Mercenaries are part of a lucrative cycle between corporations profiting from conflict and those in Washington who favor American power and intervention.
The United States uses private defense contractors to serve military first expansionist policies, former marine captain and State Department officer Matthew Hoh told RIA Novosti.
“To continue an interventionist policy in Muslim countries, the United States needs to have forces in place. For domestic political reasons US ground troops are not practical or an option, so security contractors, as they are not ‘troops,’ are usable,” Hoh, who is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy (CIP), said Thursday.
Hoh’s comments come a day after a federal jury found four ex-Blackwater contractors guilty of a deadly 2007 mass shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
“I expect that there will be legislation put in place by Congress to indemnify and protect security contractors in the future,” Hoh said.
Hoh believes there is too much money to be had in fielding private contractors, which has led to a lucrative cycle between corporations profiting from conflict and those in Washington who favor American power and intervention.
The Iraq veteran also pointed out how leveraging contractors have helped the United States in concealing war costs, both in terms of dollars and body count.
“The other aspect of this is that it hides the cost of the war. We simply do not know how many contractors were killed in the Iraq or Afghan wars. The US relies upon claims made to the Department of Labor and Department of Defense, but that number is partial as many of the killed and wounded contractors, particularly TCNs, or Third Country Nationals, don’t ever have claims filed,” Hoh added.
The Blackwater military firm took part in the Iraq war under a contract it signed with the government of the United States. In 2010, Blackwater changed its name to Academi after being implicated in a number of crimes, including shooting civilians and arms smuggling.
A resident of Donetsk has posted a photo of soldiers on a social networking service site. The soldiers, outside a local military enlistment office, were armed with sub-machineguns and light-weight machineguns and spoke English. They wore the uniform that was obviously not Ukrainian.
The coordinator of the Self-Defence of Donbass united organization of the activists of Donetsk told reporters earlier that a plane with 200 foreign mercenaries had landed at Donetsk airport. According to him, the legionnaires speak neither Russian, nor Ukrainian.
Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on April 7th that Kiev is amassing Interior Ministry troops and Ukraine’s National Guards, as well as fighters of the ‘Right Sector’ illegal armed group, in the southeast of Ukraine, including in Donetsk. The Russian Foreign Ministry points out that it is especially concerned over the fact that taking part in the forthcoming operation are some 150 US experts from the Greystone private military organization, dressed in the uniform of the Sokol (Falcon) police task force.
The White House has refuted the report, insisting in its Tuesday’s statement with reference to a Greystone official that US mercenaries are not involved in suppressing unrest in the south-east of Ukraine, Interfax reports.
The Foreign Ministers of Russia, Ukraine, the US and the EU are due to meet for talks on Ukraine next week, according to the press service of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton.
Peace initiatives do in no way prevent the US from beefing up its military presence off Ukraine’s coast. Another US naval ship, USS Donald Cook, has entered the Black Sea, according to Rossiya-24 TV channel.
According to The Daily Telegraph British newspaper, the objective of the ship, armed with an air defence system and Tomahawk cruise missiles is to show support for Kiev. Another US naval ship has been in the area since March this year.
Russia is not conducting any unusual or unplanned military activities on its territory in the area of the Ukrainian border, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
“The US and Ukraine have no reasons for concerns. Russia has said many times that it is not conducting any unusual or unplanned activities significant in terms of military issues on its territory in the area of the Ukrainian border,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a commentary posted on its website.
“The daily activities by the Russian troops on its national territory do not threaten the security of the US and other OSCE countries. The attempts to accuse Russia of beefing up its armed forces are groundless,” the ministry said.
Washington employs thousands private military contractors (PMCs). They’re mercenaries. They’re hired guns.
Peter Dale Scott once said they’re “authorized to commit violence in the the name of their employers.” They’re “predatory bandits.”
They operate extrajudicially. They’re unrestricted by US, international, or local governments’ laws. They’re free from civil or criminal accountability.
Under Article 47 of the 1977 Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions:
“A mercenary is any person who:
(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities:
(c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of the Party;
(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.”
