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TechnoratiPeacekeepers-for-Hire? Not So Fast, Critics Warn
UNITED NATIONS - Is the U.N. willing to emulate the U.S. model of engaging private defense and security firms in dealing with issues of war and peace?
U.N. officials say no. But some analysts and observers hold that in the future, the privatization of peacekeeping may be accepted as an international norm.
Their main argument in support of privatization stems from the notion that most governments are unwilling to risk their own soldiers' lives for international peacekeeping operations.
At a recent panel discussion here, Jean-Jacques Roche, the head of the Higher Institute for Arms and Defense at Pantheon-Assas Paris II University, cited the wide use of private firms for both military and civilian roles in Iraq as evidence of a consensus among U.S. officials and the larger public on privatization.
"What is legal inside should naturally become legal outside," he said, noting that the use of private security services in the United States is very common.
Rocher thinks protecting civilians abroad could be better handled by private firms because mercenary casualties are more acceptable to the public than regular troops.
Not everyone shares his views. "This is a dangerous trend," said Jim Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, an independent think tank that monitors U.N. policies and their implementation.
Paul said that instead of considering such options as privatization of security, the world body should focus on measures to improve funding and training for peacekeepers. He suggested that the U.S. and other powers which do not send their soldiers on peace missions need to rethink their policies and do more to make U.N. operations effective.
The U.N. conducts peacekeeping operations in some 17 countries around the world, with most of the troops drawn from the poorer countries of the South.
Washington has declined to contribute troops to U.N. peacekeeping operations since 1993 when 18 U.S. soldiers were killed and some of their bodies dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia.
The U.S. has since increased its reliance on private security to manage its affairs in many hotspots around the world, particularly Afghanistan and Iraq. Currently, the major firms involved in U.S. military operations abroad include BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Blackwater USA, and Northrop Grumman, to name a few.
BAE, which makes military vehicles, provides anthropologists to the U.S. Army to help monitor resistance in Afghanistan. Lockheed is involved in training soldiers in Africa. Blackwater has been in the headlines over several high-profile incidents, including one in 2004 when four of its employees were killed and their corpses publicly displayed in Fallujah, and in 2007 when Blackwater contractors shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
All these private companies secured contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the previous U.S. administration of George W. Bush.
But, considering the views of diplomats representing the countries of the global south, it's unlikely that private firms would be able to get similar deals from the U.N.
"We will not accept this kind of stuff," one North African diplomat told IPS. "We need peacekeepers, not mercenaries."
Currently, the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) has over 100,000 personnel, making it the world's second-largest military force after the U.S. Army. Its operations in Africa, the Caribbean, Middle East, Europe and Asia cost about 5 billion dollars a year, an amount which mostly comes from the Northern rich nations.
However, the world body is having a hard time accomplishing its peacekeeping tasks because one of its major donors is not living up to its promises regarding financial contributions. Observers and officials note that many of the U.N. peace operations are suffering because Washington failed to pay past dues amounting to more than a billion dollars.
They seem optimistic about the future, however, as the new U.S. administration has pledged to work closely with the world body, including support for its peace missions.
"I think things are going to be better," said a U.N. official who is to close Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary-general, and closely follows the organization's peace operations.
Meanwhile, in reflecting on the issue of privatization, a source close to the U.N. security apparatus told IPS it would be better for the U.N. if it relied more on individuals rather than big companies to make its peace efforts more meaningful.
"Private corporations can't take deep interests in peacekeeping," he said. "Their goal is profit-making. What they want to do is to provide the soldiers of fortune, not peace."
U.N. officials acknowledge that the debate on replacing "blue helmets" with private soldiers could change things. But many insist it is a distant possibility.
"The DPKO does not employ private sector, nor do we have any plans to do so," DPKO spokesperson Nick Birnback, told IPS. "We don't use private contractors. We believe that military assets should be provided by member states."
19 Comments so far
Show AllPrivate Firms will only stay in business if they have work to do. So it is not really in their interest to maintain peace in a way that decreses violence. This is sort of the way our war on drugs has been going.
HOw about this for peace keeping- stop all the unfair economic and down right abusive economic practices etc that go on... this is done purposely to keep certain nations in a position of weakness, which does result in some conflict, which, those who benefit from the weakeness, are willing to put up with in order to reap their billions and millions from those abused nations.
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At a recent panel discussion here, Jean-Jacques Roche, the head of the Higher Institute for Arms and Defense at Pantheon-Assas Paris II University, cited the wide use of private firms for both military and civilian roles in Iraq as evidence of a consensus among U.S. officials and the larger public on privatization.
"What is legal inside should naturally become legal outside," he said, noting that the use of private security services in the United States is very common.
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This is the reason NOT to go any further with this mallarky because it just shows how bad those 'private' corporations still want their control of the empire which needs to evaporate.....well, yesterday. Yep, samosamo imperial BS.
How about this..STOP SELLING EVERYONE GUNS, MISSILES, AND OTHER MEANS TO CONTINUALLY BLOW EACH OTHER UP!
ok..now that I got that outta my system.. I realize that most people will say that man has always found a means, and a reason, to kill each other, and if someone didn't make and sell the guns, they'd just find something less complicated to kill each other with. Sometimes I really just become despondent and think that we really don't deserve to inhabit this planet, or any other. Seriously, any species with as complicated a brain, so capable of planning and higher thinking, who cannot get over their fears of not having enough, so much so that we must kill and maim one another, collect more stuff than we could possibly ever need while denying others even the most basic of necessities. We inhabit a world where people profit based on making or keeping others sick, or selling weapons with which people kill their neighbors, or convincing folks that their attractiveness relies on owning this or that widget. Its disturbing, I can only hope we grow up before everyone's dead.
