A lot has been made recently about the alleged transgressions of a Blackwater USA team in Baghdad during September. These private security contractors, regarded less charitably by others as mercenaries, are accused of killing up to 17 Iraqi civilians in Nasoor Square. According to the Blackwater personnel onsite, it is they who were initially fired upon. While the details and consequences remain to be sorted out, the incident has once again called into question the whole idea of using professional soldiers to aid a war effort like the one in Iraq.
Here’s my take: Professional soldiers, with proper oversight, can remain a quality tool for use within the Iraqi theatre of operations and beyond. Most importantly, they address a manpower shortage that is undeniable. There are, by all reasonable estimates, tens of thousands of private contractors working in the current conflict in a variety of guard duty and escort-related roles (privately, many US officials have stated that they much prefer the highly-trained professional warriors to the garden-variety military policemen who would be assigned in their place). The fulfillment of those tasks by the contractors liberates the regular military to perform essential battlefield operations. Beyond the manpower issue related specifically to operations within Iraq, there is the matter of the larger personnel shortage plaguing the US military, in general. The current conflict, along with the associated issue of an unpopular presidency and a cooperative domestic economy, has made military enlistment goals much tougher to meet these days. Further complicating matters is that the entire nature of “war” seems to have changed a lot, as well. Much of the foreign soil hostility in which the US has embroiled itself recently has been rooted in less-clearcut issues like tribal/ethnic rivalries and terrorism. Absent are the more obvious “Evil Empire vs. Good Ol’ USA” kinds of conflicts like we saw in World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam, which did a far better job inspiring a patriotic swell in enlistment ranks.
While I am very much in favor of implementing mechanisms that would provide for greater oversight of private security contractors, I am perfectly fine with the concept of utilizing professional soldiers to aid in the war effort. The vast majority of them are patriotic to US interests, highly trained and experienced, and actually want to be over there; that sounds, to me, like an awfully good mix.
Agree or disagree click on comments below to share your opinion.
James L. Paris
My main website is www.christianmoney.com
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