. Sudan, for example, sports a squadron of top-quality fighter jets flown under contract by Russian pilots. Military companies have contracted with all sides of the Democratic Republic of the Congo armed conflict, the war in Colombia (government as well as drug cartels), and the war in Afghanistan . http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091130/roston_video The dreaded outcome of the privatization of war is that some military companies would arm and train traffickers in weapons, drugs, and humans; terrorist networks; and “rogue states” – with the rationalization that if they don’t do it, another company will.

The inevitable breakdown of social order within war has hazardous results for civilians -- most particularly the sex trafficking, rape and torture of women. Ceding armed conflict and ultimately national security to the private market of military contractors is a dire and disastrous trend.

Additional Sources and Recommended Readings

This article appeared on November 16, 2009 online on OpEdNews, here.

Sarah E. Mendelson. Barracks and Brothels: Peacekeeping and Human Trafficking in the Balkans. 2005. Washington DC: CSIS Press.

P.W. Singer. Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. 2003. * Source of term “marketplace of violence.”

Jeremy Scahill. Blackwater: the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Army. New York : Nation Books. 2007.

Allison Stanger. One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of American Foreign Policy. New Haven : Yale University Press. 2009.