Military Contractors and Our Buck-Stops-Nowhere "Wars"

The truth is that if (post-9/11) America wanted to fight two wars simultaneously -- and apparently endlessly -- protect our shores and project power into other parts of the globe simultaneously we needed draft. But we are a culture that refuses to make hard choices and likes happy endings, in other words we're experts at lying to ourselves. Instead of facing the fact that if you're going to fight wars you need to raise taxes and mobilize the whole country and draft citizens, we pretended we had a military adequate to the task. Besides, anyone who questioned the civilian wartime leadership would be accused of "disrespect to our wonderful men and women in uniform."

What is disrespectful to people who serve is to do what we're doing now. We keep lying to ourselves by hiring contractor personnel to do the job the military could be doing -- if it was big enough and if we stopped lying to ourselves. More "contractor" (read mercenary) abhorrent behavior is surfacing. This time it's not civilian murder in Iraq, or child prostitution from XE (formerly Backwater). It comes from a US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Some contractor guards have come forward with sworn testimony and visual evidence of sexual deviancy and drunken hazing.

In my capacity as the proud father of the United States Marine I wrote a series of opinion pieces for the Washington Post and several books on what it's like to be in military parent in the all volunteer military era while my son was a war in Afghanistan and Iraq. One of those books Keeping Faith -- A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps became a New York Times bestseller (once Oprah invited me on her show.) I also co-authored AWOL--The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service -- and How It Hurts Our Country. After that was published I established close contact with hundreds of military families and many military leaders. What I say here comes from the perspective of someone connected to the military as a civilian author and also as the proud father of a son who fought in our ongoing wars. I have a deep personal love for the military family.

That said, I have less and less respect for the way our civilian leaders lack the courage to tell the truth about our wars.

Lies From the Right and Left

Which brings up a point: both the right and the left, the military and civilian leadership, Democrats and Republicans have a stake in either lying about or ignoring a very inconvenient fact: given the scope of American foreign entanglements our "all volunteer" military is a sham. It is the same sort of sham that fighting wars without paying for them is idiocy.

We are so over-extended that we hire professional contractors to bulk up what in fact is a military far too small for the onerous rotations that military people are now being deployed on again and again and again. High divorce rates, custody battles where military people, including women and mothers who come back from war are denied access to their children, and suicides are just the tip of the dysfunctional iceberg. The real problem is that the right and the left the Democrats and Republicans and our top military establishment and the government all have a percentage in keeping quiet about the truth.

As reported by various news sources, including NPR, ( Sept 2, 2009), The Pentagon's civilian contractor work force in Afghanistan outnumbers the deployment of uniformed U.S. soldiers, with contractors accounting for 57 percent of Defense Department personnel there, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service-- "the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by DOD in any conflict in the history of the United States," concludes the report. Overall, as of March 31, 2009, the Defense Department employed more than 240,000 contractors in the two war zones, compared with approximately 282,000 uniformed soldiers.

How Have the Contractors Worked Out?

The founder of Blackwater USA allegedly deliberately caused the deaths of innocent civilians in a series of shootings in Iraq, attorneys for Iraqis suing the security contractor told a federal judge. The attorneys singled out Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL who is the company's owner, for blame in the deaths of more than 20 Iraqis between 2005 and 2007.

Amid allegations that the contracted security force guarding the Kabul embassy have run riot the State Department a team to investigate. Alcohol has been banned at Camp Sullivan -- the compound where the guards live -- and diplomatic security officers have been assigned to keep an eye on the guards.

As reported by AP and many other sources, Blackwater's secret work for the CIA has leaked out. The company's involvment in the assassination program and the CIA drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan are front-page material in the Washington Post and New York Times. Blackwater also offered "foreign" operatives to work on the CIA assassination program.

The Real Problem

The fact is our all volunteer military has long since departed from the citizen soldier military our founders had in mind and is now professional force that is close to becoming a permanent class of mercenaries set apart in virtually gated communities rather than citizen soldiers. And with today's contractors we've taken the fateful next step: America now fields a truly imperial mercenary force.

To appease the left who will not countenance a draft, we pretend we have a military global force that doesn't need public support. And to allow the right wing Republican fat cats to send other people's children to war without asking them to commit their own children, we say the all volunteer force "works just fine."

Fighting wars without national mobilization is a sign of decadence. It means that sacrifice is denied and ignored by most while a few pay the price for a system that depends on an out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind military. This is also part of a crazy anti-government right wing nuttiness, wherein "privatizing" everything, now even our military, is seen as "good." Everything must turn a profit, right? Everything is about choice. right?

Wrong!

The Truth

The United States needs to face the truth: If we don't have the stomach to reintroduce the draft and have a military large enough to do the military's job we should stop fighting wars around the globe. We should also stop lying to ourselves. If the American public doesn't support our wars to the extent that they will tolerate a draft and much higher taxes then our wars are bogus.

