What Do You Think of the Exponential Growth in Private Military Companies?
Question by I am Natasha’s complete lack of surprise: What do you think of the exponential growth in Private Military Companies?
“As a public military contractor the company employed some of the personnel who were implicated in the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in 2004. Involving mostly Titan and CACI International employees, the U.S. Army “found that contractors were involved in 36 percent of the [Abu Ghraib] proven incidents and identified 6 employees as individually culpable”.[2] None of these personnel were prosecuted.[2]
In May 2004, Titan employee Adel Nakhla, an Egyptian-born American citizen, was terminated from his job, after he admitted he held down inmates that were “nude, handcuffed to each other and placed in sexual positions” (as described by the Taguba Report).
The company was in the process of being acquired by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, but the attempted merger fell through on June 26, 2004:
Lockheed Martin Corporation announced that it has terminated the merger agreement with The Titan Corporation because Titan did not satisfy all the closing conditions on or before June 25, 2004. Under the terms of the amended merger agreement, either party could terminate the merger agreement if Titan either (i) had not obtained written confirmation from the Department of Justice that the investigation of alleged Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations was resolved as to Titan and the Department did not intend to pursue any claims against Titan; or (ii) Titan had not entered into a plea agreement on or prior to June 25, 2004, provided that the terminating party had not contributed to the failure to consummate the merger through a breach of its obligations in any material respect. Titan did not satisfy either requirement.
On March 2, 2005, the company admitted to illegally providing $ 2 million to the 2001 re-election campaign of President Mathieu Kérékou of Benin, and agreed to pay $ 28.5 million in fines and civil penalties.[3] Titan pled guilty and paid the largest penalty under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in history for bribery and filing false tax returns.[4]
Titan Corp briefly partnered with SkyWay Communications[4] and owned stock in several other corporations related to SkyWay. SkyWay’s former DC9 aircraft, N900SA, was captured in April 2006 with 5.5 tons of cocaine on board. Investigation of the cocaine bust by Mad Cow Morning News[5] led to the discovery that Titan had employed Makram Chams, a Lebanese national. Chams owned a Kwik-Check convenience store in Venice, Florida, where the biggest overseas money transfer to the 9/11 terrorists ($ 70,000 from the UAE) was sent, according to the testimony of FBI agents during the 9/11 Commission hearings.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Corporation
——————-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_military_company#Bush_Administration_policy_on_PMCs
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/private_military_companies/index.html
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/308301
http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=ABB93486-E575-49BA-A805-1CC08F0BECC5
http://www.brookings.edu/topics/private-military-contractors.aspx
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/business-and-human-rights/private-military-and-security-companies?id=1101665
http://www.propublica.org/article/this-year-contractor-deaths-exceed-military-ones-in-iraq-and-afgh-100923
It seems business is booming for some people….
“According to DOD, in Iraq, as of March 2011, there were 64,253 DOD contractor personnel in
Iraq compared to 45,660 uniformed personnel in-country.”
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40764.pdf
Why are we fighting a “contingency operation”(means illegal war) and feeding the military-industrial complex while simultaneously creating more terror groups (of both PMCs and those driven into extremism through the “contingency operations”)? Why…if this is the largest growing sector of military operations on the planet….do we not hear more about this?
Thanks for the links Leslie. It actually amazes me how some responses actually justified the use of private military forces in illegal police actions because they said they were only being used as private security, and only helping to supply the military and reconstruction. I guess our public schools did a shitty job of explaining to people what illegal police action means and that most of war IS supplying the military.
Best answer:
Answer by Thomas D
Exponential growth is impossible to maintain past a couple of generations.
Answer by Casca Longinus
I think it blows, I could use that money, rent is due before long, and how am I supposed to pay for seeing the doctor for my sniffles?
What do you think? Answer below!
Philip Seymour Hoffman's death highlights heroin addiction in US
Filed under: cocaine abuse by country
"Heroin is changing the landscape to this country, and there's really no one who's immune from that," said Carol Falkowski, a drug abuse researcher who found a record high of treatment admissions were for heroin in 2013 — up almost a full percent from … Read more on FOX 9 News
RI losing ground in drug
Filed under: cocaine abuse by country
In a speech for the 2006 International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Jakarta, Yudhoyono said: “A lot of requests for clemency in drug-related crimes have been submitted to me, but I personally feel that I would prefer to ensure the … Read more on Jakarta Post