Washington substitutes them for Pentagon forces however. At multiples more in cost. Using them gives US authorities cover for whatever crimes they commit. Doing so avoids accountability.
They’re an integral part of America’s imperial agenda. Apparently they’re operating in Ukraine. Perhaps hundreds will increase to thousands.
Maybe in other Ukrainian cities. Maybe covertly in Crimea. If not now, maybe later. Expect East/West tensions to escalate. Expect the risk for open conflict to increase.
A private military company will be in charge of suppressing protest movements in Eastern Ukraine, said a source in the country’s Security Service. According to him, the name of the company is Greystone Limited.
According to a source cited by ITAR-TASS, Ukrainian authorities believe that the Security Service is not able to suppress the protest mood and neutralize the leaders and activists of the pro-Russian movement in the eastern regions. In particular, the source said, the acting president Alexander Turchinov shares this opinion.
“Therefore it was decided to attract foreign mercenaries, who will serve as political police and state security protection, ” said the representative of the Security Service.
He informed that the initiative to attract mercenaries belongs to oligarchs Igor Kolomoisky and Sergei Taruta, appointed governors of Dnepropetrovsk and Donetsk regions.
Not so long ago, during a meeting with Turchinov, a plan to stop the protest movements in the eastern regions was discussed. Kolomoysky noted: “why reinvent the wheel if there are real people who understand how and how much to pay,” said the source.
According to publicly available information Greystone Limited is a structural part of Blackwater, that was later renamed into Academi. According to military experts, the company is associated with the CIA and the US Defense Department. Its employees participated in the war in Afghanistan after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, the company has appeared in Iraq and became involved in training the new Iraqi armed forces and police, as well as support of the occupation forces.
The Press Ombudsman has dismissed a security company owners’ complaint against Independent Newspapers, regarding two stories published in the Weekend Argus, he said in a finding released on Wednesday.
According to the finding, the first story was published on September 1 last year under the headline: “UN slams SA ‘private army’ Security firm accused of breaking sanctions, torture SA failing in its obligation to clamp down on mercenaries, says report”.
The second story was a follow-up published on page 11 on September 29, headlined “SA-linked military firm loses anti-piracy contract”.
Ombudsman Johan Retief and an adjudication panel said Sterling Corporate Services’ (SCS) owner Lafras Luitingh complained that the first story omitted important facts, that the headline was misleading, and that the newspaper did not try to verify the allegations against him and his company.
He complained that the reporter failed to correct the mistakes in the second story, even though he was provided with information, and that the references to “private army” in both stories wrongly suggested that he was involved in illegal activities.
In the first story, Ivor Powell and Bianca Capazorio reportedly wrote that a United Nations report had “slammed” SCS for mustering a “private army” in defiance of international agreements.
The UN report, authored by the its Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea (SEMG), reportedly condemned SCS for “brazen, large-scale and protracted violation of the Somalia sanctions regime”, and for allegedly torturing local recruits.
The reporters wrote that it accused the South African government of failing to fulfil its international obligations “which include clamping down on mercenary activities”.
They wrote that the SCS operated as the private army of President Abdirahman Mohamud Faroole of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland (a region in northeastern Somalia).
They also reported that SCS had been involved in operations against Faroole’s enemies, “though officially contracted only to train and provide military advice to the Puntland administration”.
The story reportedly added that although SCS was mainly contracted to train an anti-piracy force, the bulk of its operations was directed against villages in the hinterland with little connection to Somali pirates holding shipping routes to ransom.
The story mentioned examples of alleged torture and “murderous corporal punishment”.
The follow-up story, written by Powell, reported that SCS had lost a contract to train a paramilitary Puntland Maritime Police Force against piracy in the Horn of Africa. It elaborated on the first story.
Retief and the panel concluded that the newspaper was justified in calling the SEMG’s Report a “UN report”, as a document “adopted” by the Security Council became an official document of the UN.
It also found that Luitingh had not brought any relevant UN document to the panel’s attention to substantiate his claim that the UN permitted his actions in Somalia.
