Hmmm....

[unixronin]

We've heard it a hundred times:  "The Bush administration hired mercenaries!  Civilian deaths! Bush evil!  KBR!  Blackwater!  Obama would never have done anything like that!"

Without much notice or debate, the Obama administration has greatly expanded the outsourcing of key parts of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency wars in the Middle East and Africa, and as a result, for its secretive air war and special operations missions around the world, the U.S. has become increasingly reliant on a new breed of specialized companies that are virtually unknown to the American public, yet carry out vital U.S. missions abroad.

Companies such as Blackbird Technologies, Glevum Associates, K2 Solutions, and others have won hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military and intelligence contracts in recent years to provide technology, information on insurgents, Special Forces training, and personnel rescue.  They win their work through the large, established prime contractors, but are tasked with missions only companies with specific skills and background in covert and counterinsurgency can accomplish.

...Oops.  What was that you were saying, again?

Look, there's basically a choice here.  You hire in these specialized civilian contractors when you need their special skills, or you train up additional specialized military units and you keep paying for them and their equipment and training (oh yeah, and their C3 infrastructure) all the time, even when you're not using them.

Your call.  I'll wait.

Comments

[wyrdling]

they passed several laws during the bush administration to keep the contractors even less liable for their misbehavior than the military. they do not have to live up to the same standard... so they don't. if that were remedied, i would have far less problems with their existence and usage.

i wonder how this compares to the practice of calling up the merchant marine in times of war... the legal structures there, as opposed to here...