Is Blackwater necessary?

Question

I mean, don't we have an army.. supposedly the best in the world?
Why do we hire Blackwater's mercenaries at a ridiculously high rate? Can we pay our own Special Ops that salary and get rid of a war profiteering company that shoots up civilians?

The question is... they are a private firm... under what law can they engage in any acts of war at all? And why can't the army do it all? Isn't that their motto? Why do we need a private company to profit off the war?

Answer 1

Absolutely yes, is the unfortunate answer. Right now, we have more contractors than active duty military personnel in Iraq. Blackwater alone employs some 23,000 of these. Get rid of Blackwater and we have to deploy more troops. Get rid of all of the contractors and our mlitary position becomes untenable.

It is being said in some military circles right now that this issue with blackwater is being created by the CIA, who wants the army out of Iraq. The reason for this is that while the army is there the CIA cannot operate properly and the CIA thinks that it can do a better job than the army. In other words, there are those in the army who feel that the assault on Blackwater is only step one in a plan to discredit all of the contractors.

Most of the people who work for Blackwater are veterens of the US military and many are veterens of elite US fighting units. This is especially true of the command staff. I'd be careful about accepting at face value the claim that well trained and well disciplined veterens of such units as the Navy Seals and Delta Force are just going around shooting up civilians for no reason. I'd say that anyone willing to do that is someone who is wholly too anxious to suspend his disbelief. The administration and the military are a bunch of liars but congress and the muslims aren't? Please.

This whole thing stinks of a setup on someone's part.

Oh, and vtjames, you are dead on right about that one. Sierra Leon comes to mind. That little country was being ravaged by rebel forces and the UN was as useless as ever. Mercs came in and quelled the violence. THEN the UN stepped in, got rid of the mercs, and handed the civilian population right back to the rebels. The genocide that followed was directly attributable to the United Nations.

And back to the asker, no, we don't have the best army in the world. Man for man, and allowing for an exception in the case of a few elite units, we are probably inferior to many other armies.

In the first place, when the armed forces stopped gender norming, they had to reduce the physical reqirements for males in order to justify maintaining women in uniform, so our armed forces are not as fit as they should be. Secondly, the army has started "co-locating" nominally noncombatant females with combat units. You'd have to ask a vet what that means, because it would take me too long to explain it here, but suffice to say that it has the effect of reducing the potential effectiveness of the whole unit. Our state of rediness is low, our ability to equip and train large masses of soldiers should an emergency arise (I believe that it already has) is about nonexistent, the armed forces are under manned and historically underfunded, procurement is a bad joke, and the truth is that our military status at this time is just a few steps away from disgraceful.

The only thing that makes us at all superior is our technology. In a stand up fight out in the open, no other force on the planet can expect to beat us, solely because of our technological edge. The problem with the current conflict is that the enemy is waging asemetrical warfare against us, which tends to minimize the advantage our technology gives us.

Oh, and finally, Pfo, it sounds more as if everything I said was correct. Maybe you could replace 23,000 mercs with 10,000 to 15,000 new troops in terms of the money being spent, but that dilutes my point not one whit. How many troops would we have to train and deploy in order to replace all the contractors? What would that do to our effectiveness? Is it even politically possible to move that many new troops into Iraq? My point stands. Get rid of the contractors and you might as well pack up the whole effort. Your trouble seems to be that you have zero understanding of the operational challenges involved in the Iraq effort.

Blackwater as Bush's Praetorian Guard? Well, you'd best look up the job description on that one. In any case, the implication of what you said is understood even if the analogy is a bit silly. Sounds to me to be a great reason that a black organization like the CIA might want them out. In any case, I'm not saying that that part of it is true, only that there are a lot of people serving over there who think it might be.

Answer 2

In the recent WW2 series aired on PBS, a veteran told how soldiers first allowed that $1000 per month wouldn't make sense for the horrible job they had volunteered for (or had been drafted to do). They soon raised that to $10,000, and then said no amount af money would be enough, but they kept on fighting.

Blackwater and others that you call "mercenaries" aren't just doing their jobs for the money, they DON'T get paid a "ridiculously high rate" (considering the dangers), and Blackwater CEO Eric Prince, a former Navy Seal, isn't profiteering or telling his people to kill civilians. Saddam is the one who told his people to kill civilians, and the terroists continue to tell their people to do so. A dead American Blackwater employee is a special prize, to be dragged through the streets, beheaded, or hung from a bridge.

