"I'm From the Private Sector and I'm Here to Help." This American Life.

[AP]

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/
Civilian contractors make up a huge part of the American occupation of Iraq. They were interrogating prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Twenty thousand of them are private guns-for-hire doing security work. And they've been getting killed. This American Life Contributing Editor Nancy Updike recently spent three weeks with several contractors, talking to them about what they do, how they view the situation on the ground, and why in the world they volunteered for jobs in the middle of a war zone. We devote the whole hour this week to her special report about what's it like to be a private citizen on the payroll of an occupying army. Broadcast the weekend of June 4-6 in most places, or available here via RealAudio next week.



Pictured: Doing business in Baghdad at least has one upside: no long lines at the airport.

Unless you're on the West Coast, you might have missed this. It will be available on Real Audio next weekend.

[amber dog democrat]

1. I am a civilian contractor ( READ mercenary )

and I am here to cash in, ( i.e. help ).
More accurately I am here to help myself to huge incomes I could not get any other way Like vultures feeding on a carcass.

They are not that much different from the barons and knights who went on crusades, on the off chance the army could sack a city or two on the way to the Holy Land.

Yeah, I heard that broadcast and I am not very impressed.....

[reprehensor]

2. Indeed.

Check out the 'Positions Wanted' wanted section at Tactical Jobs.com

oi.

http://classifieds.tacticaljobs.com/cgi-bin/classifieds.cgi?search_and_display_db_button=on&query=category&category=Security

[amber dog democrat]

4. Dude, what is stopping us? Its Crusade Time !!

Are you also ex military? I just read your link and I am feeling an attitude change.
call it motivation!

This may be the career change I was looking for.

Former Navy myself...
I think its my civic duty to go over there an help afterall....

Last one in to Sadr City is a rotten toturer...!

I will have the Humvee ready to take us to the airport in 15 minutes. Are you with us?

$$$$$$$$$$ !! Bling bling ! !

[AP]

3. Most of these people are in deep debt and don't seem to have much of a...

...choice. Well, not so much "choice.: But you can hear their desperation in their voices.

One story they describe, by the way, is an RPG attack at a hotle filled with contractors from a RI company. All the contractors spent all night shooting at each other in the haze that followed.

At the end of that segment, they did a "where are they now" with the people we met. The british guy was pulled from his car and shot in the back of his head and is dead. Another was shot in the back of the head and is OK, back in the US.

[amber dog democrat]

5. Agreed

Its a bad situation all the way around. Its sobering to think that someone with 2 Masters degrees can't find anyting better than data entry for Blue Cross at $17000.00 per year. I really don't have a good answer for this.

The risk factor is huge. I don't think anyone in their right mind would be there, still.
Not voluntarily.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

6. Thanks. You may be interested in

the following BBC Radio 4 programme on British "security" firms:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/progs/04/one_offs/file_on_four25may.ram