The military needs to stop selling itself to the American public as the greatest American military ever while it lacks the numbers to do the military's basic job. The generals should be screaming bloody murder about the fact that traditional military roles -- such as Marines guarding our embassies -- are now being farmed out to private (and grossly incompetent, largely unsupervised) companies who answer to no one. Talk about dishonoring our men and women!

It's time for the military leadership to tell the President and Congress that the need for the hundreds of thousands of civilian workers bolstering the military proves the military can no longer do the job the President is asking it to do.

Here Are the Honest Choices:

1) Get out of our wars now or raise taxes, and raise a force commensurate with our global obligations by the draft.

or...

2) Trim our military to a true defense force and stop thinking that we can fix the world.

or...

3) If we are attacked, hit our enemies with everything we've got, then go home. Let them fear us or pay the price, no more dreams of Marshall Plans applied to completely different situations, like Iraq and Afghanistan.

To believe our own BS: that we can fight wars without costs, is leading to a bad end. Nation-building is after-the-fact nonsense. War is hell, not nation building. We aren't the good guys. We are just one more country protecting its interests. Deal with it!

Blame the Right and the Left

The left is culpable because it so denigrated and politicized military service coming out of the Vietnam era that the military brass ran for cover and are still hiding behind the all volunteer concept to protect the military from political scrutiny.

The right is culpable because it keeps launching wars without asking for moral or financial accountability from the whole American people, including higher taxes and a draft of our sons and daughters. This is lazy man's war: no need to sell it to the American people, because they aren't involved. "Other people" fight and our grandchildren will pay the bill. Let's call decadence by its name.

Frank Schaeffer is the author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back and the forthcoming Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism)

Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/frank_schaeffer

Comments

[MPAndonee]

"Here Are the Honest Choices:

1) Get out of our wars now or raise taxes, and raise a force commensurate with our global obligations by the draft.

or...

2) Trim our military to a true defense force and stop thinking that we can fix the world.

or...

3) If we are attacked, hit our enemies with everything we've got, then go home. Let them fear us or pay the price, no more dreams of Marshall Plans applied to completely different situations, like Iraq and Afghanistan. "

Truer words have not been spoken in these pages -- thank you Frank.

It's a shame that most politicians can't see past their noses for what it so painfully obvious to the rest of us.

[nailinpalinnow]

Fighting wars without national mobilization is a sign of decadence.

Decay indeed. So true.

[KarlaElisa]

"To appease the left who will not countenance a draft..." ???

Mr. Schaefer, I ordinarily agree with what you say but as a member of the far left I vehemently deny I would not support a draft. If guarantee you if Bush had reinstated the draft WAY MORE people would have risen up against the GOP and the war in Iraq. Gee, people here might also have insisted we stay on mission in Afghanistan to find Bin Laden.

The only thing I insist upon with regard to the draft is that barring a medical problem, NO EXEMPTIONS be allowed. That means every fat cat's brats gear up and ship out like the po' folks kids. You wanna shut the drum beat for war down in this country MAKE our young people go.

[smack41]

Frank, didn't Obama allow a new build up of forces in Afghanistan? Guess he's not the peace loving guy you thought he was. Why no mention here?

I'm wondering when you will grow out of the left-right paradigm and realize that corporate interests and the interests of our (big) federal government go hand in hand. It's exhausting waiting for you to "get it" - however this article was a step in the right direction.

[talkstocoyotes]

"If we don't have the stomach to reintroduce the draft and have a military large enough to do the military's job we should stop fighting wars around the globe. "

Works for me. We've become a very shabby country since we started pouring all our resources into becoming the planet's self-appointed police force.

[narrowway]

I don't believe it! It took a long time, but Schaeffer has finally said "some" things I can agree with! I didn' t expect that would ever happen, as we are polar opposites on most things.

[Retrofuturistic]

The real reason we have a private army is because such a thing is outside the purview of Congress and therefore outside of the usual American moral and legal code. A private army is private--- not accountable. It doesn't have to follow the same rules that a regular army does, such as things like the Geneva Convention. They cannot be prosecuted for war crimes in the same way that actual soldiers could be prosecuted.

According to Naomi Wolf on page 74 of =The End of America=, "... Paul Bremer's last decision as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq was to issue 'Order 17,' which made private contractors such as these immune from prosecution for what would otherwise be war crimes."

She also states that Blackwater was in New Orleans after Katrina and that similar groups intimidated voters in Florida during the 2000 election.

It's the same thing as Hitler's "Storm Division". They did jobs that advanced him, but Hitler himself was free from censure related to those acts, because they were not officially his army.

