The rise of corporate armies in America weakens our country's armed forces, delegitimizes our interests abroad, and gives military power to entities
whose loyalty is bought only for profit. The private military corporation, or PMC for short, is nothing more than a large-scale mercenary band.
In ages past, the use of the use of mercenaries would be unthinkable by any but the most inept and unread of commanders. The growth and encouragement
of these brigands over the course of the last decade is at once a testament to, and cause for, the rapid decline of America's standing in the face of
the world. One need only read one of the most basic texts of military leadership to see what is otherwise considered common sense among competent
military leaders:
"Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for
they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God
nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy. The fact
is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for
you."
SOURCE: The Prince, Ch 12, by Nicolò Machiavelli, 1505.
Throughout history, mercenaries have been viewed with contempt. Their loyalty is bought, and for a higher price than those whom serve out of a sense
of duty and patriotism. Their actions in the field are not tempered by a moral sense of right and wrong, the ethical system of a national army, or the
discipline of a rigid chain of command. They are motivated only by profit, enough so to think nothing of killing for their daily bread. It should then
be no surprise when these hired guns commit crimes upon both the countries they profess to serve, and the countries upon which they make warfare,
turning all against their employer in the process.
It is for this reason, and many others, that mercenaries are afforded no quarter in
Protocol I, Article
47 of the Geneva Conventions.
In 1996, Major Thomas J. Milton of the
Foreign Area Officer Association had the following to say about the future of
PMCs.
There are three major differences between these new corporate armies and mercenaries of old. First, they are business ventures foremost, not a venture
for individual profit or excitement. Second, these corporations, at least those based in western states, do not take contracts that are in direct
opposition to their country's national interest. Third, again for those based in western countries, they maintain a high level of professionalism and
profess to adhere to internationally accepted norms of operations.
SOURCE: The New Mercenaries - Corporate Armies For Hire
(1997)
Milton's supposition that "the mercenaries of old" were neither business ventures nor anything other than individuals out for glory, ignores every
major historical application of their use. Indeed, mercenaries had the most destructive effect upon their employers when they were large, organized
business ventures. Machiavelli attributed the fall of Italy in
The Italian War
(1494-1498) to overuse of mercenary forces, Carthage was held for ransom by the very mercenaries that once defended it in the
Mercenary War (240BC), and in
various African wars during the 1970's, nations that weren't bankrupted by the mercenaries were despoiled by them.
Major Milton's assertion that PMCs do not take contracts that are in direct opposition to their country's national interest also falls short of
reality. What determines a PMCs host country? The local branch office? The headquarters? The parent company? And what of subsidiaries? One such
example is the
Vinnell Corporation (a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman), whom have already created sister company, the Riyadh-based
Vinnell Arabian, the contract for which is financed by the Saudi government, and tasked with
protecting its Royal Family and their interests. The very relationship between the United States and Saudia Arabia is already
deeply troubled, and the
gap between our relative national interests widens with each passing year. Should the U.S. ever
enter conflict with Saudi Arabia, whose intersts will Vinnell Arabian serve?
Major Milton's shows his naivety towards PMCs in expectation that they would not behave in anything other than a professional and internationally
acceptable manner. Certainly this is not the case with
Dyncorp, a corporate army of
mercenaries whom enjoy $2.8 billion in U.S. defense contracts annually, despite numerous allegations of drug and child sex-slave trafficking.
...employees and supervisors from DynCorp were engaging in perverse, illegal and inhumane behavior [and] were purchasing illegal weapons, women,
forged passports and [participating in] other immoral acts."
SOURCE: Johnston v Dyncorp (2001)
The above is in addition to such "minor" details as charging the U.S. government for unnecessary repairs, padding their hours, and severe collateral
impact to the property and lives of innocents surrounding their operations. In 2002 they were charged in U.S. Courts for
terrorism.
Most damning of all for Major Milton's argument is the list of PMCs he lists as fine examples of how these modern mercenaries are somehow ethically
superior to their older counterparts: Vinnell Corporation, Brown and Root, MPRI, Sandline Ltd., Executive Outcomes. He even goes so far to say:
These companies have become an integral part of DoD plans and operations. The professionalism and expertise within these corporations are without
reproach.
SOURCE: The New Mercenaries - Corporate Armies For Hire
(1997)
Brown and Root may be more recognizable by their new name,
KBR, the subsidiary of
Halliburton, under
dozens of ongoing investigations for bribery, fraud, kickbacks, and
trading with the enemy. Their response to these allegations was the flee the scene of the crime and
move their Headquarters to Dubai.
MPRI formerly Military Professional Resources Inc, has been at the center of a scandal involving the
Macedonian Armed Forces (ARM) in Kosovo, and committed the "bloodiest episode of ethnic cleansing in Europe since World War II" during
Operation Storm in Croatia. They were
at the center of training and equipping the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army),
designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department, and suspected by the DEA of being a high-grade Afghan smuggling operation into North
America and Western Europe.
Sandline Ltd, now
Sandline International, is best known for the Sandline Affair, a
blood-soaked
mineral rights scandal that changed the history of Papua New Guinea
forever, and continues to plague it to this day. They also helped to continue the civil war in Sierra Leone, instigated by rival mining companies
over diamonds. In both affairs, they were
closely linked with Executive Outcomes.
Executive Outcomes (and Strategic Resource Corporation) is a
common link between all of these corporations, but folded in 1998, and became
unofficially absorbed by Sandline during the
Plaza 101 Diamond Dogs scandal.
With such a large and diverse history of crimes against humanity, it should have come as no surprise when Blackwater came under investigation by the
FBI for the
murder of eight unarmed civilians, or when
U.S. Investigations Services (USIS) commits human rights abuses that exacerbate civil war in
Iraq.
Terrorism, training terrorists, murder, underage sex slave markets, illegal narcotics running, blood-soaked diamonds, fraud, forgery, illegal weapons
trade, and human rights abuses, and ethnic cleansing; are these the "integral part of DoD plans and operations", or "the professionalism and
expertise without reproach"? The former is unthinkable, and the latter is lack of thought. Major Milton's statements either condemn the Pentagon as
being the most sick and depraved force in Earth's history, or are complete and total fabrication of a myth that the corporate army is anything other
than an even less moral and ethical evolution of the mercenaries of old.
They should all hang! 