“The panel finds that the newspaper did contact Luitingh and ask for his comment and that, in addition, they had published comment from a number of other involved parties. Luitingh had it within his power to provide comment and had chosen not to do so.”
While the panel accepted that Luitingh and his counsel were convinced that the second story should have reflected their views, which for them meant a correction, the panel did not believe this would have been appropriate.
It found the newspaper was justified in using the phrase “private army” as the phrase was used in the SEMG’s report.
Both parties have seven working days to appeal the decision. – Sapa
Colombia’s defense ministry is alarmed about an exodus of top soldiers to the United Arab Emirates to join a highly paid U.S.-led mercenary force organized by Erik Prince, billionaire founder of the security firm Blackwater.
Prince, who sold Blackwater in 2010 after it was involved in killings and scandals in Iraq, went to Abu Dhabi, capital of the Persian Gulf federation, in 2011.
He signed on to form an 800-man battalion of mercenaries for what emirati officials termed “anti-terrorism operations” inside and outside the country.
But it’s widely believed in Gulf security circles the force, being assembled under considerable secrecy by Prince’s Reflex Responses registered in the emirates, will be used for undisclosed special operations for the seven desert emirates that make up the federation.
That’s expected to include putting down “internal unrest” that might challenge the ruling families, as happened in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, and which is growing in Kuwait and Bahrain.
The Reflex Responses force, which is officially described in a contract leaked to the New York Times in 2011 as “independent of formal command and support structures throughout the United Arab Emirates,” will have its own air wing, with fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, plus its own private navy.
The naval wing’s tasks will primarily be “small boat operations … maritime interdiction operations and securing oil delivery platforms.”
The mercenaries have a custom-built high-security base in the desert where troops live and train.
U.S. military analyst Spencer Ackerman says Prince’s new project “might run afoul of U.S. laws prohibiting citizens from training foreign militaries,” which requires a government license. The State Department has not said whether Reflex Responses has one.
But it’s unlikely that Prince, who sold off Blackwater amid a blizzard of adverse publicity over his men’s excesses in Iraq where the company was accused of wantonly killing civilians, would embark on this new project without making sure he wasn’t open to legal action, particularly if he found himself having to send troops to fight Muslims seeking sweeping democratic reform from rulers who are U.S. allies.
The Sunni Muslim Arab monarchies of the gulf are increasingly concerned about their future amid the political upheaval and conflict sweeping the Arab world, fueled, they claim, by Shiite Iran.
The emirates currently are trying 94 citizens for sedition and seeking to overthrow the political system. The defendants, including two prominent human rights lawyers, face a possible 15 years in prison.
But the over-riding security threat is widely perceived to be Iran, 100 miles across the gulf and which occupies several islands claimed by the Emirates.
Prince’s mercenary force is made up largely of Colombian soldiers, including senior officers and men with a Special Forces background
There are also many veterans of Executive Outcomes, a South African security firm that became notorious in the 1990s for suppressing rebellions in mineral-rich African dictatorships and staging coups to gain control of such assets.
EO personnel included many veterans of Britain’s Special Air Service and special operations units in South Africa’s apartheid-era military.
Prince, an ex-U.S. Navy SEAL, is setting up his new force under a reputed $529 million contract with the royal family of oil-rich Abu Dhabi, the emirates’ leader and economic powerhouse. The contract expires in 2015.
Analysts say soldiers from Colombia’s 450,000-strong U.S.-trained military are held in high regard in the emirates and other gulf states because of their combat experience fighting leftist guerrillas and because they’re not as expensive as Western veterans.
Colombian officials estimate 500 soldiers, including pilots of Black Hawk helicopters widely used in special operations, have gone to join Prince’s force, where they earn $3,000 a month against $600 back home.
Bogota has complained to Abu Dhabi to stop hiring its best soldiers, so far without any apparent result.
“These are soldiers with a lot of experience, and it took a great effort to train them,” Jorge Bedoya,Colombia’s deputy defense minister, told The Financial Times.
The gulf monarchies are used to paying foreigners to do their dirty work. They have traditionally hired foreigners, mainly Pakistanis and Baluchis, to stiffen their armed forces. – UPI
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