Stand Up, Mr. President!
The United States has never before had a Foreign Legion like the hired guns the French used as enforcers during the days when the tri-color flew over their colonial empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. They were soldiers of fortune, cherry-picked from some of the most ruthless military resources anywhere in the world. In short, many of them were scumbags for which the French took little public credit. The less they knew of these recruits, the better.
If President Obama is beginning to look like a wimp, pre-occupied with bi-partisanship, now's the time to show the American people they're wrong. He can do that immediately by putting the brakes on the legion of private contractors recruited by the Pentagon to do the kind of work it would not dare assign to American GIs in Afghanistan. According to the New York Times there are far more of these hired guns doing America's bidding than soldiers who would be under stricter constraints if they were in uniform. From what we know of President Obama, we cannot believe he wants to have anything to do with a legion of foreigners who are not answerable to U.S. military commanders.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the Times reported Wednesday, 57% of the Pentagon's force in Afghanistan consist of private contractors. They may be from the notorious Blackwater company, now known as Xe Services recruited by the Bush/Cheney administration that made its name during the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq. It is not clear whether or not companies like Dyncorp International or ArmorGroup which is owned by Wackenhut Services are spinoffs from Blackwate/Xe or in some way are affiliated with them. For sure, the private contractors over the past two years consist of 65% of the non-military on duty in Afghanistan. Over the past two years, the figure would be even higher. What's clear is that each of these contractors is being paid six figures that are difficult to track down.
Some of the recruits are Afghans themselves, but apparently answerable to any American authority. Once and for all, President Obama needs to clamp down on the Pentagon. Its onerous policy of circumventing the Congress or any other body that would have the authority to investigate how and under what circumstances these hired guns go about their business without any apparent oversight borders on scandal, if not illegality.
It is rather startling that the president has allowed himself to be drawn deeper into Afghanistan with a questionable election and probable instability hanging overhead It increasingly takes on the appearance of a quagmire. From the moment that General Stanley McChrystal assumed command of all U.S. forces there, you could wager on the likelihood that he would be asking for more troops to accomplish stability or achieve victory over the Taliban.
Given the record of the past eight years, the casualties may seem insignificant. Nonetheless, they are steady and numbing. The same principle that has hounded every impressive three-or four-star general trying to earn his spurs in combat and every president who seems unable to resist the appeal for more troops to rescue the United States from the latest snakepit with honor. We have no substantive proof that Osama bin Laden is still alive or that the Pakistani army is willing to hunt him and his terrorists down ruthlessly. The American people have yet to be shown the extent to which Al Qaeda controls the insurgency in Afghanistan or Pakistan. We need proof, not conjecture, that we are involved in something other than an insoluble civil war. Unless President Obama is willing to offer the American people the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it is time to extricate ourselves from a hopeless mess.
There's little to be gained in asking the Republicans to share in a joint Congressional investigation of the U.S. role in Afghanistan. The GOP is so politicized, so bitter and determined to embarrass and undermine President Obama. As a result it has forfeited a place at the table for a meaningful, bi-partisan discussion' to extricate the United States from yet another foreign policy mess. It is time for a senior senator like Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to step forward and summon every expert and every premise as Sen. William Fulbright of Arkansas did in 1966 on nationwide television to examine the premises of the Vietnam War.
Tom Engelhardt: The Nine Surges of Obama's War: How to Escalate in Afghanistan
What is being portrayed in the media as the surge is but a modest part of an ongoing expansion of the war effort. The media's focus on the president's speech as the crucial moment of decision has distorted what's actually underway.
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It's not just the private contractors. Except for the Special Ops teams left to get OBL, they should all come home.
It occurs to me that all the money that is being spent could be used to "motivate" (bribe) the Pakistani government to get OBL. The US could simply give the equipment that is already there, in place near the Pakistani border, to the Pakistani army to protect that front, and bring US and NATO troops home.
There is no point in doing anything beyond getting OBL, and that could take years. BHO has shown that he has the courage to prosecute a war. But this is the wrong war.
Enough.
"From what we know of President Obama..."
We apparently know nothing about President Obama--we THOUGHT we did, when he made all those promises and inspiring speeches.
Now...not so much. That guy is nowhere to be found.
the media should stand up and do their job to report things like this exposure goes a long way toward stopping things like this. how much of what bush/cheney and republicans in general was and is done due to lack of exposure or criticism by the media. but every act ,thought or word from the president and the democrats is spun ,exposed to analysis by talking heads on an hourly every day basis.
Obama can't stand up to the Pentagon when he's bending over backwards for special interests. He seems to have jelly in his backybone.
Is the public attentive to these important issues anymore? I wish I could say with confidence that they are, but I fear they may not be...
The dilemma anyone sitting in the Oval Office right now would have is::
If you remove the private contractors immediatel
It's one thing to rail against these private contractors and ponder why Obama hasn't replaced them Yet..
But the truth of the matter is that the military does not have the personnel and probably not the expertise to replace them.
The whole notion of Private Contractors serving in traditional military roles was to reduce long term cost... No responsibility for longer term health care cost, no training cost, no overhead etc. This has been going on since Bush the Brighter's administration.
Only after the Wars started, could the problems with this arrangement be brought to the fore front.
ha ha....clam
how about closing it!!????
they are their own boss.
that's ok, the US will go down broke, but the military will spend until the end. fortunately, the end is coming very soon. the Chinese are investing in gold & silver now...not dollars.
it's over for the war machine.
This is one of the major reasons that I no longer consider myself an Obama supporter.
Expensive , out of control, get away wih murder. another way to loot the treasury. Yes Obama will continue this.
We kind of resemble France ...1788
brutal gov't poor people, leading to brutal people
I don't think he has it in him. He seems to suffer from the same anomaly that most of the other Democrats suffer from, the lack of a good, firm backbone. How sad! His talk is more beautiful, but there's nothing behind it. (And even if Hillary said that before, she wouldn't have been any better! We need someone more like Howard Dean or Russ Feingold, with stong passion and real committment to principle.
Dennis Kucinich.
"If President Obama is beginning to look like a wimp..."
- - - too late, Sir. Obama is a proven wimp. He should be running a cake store; pardon the insult to managers of cake stores.
Excellent article.
Did no one notice that when OVERSIGHT of Contractors was reestiblished things in Iraq and Afganistan began to go right ??
Bush allowed the greedy to get away with not doing what they were paid to do !
Just making them account for the money and inspections changed everything !
What a difference financial compentence makes ~~~~~~~~~~~
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