Prince correctly stated before the Democrat Senators who rudely "questioned" him about Blackwater activities (for purely political reasons) that he had no legal powers to do anything about employees accused of wrongdoing except to fire them or dock their pay. Furthermore, they have not been proven to have acted wrongly.

Except for the brave and battle-hardened employees of Blackwater and similar companies, we would have sustained far higher casualties in Iraq. We could not have fought the war at all without re-instituting the draft, which woud have meant sending many more young, poorly trained and poorly motivated American citizens into battle.

Answer 3

What does blackwater have to do with the army ?

They aren't performing any army functions in Iraq.

The State Department Diplomatic Security Corp protects diplomats, not the army.

Since Iraq is such a high threat area, the state department contracted out to blackwater for additional security specialist to to help its own security corp.

Instead of hiring a 1,000 additional employees at the state department to do the job.

1,000 employess who would still be on the state department payroll, long after they needed that additional 1,000 security specialist.

I wonder, do you consider the private security guards that protect our military bases in the states, mercenaries too ?

Are police officers mercenaries ???

Answer 4

What people dont understand is that Blackwater are contractors, civilians, thus they do not fall under the Geniva Convention laws. With that been said, they have more "freedom" to protect the assests that they have been hired out to protect. They can shot first and ask questions later, now as far as civilians getting shot at, I would call that a circumtance of the wrong place at the wrong time. 99.9% of the Blackwater employees are prior service highly trainned persons.

So yes they are necessary.

Answer 5

becuase in the digital age , information will travel so much faster. the defferments of the past will not stand today ''I ain't no senator's son'' comes to mind .the draft list would be common knowledge , like an arrest or an auction posted in the paper, and when it became obvious that they are not being drafted , it will lose any validity . the other point is that the investigations that are going on with blackwater are starting to shed some real light on the subject of accountibillity you can't draft people into private armies...and you have a whole bunch of people with a REAL liscense to kill..

Answer 6

I think Blackwater is unnecessary. The most likely reason that Blackwater gets contracted for lots of money is political corruption. They are funneling this money to Blackwater after it changes hands several times. I agree, let's double our soldier's salaries and hire 5 times as more than we have Blackwater guys. The money is their to do it. How's that for a surge?

Neo Imperialist, nothing you said is correct. Blackwater employs only 1,000 mercenaries that are armed to defend. Any remaning Blackwater personell are non-combat. At the rate we pay Blackwater, you could replace them with 10-15,000 more soldiers.

The conspiracy theorists believe that Blackwater is the Bush administration's Praetorian Guard (from Roman times, look it up if you don't know it). Could be. I haven't decided yet. If you start connecting the dots, it's not hard to see their association with the government, nor why they got this huge contract when the war broke out.

Answer 7

using the contractors essentially cuts in half the number of soldiers we need at any one time in Iraq.

rumsfeld never planned for being in iraq beyond 6 months and refused to increase the numbers of troops to sustain any type of peace.

bush and company have continued this policy to this day for the very reason that the fewer troops (hence the multiple deployments) the fewer american families that will be actually affected by this botched war, then the less chance of mass demonstrations and peace rallies as per the vietnam war.

the strategy has worked very well except for the idea that somehow iraq is supposed to benefit from all we are doing.

Answer 8

They are absolutely neccessary. They are in a sense a use as needed army. As far as the cost, they do get paid a lot, but there is also no cost in training them, medical benefits (although we do get battlefield medics), etc. that we do have to pay on a continuing basis. They can also be cut without having a long term commitment as would be the case if staffing levels for the military were increased. It also takes about 2 years to get a soldier up to adequete training levels to go into active duty. Most of Blackwater are combat vets who need no additional training and they operate under the ROE as defined by the contracting agency, in the case of Iraq the State Dept. and the rules of their licensing as defined by the Iraqi government.

Answer 9

Outside security firms relieve the already intense pressure on the military for protection. Also, the Special Ops are being used, and although we have "the best in the world", we don't have an infinite number of troops. They are being used and security firms can help do the menial tasks the military just doesn't have the manpower or patience for.

Answer 10

I cant speak about them inparticular but mercs are often more effective than the military because they dont have the same bureacracy or rules of engagement. Small Merc groups eliminated violent rebel forces in numerous African countries during the 1990s before the UN banned them. Who cares about the people and peace as long as there are no mercs I guess- sad