reply to post by jam321
I don't think all of the contractor's are 'fighting.'....but not all of the American Troops are 'fighting.'
Contractors are
guarding the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and are probably more in 'security',
'support' or 'advisory' roles, but the same would have been true for the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The heavy reliance on contractors in Afghanistan signals that a situation that defense planners once considered temporary has become a standard
fixture of U.S. military operations.
"For a sustained fight like our current commitments, the U.S. military can't go to war without contractors on the battlefield," said Steven Arnold,
a former Army general and retired executive at logistics specialists Ecolog USA and KBR Inc. KBR was formerly owned by Halliburton Co. He added, "For
that matter, neither can NATO."
That poses a challenge for military planners who must keep tabs on tens of thousands of people who are crucial to their operations yet are civilians
outside the chain of command.
WSJ Article
In Congress, there's a particular concern about security contractors who might upset diplomatic and military relationships. "We've had
incidents when force has been used, we believe, improperly against citizens by contractors," said Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs
the Senate Armed Services Committee. "This creates huge problems, obviously, for those who have been injured or killed and their families, but it
also creates huge problems for us and our policies in Afghanistan."
Many contractors in Afghanistan are likely to face combat-like conditions, particularly those manning far-flung outposts, and are exposed to
possible militant attacks -- blurring the line between soldier and support staff.
So yeah...'contractors' ARE fighting...not all of them, certainly, but the main point of contention for me is the gross misrepresentation of the
numbers regarding personnel deployment in theaters of operations these days.
They will tell us that there are only fifty thousand troops in Afghanistan, when the numbers of contractors, performing the same jobs that 'troops'
would be makes the figure doubled, or higher.
We're pulling the 'troops' out of Iraq, but they don't really play up the fact that there are still a hundred thousand 'contractors'
there...armed...working for the U.S.
To me, you can call a soldier anything you like, but if you are being PAID by the U.S. and you have a weapon, and you are in another country, that
counts as military personnel. If you're guarding an embassy, guarding a supply convoy, guarding a base, then you're military. If it supports the
military, then it IS military.
Do you think we should ignore the contractors when we figure troop numbers? (not antagonizing, just want your opinion)
[edit on 4-9-2009 by KSPigpen]
