Mercenaries are in the Military to Stay: Get Used to It!

By Lorelei Kelly, AlterNet. Posted February 20, 2007.

The bottom line is that the privatization of U.S. National Security is a trend that has been ongoing for years. And the billions of dollars disappeared by contractors in Iraq make disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff look like Little Bo Peep.

This article has previously appeared on democracyarsenal.org and the Huffington Post.

Remember that old movie "Escape from New York", the one where the city has become a large prison populated by violent and depraved criminals? A story that fell between the cracks of the State of the Union last month -- two downed Blackwater helicopters, five Americans dead -- made me remember the images from that film. No escape, not by land, not by air, not by sea.

Some news reports speculate that four of the five were shot on the ground. Ugh and sigh. I know it is hard for some people to feel outrage or grief over the death of private military contractors -- an attitude that I often find is supported by perverse logic and misplaced anger about our own government's dysfunction. The bottom line is that the privatization of US National Security is a trend that has been ongoing for years. It was a conversation that Congress forgot to have during the heady government-hatin' rally that passed for a legislature for the past decade. So here we are. The Washington Post recently reported that there are some 100,000 contractors in Iraq alone, including 25,000 private security contractors.