Good article on a very underreported issue.

I see the use of Mercanaries (because that IS what they are) as just another way of Governments avoiding accountability.

A good article - if you're interested in more on this, there are some great articles at www.corpwatch.org including a great piece on the upcoming privatisation of the US border control at Mexico.

While I'm definitely much more in favour of capitalism than the alternatives, I think the fear of communism and socialism (promoted by those at the top of the capitalist ladder) is preventing any proper discussion of the flaws of capitalism. Despite the cold war being well and truly over, those who criticise capitalism are still stigmatized.

The reason why I say this, is that we are entering a new era of capitalism - an extreme kind that has never been seen before.
More and more industries that used to be the core province of government are becoming privatised. Water. Electricity. Even defence.

This last one is particularly scary. As the author points out, hired guns are just that. And while I don't think any large scale military outfits are going to join terrorists any time soon, the smaller players may be tempted.

Consider this - with the privatisation of these core industries, what roles will our governments play?
A large part of that, will be choosing which contractors get the tax dollars. Instead of administering these industries, the government will pick and choose.

Inevitably, they will pick and choose the larger contractors. The ones with the large PR budgets, and the ones that can frame the best proposals.

Where does this leave the smaller operators? either swallowed up by the bigger ones, or looking for other customers. And in an increasingly globalised world which sees conflict viewed from only two sides, in the major conflicts, there will be only one other customer.

I can see people scoffing that the mercenaries wouldn't join terrorists. But with a fifth of the world's population being muslim, there is plenty of scope for mercenaries with sympathies for militant groups, who may not otherwise be inclined to violence.

What were those comments after Croatia was sent packing from the World Cup soccer competition - "The Croation fans are now getting behind Australia" and the reason given - "Well most of the other countries remaining in the draw have been at war with Croatia in it's history". Point one - History can be a bugger when it is used ingrain ethnic and religious hatred. Lucky we don't have too much complicated history in Australia.

But..., 20 years ago I stood in a State Forest North of Melbourne at the site of a clandestine training camp, which by the way flies in the face of reports by the Federal Police report approximately 2 years ago that no such training camps existed in Australia otherwise they would have known about it. We were training on their turf to take them on and they were training so they could go and liberate their land in Europe when the Soviet empire was starting to loose influence on the former Yugslavia. And when the wall came down a lot didn't go back for the liberation as they had become "Australianised". Point two - Although from a different European culture, Our culture had helped disengage some of these young men from being soldiers of fortune.

In 1983 an ex US Army Intelligence Analyst with Vietnam experience was turned around at Melbourne Airport. He had already been paid $100,000 to come to Australia and teach some aspiring soldiers of fortune techniques in Counter Intelligence and miss information. Point three - well I guess show anybody enough money and you will get some takers. Just remember that top tax rate

Flippant rubbish.

al Qaeda (and other Muslim terror networks) consider Private military companies (PMCs) as one of the worst manifestations of the "infidel, Crusader" threat.

al Qaeda recognises PMC's are staffed by former Western intelligence and special forces types. The CEOs and PMC staff in general rely on continuing ties with their old government employers to gain new contracts, knowledge, liaison procedures and recruits.

PMC's largest customers are Western countries. It makes no market sense to put those contracts at risk be dealing with "the enemy".

All this suggests al Qaeda would consider use of PMC's as an extremely insecure way to run terrorist operations.

Its far more likely al Qaeda (and JI etc) would turn to former/current military and intelligence personnel of Muslim nations for training, expertise and physical support. This support is much more secure if it relies on the overt or covert Muslim jihadist leanings of the military/intelligence personnel.

As examples of likely support - the observation of pro Osama bin Laden screensavers on the computers of officers at the headquarters of Saudi intelligence. Many officers in Pakistan's intelligence body (ISI) have long been seen as aiding and abetting al Qaeda and the Taliban.

So basically Ballenger's market model is unconvincing because it disregards the key elements essential to Muslim terror organisations, that is organisational secuity and religious affiliation and bonding.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com

Mercenaries - Footsoldiers for the War For Profit Gang (Part 1)

"It must be remembered that elite ex-military personnel are trained in infrastructure protection, so it's hardly a quantum leap in thinking for them to turn what they've learned around, moving from defence to offence."

Quite so Jeremy.

There is ample evidence for this in the first 5 minutes of this video compilation of the London bombings:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3770877779111334563&q=london+bombing

Peter Power - was he genuinely surprised or just covering his arse?

Likewise the astronomical coincidences which converged on 9-11:

1. Several war games, some "live" taking place on that morning, depicting elements of the "real" scenario. Condi lies, "We didn't imagine...".

2. Missing $ Trillions from the defense budget, admitted the previous day by Rumsfeld, forgotten the following day.

3. Silverstein buys WTC 1 & 2 seven weeks before 9-11 (with only $14 Million of his own money), then insures it against terrorist attacks. He is awarded $50 Billion payout.

4. WTC 1 & 2 were condemned because of electrolysis problems between the outer steel verticals and the aluminium cladding. The buildings were lousy with asbestos, requiring careful deconstruction at a cost exceeding $10 Billion.

