Chart Showing the Privatization of War

[tekisui]

[tabatha]

1. Jeepers creepers

The Taliban are outnumbered - why can they not be defeated?

Does not seem as if the Private Security Contractors are earning their keep.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Can you give the BBC link on that graph?

Nominated....... Was there a BBC story on it also?

[tekisui]

3. Here is a link to the BBC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/magazine_enl_1259260012/html/1.stm

I will try to find the story. I picked up the graphic second hand.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Wow...that is a huge number of mercanaries we are buying.

It is so....Roman empire-ish, isn't it?
This well deserves a rec.

[704wipes]

8. Let's see...

First it would be good to know the breakdown of WHERE we are getting the mercs FROM? What is their nationality and what are they paid?

Second, we could replaces the mercs with regualr troops, save money, apply it to healthcare, but to do so we would either have to close down Iraq qand move people from there to Afgh. or start a draft, which would bring everything to a screeching halt once and for all.

[tekisui]

10. I wonder where they are from, too.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Draft may not have results, look at this:

Report: 75 percent unfit for military duty

"The report reveals that 75 percent of U.S. citizens ages 17 to 24 are unable to enlist in the military because they fail to graduate high school, have a criminal record or are physically unfit."

It seems that there are unintended consequences to locking so many people up:
"Adults on probation, in prison or on parole number 1 in 31 nationally"

and in the ruination of the economy: The military does not want people who have creditors hounding them.

Another blowback is that now the military is calling for better schools.
And boy is then sentence ever telling about the military's perspective on the value of
our citizens:
"In a Washington, D.C., news conference Thursday afternoon, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and retired top military brass unveiled a plan to reverse the trend that they termed, "a threat to America's national security."

Mission: Readiness, a new organization comprised of nearly 90 retired military leaders, compiled the report. It is pushing for Congress to consider the Early Learning Challenge Fund, which would provide grants of $1 billion a year up to 10 years to states to improve early childhood development programs and make them available to more at-risk youths. The U.S. House passed a bill in September that includes the fund; it awaits consideration by the Senate.

In 2030 national security will depend on what happens in prekindergarten today, officials said. "

Looks like we are planning wars way ahead of time.

http://www.post-trib.com/news/1867978,unfit1106.article

[Hangingon]

14. I would like to see a breakdown of the jobs these "mercs" do.

How many are cooks, bakers, truck drivers, maintainers, equipment contractors versus "shooters". The 10 division army has been stretched by contracting out lots of support jobs.

[SpiralHawk]

5. the k and the r

Ptoooey.

[Mari333]

6. k for EXPOSURE

we hire mercenaries!!! why cant anyone just say it.
sickening. corporate takeover of other countries for corporate profits and using our tax dollars for corporations.
another reason I wont have a thing to do with Obama anymore.

[Orsino]

16. We hire those mercenaries to fight the wars we don't have the guts to declare...

...the wars which are not fought to defend the Constitution which our quaint, volunteer military are still tied to by oath.

[tekisui]

7. How many contractors will be added during Obama's Surge?

[chill_wind]

9. K & R

[Shandris]

11. I think I'm missing something?

The chart shows 1,000 mercenaries?

I recognize that there are a ton of so-called civilian contractors as well and, realistically, our government could likely provide the services for less and I think thats how it should be done. Less chance for corruption and conflicting interest (why end a war that is your paycheck?) But lets put outrage where its due, its not like we're fielding 10 companies of Auckland Penal Legions or something.

[tekisui]

15. 71,000 working private security and 3,000

as armed mercenaries.

[Shandris]

18. Ack! I read the 3,000 as 1,000. Silly me.

As for the private security, THAT was what I was missing. My mind was thinking of supply-chain type folks, logistical support and all. Thank you for helping clarify that for me. :)

[bridgit]

13. Graphs are able to offer levels of interpretation, here, one such is the end of war...

as a semblance of democratic process - where you'd forge balanced alliances like a patchwork quilt of noble mutual interest and go get those people that would have you doing otherwise. Some tag lined 'axis of evil' somewhere, stuff like that. Maybe some group with a graph of their own cept with one big black dot that says "Us", and nobody else no other dots

I think the end of war as a semblance of democracy has been loping forward for some time; but you can easily pickup the thread with the partition of Berlin, follow it through Korea, Vietnam, and, thanks to Lawrence: drop it in Kuwait cause all that, "This is *not*...about...oil!!" shit was just that all along: oil shit. Though that, as is often the case; never represented on a chart, and that's the way they'd like to keep it - keep the opulent spoils of corporate war profiteering, the annexation of another's finite resources and the creature comforts to which all this contributes the hell of the charts

And so if in the odd event it ever is represented - you're as likely to find it not there either in graphs such as this one:


I think the OPs graph points to a harbinger, a dire portend. Its saying that entrenched, longitudinal corporate interests involving vast war profiteering are no longer interested in having their schematics placed before democratic review and oversight. It says they've given up on people that are not willing to fight and die for their own creature comforts or more to the point *their* own creature comforts: the yaughts, the blood diamonds, lunch and hot cocoa on the slopes of Cortina

So they are buying their way around all of it

It also says that when you contend with an adversary that presents themselves as a big black dot that, not unlike 'the heart of darkness', you will in time become that big black dot yourself

[sixmile]

17. K&R

For the world-weary

[rhett o rick]

19. So what in the hell do 71,000 unarmed private security contractors do??? nt

[Quantess]

20. I recently saw "Iraq For Sale"

a documentary about mercenaries, private contractors, and other war profiteers. I highly recommend it.