A private mercenary army is one of the hallmarks of a dictator. It is one of the many things instituted by the Bush/Cheney regime that Obama has yet to disband.

[TimSledge]

Every American needs to read what Frank wrote!

[LewDan]

Outsourced military contracts have always been corporate giveaways, profit margins alone ensure excessive costs.

The draft is slavery. Unavoidable, perhaps in emergencies but not to maintain the military. There's nothing wrong with our volunteer military, ts not that we can't get volunteers its that we misuse them and don't want to pay.

"If we are attacked, hit our enemies with everything we've got, then go home" can be done with air power; unfortunately retaliation and providing national security aren't the same thing. If we just kill people until there're no enemies left that'd guarantee that ,sooner rather than later, everyone'd be against us.

We need to stop wasting limited resources making contractors rich. We need to fully fund a military that really is capable of handling two plus major engagements; in short spend ON THE MILITARY not THROUGH them.

We need operations restricted to OUR ENEMIES and fully funded. We MUST face the reality that the enemy will likely be a regime, NOT a populace, and that regime's innocent populace WILL suffer and WE WILL BE responsible.

Your notion we can breeze in destroy OUR enemies and abandon our mess'll only ensure we have LOTS more enemies and create them faster than we can eliminate them.

I too support the military; but making them slaves, ensuring endless unwinable battles and killing them all through attrition ISN'T my idea of support.

[ScarletKnight1307]

There should be a tax increase or a gas tax to pay for past, present and future operations. We need at least 150k more in the Army and Marines. If we can't have a draft to do battle they can certainly to paperwork and civil deffense drill in the USA. Have a rapid deploy force that knows they are the first ones out and pay them like that so we have them all under the Uniform Military code of Justice. If there is a draft
10% of the privelage class the top 10% and the politicians kids go first. Time for people to earn their freedom not just whine about it over healthcare and climate change. Leaving Afghanistan with out Osama Bin Laden is failure he and his organization is the enemy but some how Bush, the Oil industry and the usual amount of American stupidity seem to have forgotten the guy who came into our largest city and killed 3000 people with the world watching and we haven't really done a thing about it but kill a bunch of rural Iraqi's and Afghans. Al Qaeda isn't an army that defends territory they are an Idea so lame political solution and profiteering which is what the problem is here isn't going to get rid of him. Your going to have get out out of your humvies and go in that cave and hunt them.

[oldpol2]

Thank you for saying what so many of us are thinking. The honesty is refreshing. Now we can be hopeful that the powers that be will take it to heart.

[sunny123]

Again, Frank you nailed it. You are right in every way. My daughter is an Air Force nurse and on her way to Afghanistan this month. Am I scared? Yes. Do I think she needs to be there. No. But, she tells me this is her job. Our military are some of the most admirable and heroic men and women in our country. It is because there isn''t a draft. Would you really want someone watching your back who didn't want to be there?

You are absolutely right about the changes you suggest and I hope you can get a referendum started and let's make a difference.

Thank you for doing your research and taking the time to explain it. You really need to get this out to the whole of the American nation. Great job.

[Crass Innuendo]

Agreed 100%. This is what prompted my response to the story about the publication of the dying soldier's photograph. It was not my intent to be heartless and cruel to those who lost a comrade and a loved one, but to those who would hide behind them, using their feelings as an excuse to not look at the price others are paying for our decadence.

[curanipedoug]

Even this reality; facing the facts of a mercenary occupation army, excludes some information. The army mentality, the break-em-d­own-build-­em-into-so­ldiers process, often creates people who return from war to kill family members or friends and fill the homeless class of citizens. The after service rehabilitation of servicemen with continuing mental problems is typically done in the penitentiary.
Few Americans acknowledge the cost to host countries for military bases; such as higher crime rates for rape, robbery and murder.
If you lift the carpet to see what has been swept underneath-why not look at all of the mess???

[RebaG]

Thanks, Frank. Once again, absolutely correct and to the point. Just one more example of the American public's (left and right) insistence on living in a fantasy world.

[lyta]

Their could not be a more cogent argument out there for ending this idiocy called an all volunteer army because no one volunteered to be sent to war nonstop in an illegal war, even more so than Vietnam was said to be. Iraq really is an illegal war since it was based and sold to the American people with outright lies.

Afghanistan, yes we dropped the ball after the Kuwait invasion however going back so long after that conflict to simply rescue Bush I's legacy was bogus, done without any real planning or exit strategy. Given we are the very cause of the Taliban's rise to power in Afghanistan, Ben Ladin's rise to power and formation of Al Queda due to our arming them against the Soviets, then dumping them and leaving them in a vacuum, it was a stupid plan. Had we limited our involvement there instead of adding Iraq, perhaps we might have had a chance to really help the every day Afghan people rather than their being killed off, as it is there is still to this day no true exit strategy.