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Democracy everywhere
September 23, 2007 15 comments
As Chicken Yoghurt points out,1 re the story about Blackwater employees shooting Iraqi civilians:
Let’s get one thing straight. They’re not private security contractors, they’re mercenaries.
It’s interesting how the sense of “private” seems to leak, in this carefully constructed nugget of Unspeak, “private security contractors”. The mercenaries are private contractors, in that they belong to a private company that gets paid; but the phrase also seems to imply a notion of private security, as though they are merely nice men who will install a burglar alarm at your home. One remembers the killing of four mercenaries that led to the first assault on Fallujah. Public outrage was well managed by the consistent reference to those unlucky mercenaries as simply “private contractors”, not even “security” contractors: as though the insurgents had murdered electricians or bricklayers.
Still, we should remember that the mercenaries, who make up somewhere between 11% and 24% of the US military presence in Iraq (no one knows the exact figure), are also “private” in a very special sense, as they are immune from public prosecution in Iraq thanks to an early edict from the “Coalition” Provisional Authority, and also so far exempt from American military law as well.
I wondered if Blackwater was somehow related to black gold, but then thought that might be facetious. After all, its mission statement is so reassuring:
We have become the most responsive, cost-effective means of affecting the strategic balance in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere.
As if that weren’t convincing enough, it was excellent to learn further that mercenaries from Blackwater and other firms have their own trade association. Guess what it’s called? The International Peace Operations Association. Chapeau! It has its own website, where it explains its mission:
IPOA is committed to raising the standards of the Peace and Stability Industry to ensure sound and ethical professionalism and transparency in the conduct of peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction activities.
I love “Peace and Stability Industry”, don’t you? It’s so much more comforting than war industry.
- Thanks to Aenea. ↩
More reviews
Small mercies: at least its not the “peace and stability community”.
Nice, lamentreat!
Actually what surprises me is that the phrase “permanent bases”, as they are referred to, usually without much comment, in the press. After all, the term rather candidly declares an intention to permanently control the political and economic life of Iraq from Washington.
How come the powers that be have been so slow to unspeak these, you know, calling them “Freedom Stations” or something like that?
“Freedom Stations” is copyright by the way - the Pentagon has to give me a lot of money to use that.
Ugh, botched that first sentence. It doesn’t make sense, but hopefully the basic meaning is clear…
They are usually unspoken as “enduring bases“. But “Freedom Stations” is much, much better!
Enduring Freedom Stations (EFS’s).
I don’t know how reliable the source is, but an Iranian news agency reckons Blackwater have been smuggling guns into Iraq too. Killing civilians is small potatoes, but giving weapons to those who might conceivably use them against American occupiers is, as we all know, a bombing offence.
Link.
These sovereign butchers are “private” in exactly the way you spot, as not being subject to public laws. Pace Schmitt and Agamben: they are granted the sovereign exception - and, to add yet another insult to the litany of injuries, they just happen to be “unlawful combatants”.
But I think that “private” is really supposed to resonate with private enterprise. Which is, of course, an unassailable good.
Here’s an interactive map that shows the connections of the International Peace Operations Association.
Hello again, sw!
But I think that “private” is really supposed to resonate with private enterprise.
Indeed, as I wrote: “The mercenaries are private contractors, in that they belong to a private company that gets paid.”
But of course soldiers were privatised for most of history before they became public servants or however they are considered now.
It seems to me that what is peculiarly wrong with Blackwater et al is not that they shoot civilians, since it’s hardly unheard-of for soldiers employed directly by the state to do that too, but that they exist in a legal black hole, for all that’s worth to the dead civilians. (Maybe it is worth something to the dead civilians - do families of eg Haditha victims get a bung from the US government? Be interesting to know.)
“Freedom stations” is awesome, not least because of the connotation of “filling station/gas station” – an outpost with huge liquid stocks of liberty, where travelers journeying through the dry realms of tyranny can stop in and tank up.
Liberty oasis.
liberty oasis is too terrain-specific: when the US invades Indonesia it’ll just feel all wrong.
On the other hand, liberty chimes nicely with lily… maybe we have something here.
Not to de-spin your spin, but keep in mind the vast majority of contractors in Iraq - including security contractors - are Iraqis. Hopefully, we can all agree that Iraqis are the ones we want doing the reconstruction and security for their country.
And *duh*, we are in the peace and stability operations industry. IPOA was created to give international peace operations the resources to succeed, for a change. Now maybe you might think doctors are in the ‘disease industry.’
But providing capabilities to the international community to support peacekeeping, peace enforcement, humanitarian rescue, stability operations and disaster relief really ain’t a bad job!
Do let me know if I can help with any other misconceptions you might have regarding our Association.
Best regards,
Doug Brooks
President, IPOA
Hello Doug, thanks for your comments.
Interesting claim. According to PBS, as of June 2005 there were more US and other non-Iraqi “security contractors” in Iraq than there were Iraqi “security contractors” (most of the latter were employed to guard oilfields). Meanwhile, the LA Times this summer counted 118,000 Iraqi and 64,000 non-Iraqi contractors in total, but did not give a comparative breakdown of “security contractors” in particular. Perhaps you can point us to other sources?
Really? Like, “We bombed it, now you rebuild it!”?
That’s a very interesting analogy. Perhaps one of my doctor readers will comment. Actually, I think it’s a good point that “health industry” is Unspeak since health is not really what calls it into action. Of course, another part of the problem is thinking of it as an “industry” in the first place, as though health could be manufactured, or bought and sold. In countries not at the mercy of powerful insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies, we often prefer to speak of a health “service” or “system”.
I’m sure you do not wish your organisation only to be associated with certain notorious activities of Blackwater, but their and their employers’ idea of what constituted “disaster relief” after Katrina, for example, seemed rather eccentric. Do you have happier stories of your members’ participation in humanitarian rescue, disaster relief, etc?
As I said in comment #9, I have nothing in principle against private companies operating in these spheres, but you no doubt understand why the public might be sceptical that certain well-publicised activities by your members could fall under the rubric of “peace operations”. And I remain confident that you, quite understandably, chose the name “International Peace Operations” for your association, rather than say “International Private Armies”, for the purposes of good PR. Which is par for the course, even if your members appear often to operate in situations where there is no peace to be seen.
Perhaps you can assure us that you think it would be a good idea if all IPOA members were subject to the laws of the country employing them?
Although the Iraqis would of course prefer it if the contracts for reconstruction were given to Iraqi companies, since that would support the national economy, be more cost-effective, improve local capacity and increase the ownership of reconstruction. Unfortunately beggars can’t be choosers.