“Use of mercenaries masks scope of US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq”
There has been a massive increase in the funding of US war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and private military contractors are flourishing in its wake, even though their reputations are at an all-time low.
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky told RT that there are at least as many contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan as there are military.
“So when the President asks for a 30,000 troop increase in Afghanistan, we are talking about at least that number of contractors too, which makes the mission much bigger. We don’t even count them when they get killed,” she said.
Jan Schakowsky also added that private contractors in Iraq are getting away with murder.
“We have seen these private hired guns – mercenaries if you will – actually in situations that have jeopardized the mission of the US, have put her own troops at risk, have killed private civilians,” she said. “So far those cases have been dismissed. Fortunately, the Justice Department has decided to appeal the ruling and go forward, but they’re in a kind of grey legal limbo.”
Jan Schakowsky believes it is worrying that private firms like Blackwater have an even greater capability to wage wars than America itself.
“Blackwater use certain helicopters that, believe it or not, the US government doesn’t even have. These [private] companies have the capacity that the US government does not have. I think this is a very dangerous trend,” she concluded.
One of the most serious long-term innovations of the neo-con perversion of U.S. policy is the contracting out of military power to mercenary armies outside of oversight by either Congress or the U.S. judicial system. The result is the creation of a massive military force that already undermines U.S. foreign policy, violates U.S. law, and has the ability to wage private war.
Why U.S. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky is making these crucial remarks about the danger of U.S. mercenaries to American control over its foreign policy to a Russian, rather than American, media outlet one can only wonder. Her efforts of several years' standing to bring this issue to the attention of the deeply in denial U.S. government get little attention in the MSM. Is the conspiracy of silence now so extreme that a member of Congress can only get attention on serious issues through interviews overseas?
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Early on, Obama stated that he wanted to make more use of the private mercenaries in order to not show the face of US military in US wars of aggression. When he lied that he was going to withdraw US troops from Iraq as soon as he became president, he was planning to replace them with private mercenaries. Here is candidate Barack Obama, October 27, 2007 promise: "I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank."
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky says, "We have seen these private hired guns – mercenaries if you will – actually in situations that have jeopardized the mission of the US, have put her own troops at risk, have killed private civilians".
What exactly is "the mission of the US" in that region or across the world? Schakowsky justly accuses private mercenaries of killing civilians. Yet, US military mercenaries (soldiers) have killed many more civilians, have destroyed countries and have contaminated the air, water and food chain - with depleted uranium and other chemicals - of countries they invaded and occupied, as a result of which current and future populations will suffer for many generations to come. After all, most of these killers that work for private mercenaries companies are former military mercenaries. Apparently, Schakowsky condones "the mission of the US" by US military mercenaries. Military mercenaries, politicians and the public who condone and support US wars and those who send US power to kill and destroy other countries are as guilty as private mercenaries.
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