A Private War
President Trump’s plan to privatize the war in Afghanistan would enrich three of Trump’s key financial donors and plays into Russia’s military objectives.
In September 2007, Blackwater armed military personnel, guarding State Department officials, drove into Baghdad’s Nisour Square and opened fire, killing 17 people and injuring 20 others. Blackwater worked for the US as a “contracted” private army (there were as many as 160,000 contracted personnel operating during the Iraq war). Blackwater guards worked outside the normal military command of the military and the House Oversight Committee would later reveal the firm was engaged in over 195 unprovoked attacks in a 9 month period in 2014.
As a result of the Nisour Square massacre, Iraq terminated Blackwater’s license to operate within its borders. Four Blackwater employees were tried and convicted in U.S. federal court; one for murder, and the other three of manslaughter and firearms charges.
Peter Singer, a former Brookings Analyst would later write, “When we evaluate the facts, the use of private military contractors appears to have harmed, rather than helped, the counterinsurgency efforts of the U.S. mission in Iraq, going against our best doctrine and undermining critical efforts of our troops. Even worse, the government can no longer carry out one of its most basic core missions: to fight and win the nation’s wars. Instead, the massive outsourcing of military operations has created a dependency on private firms like Blackwater that has given rise to dangerous vulnerabilities.”
https://narativ.org/2017/08/18/a-private-war/
= new reply since forum marked as read