Footsoldiers for the War For Profit Gang (Part 2)

5. Mayor Giuliani, the "hero" of 9-11 was well aware of the WTC status. His office and records were handily destroyed in the demolition of WTC3. Giuliani went "free enterprise" with his own security company and enough insider knowlege to guarantee success.

6. Handily, crucial evidence from the Enron / Arthur Anderson fiasco was destroyed, along with several FBI investigations of money laundering by major banks.

7. The FBI assign CONVAR (Germany) the task of recovering data from WTC hard drives, but CONVAR is quickly bought out by private spy agency Kroll Inc, a subsidiary of Maurice Greenberg's AIG. The money launderers win the day and Wall Street breathes a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile in La La land, we are presented with blurry videos of the late Tim Osman (Osama), depicted by a variety of bad mummers. All we get is WMD, war on terror and a variety of other drivel. The fact that we swallow this unedifying and barely believable muck is a matter of extreme embarrassment to me.

I would love to have been a fly on the wall when sock-puppet Bush took sock-puppet Howard for a wide on Airforce 1. I wonder what passed between them on the big aiwy pwane?

Pete

I can accept my 'market model' may be unconvincing for a various reasons, but disregarding organisational security and religious affiliation are not among them.

Simple markets such as that described ignore these factors, relying on incentives being met through the price mechanism. You describe externalities - side effects of an action influencing the well-being of non-consenting parties (every Muslim in the world is not a Jihadi).

I agree these parties will turn to Islamic nations for training in the first instance. But to think they will not widen the search to include 'infidels' is naive. How many Muslim nations produce motor vehicles for car bombs or AK47s for foot soldiers? Not too many, and these organisations have little compunction in meeting their needs in these areas through the wider market. My argument is we will eventually see similar behaviour with organisations such as PMCs - something you appear to agree with in your comments on Merv Bendle's piece "9-11: treason in the academic comfort zone?"

"So I'd say unlike AIDS etc the counter terrorism push is a security and defence business. Its an enormous and growing business under conservative governments in the English speaking countries..."

In relation to your other issue, al Qaeda may indeed consider PMCs as 'one of the worst manifestations of the "infidel, Crusader" threat'. All the more reason they might choose to use these very people against the West. Just like they did on September 11 with the aviation industry and symbols of global capitalism, the World Trade Centre. Doing so is yet another example of guerilla warfare improvisation - low 'cost' with maximum effect.

Jeremy Ballenger

Jeremy

I appreciate your comments on my comments on your article. I also note you have looked at more of my OLO comments and perhaps visited my modest website a couple of times in the last 12 hours.

While its true that one should not underestimate al Qaeda’s habit of launching surprising operations every 4-5 years in new, newsworthy and deadly ways, it is not run like a business - unlike PMCs, some armies and security services.

What you call externalities and simple markets is an interesting approach but hardly fits PMCs and al Qaeda. I see al Qaeda as mostly an outgrowth of Saudi clan tensions, where operational security, making a media splash (of blood) and harnessing the willingness of its expendable agents to blow are crucial elements. This makes al Qaeda an unlikely customer of services that PMCs might consciously provide.

Regarding your scenario of “A team of four former Special Forces personnel” setting off a bomb in London, al Qaeda would constitute a very wary consumer of such a PMC product because they couldn’t trust PMCs not to take their money and then “dob them in”. The bosses and rank and file of al Qaeda would also have kittens entrusting their Allah-given duties to a band of Western, infidel, recent killers of their Muslims.

Now you’ve referred to the arms trade. This unwitting supply of goods to (say) the Afghani, Pakistani or especially the Iraqi military may well find its way to al Qaeda but PMCs are more into service provision.

If PMCs provide demolition training to Saudi Special Forces this may well be training some Saudis who subsequently take their knowledge to al Qaeda. This is unwitting but an unfortunate concession to those who have oil power and money.

Certainly the training of Saudi and UAE novice pilots in how to fly airliners (but not to land them) was a suspicious use of Western flight simulators. Most eyes were of course on Iraq after that...:) Again that training (like the intelligence on Iraq) was unwitting or witless.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com

PS. I operate on Washington DC time…

Attention all warriors in the War on Terror -

Here is your Commander In Chief at his latest press conference:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060915-2.html

- and a direct link to the video:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060915-2.v.smil

Yes, it's the man himself - the big cheese - sent by almighty God to face down the BIGGEST GUL-DURN DANGER - EVER.

I dare you warriors to watch the whole hour. See if you can come away with your smug certainties intact.

Truthseekers will note that the Prez puts his big foot in it at the 4 minute mark, when he accidentally references explosives used at the WTC - whoops! Alas, no reporter has the guts to ask a question about that. Where's Helen Thomas when you need her?

The War on Terror has as much credibility as George W Bush - no more and no less. He is a fall-guy, a patsy, and in the end only held out as a kind of mascot for the opportunists who wish it to be.

*

Holly Deane-Johns and Shapelle Corby were prepared to be drug mules so what is stopping any red-blooded Australian from copying the "boys on the border" and becoming soldiers of fortune as there seems that there are some soldiers will be surplus to the Australian Regular Army shortly and together with other bored types here in Australia will be mouthing a few "crikeys" and "she'll be rights" together whith the Afrikaans at the Baghdad poolside.