As to the direct subject of this article-- The idea of a mercenary company, ie, a COMPANY, whose motivation is profit, being given the role of international peacekeeper, makes my skin crawl. There is a reason the police, armed forces and fire department are called PUBLIC services. They should be responsible to the public. The public, who they are there to serve, should be in charge. Peacekeepers should be there to serve the public good, though deciding what that is might open a whole new can of worms, not to earn their owners/shareholders a profit.
An interesting thing about the complicated human brains you speak about above is that they aren't usually thinking about making money while actively engaged in killing actions. How many mercenaries do you think actually patrol state department embassies or Kellog Brown and Root facilities while having immediate thoughts of 'having more' or otherwise beefing up their economic worth? Decisions to make money seem to occur in more cloistered environments. People decide to go into war zones so they can get ahead on their mortgages. They may see themselves as being able to make a considerable amount of money in a short period of time, they may see themselves as patriots protecting their country, but I think they probably decide to put on the blue shirts and black glasses and head to Moynock in situations that don’t involve live ammunition. This makes for a great image: the one of suited people in boardrooms making decisions that ultimately involve the lives and livelihoods of a lot of people, but it might also help us to see that in most situations people don’t decide that killing and death are better options than peace and non-violence. The choice is never that stark, or that immediate in its logical concatenations.
Anybody who wants to read about the political and warzone ramifications concerning private mercenaries might want to check out Jeremy Scahill’s “Blackwater.” The mercenary situation in the United States and the world is very pertinent to the future of our social and political lives. Discussion on this topic is vital.
It's already being done. The lion's share of UN peacekeepers come from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Nepal--all countries with poor human rights records and de facto impunity for military personnel--and they volunteer for these missions because they are paid much more than their usual salaries.
One has to wonder in what kind of society peace would 'sell' or 'be bought'. It certainly doesn't seem to be the current capitalist society/culture. The Ad company has yet to appear that can make that a winner.
What a great idea. Turn peace-keeping over to a mob of mercenaries and thugs!
Perhaps you could put them on a bonus system, say a thousand bucks per civilian corpse and five hundred for blowing off a limb.
There's no doubt that America is the mother of invention. You name it, if something bizarre is to be discovered, the Americans will come up with it. Those phosphorous shells that keep on burning, the depleted uranium explosives that cause birth defects for generations, those cluster bombs that blow little kids up...
Once the idea is up and running the American manufacturing system will produce them by the millions along with a perfect delivery system to spread them around in other peoples' countries.
American Capitalism, don't you just love it?
www.dangerouscreation.com
Privatization is indicative of governments inability to govern and utilize public office they were elected into, to exercise public service.
The appointment of private security companies to forefill the function of governance, is an abdication of responsibility.
It stands to reason that the elected are but peons in a game of chess selected by the grand masters.
Intern the elected are masters at oration deception and blundering.
The notion that this planet can now evolve into a unitary state/government/world order is so preposterous that it defeats imagination.
The question that very seriously arises is, what is the actual game plan?
The simple economics in the scheme of things presently are; you cannot trade with yourself, there has to be competition an exterior alternative to trade with or your economy will stagnate, which defeats the objectives of the world order movement.
It would seem that the government structures we are at liberty to vote into power is a farce a jelly-baby sold in a packed for 10 pennies.
The United States of Blackwater. We will be the mercs, the hired guns, the regulators, for the rest of the world. Got a little unrest in the capitol of Canabeer P.U.? Call on the Americans. For a steep price we'll go into your little nation and give 'em a dose of the old ultra violence. Subsidize our arms industries and armed forces and we will go anywhere and do the killing and the dying. It will be a huge industry and the sustainer of our GDP. We will become Sparta, the Third Reich, the North Korea of the world's freedom loving democracies.
What is the true nature of acceptable losses? Is wrapped in psuedo-patriotic hysteria and emotional dissonance or cold indifference and correct politeness.
the original xe was hell's angels. they intimidated the rank and file on behalf of the elite. they confused and softened up the baby boom to the point where that pivotal generation's input to the story was eclipsed. and most of the affected didn't even know what happened-like ya'll perhaps ?
If a nation's citizens are not willing to stand and fight, the cause is not sufficient to justify instigating the war.
Perhaps the fact that 60% of Americans own stock directly or indirectly in the miltary industrial media complex explains their rationalization for outsourcing the dirty work.
Typical USans are non-voting shareholders in the fascist system, meaning they have a stake in it but find themselves chained to the stake. Like prisoners, they eat whatever is fed to them. They see the system as too big to challenge individually. They are told they need organization/leadership to challenge it. In fact, everyone may lead him/herself in the direction we all need to go: far left, where the principles are that we all embrace.
This is another ominous example of the dangers of liberalism. The condition that allows a fascist view the same consideration as a humanist/universalist view is liberalism's spectacular contribution to western civilization.
Fascism might as well argue for outright slavery. Liberalism will eat it up, because if fascism managed to achieve it, liberalism would consider it "the natural order of things". Suggestion for liberals: Abandon the failed ideology and join the progressives on the far left before it's too late.
This is an interesting link you are making between liberalism and fascism. I am curious to know more about how someone might characterize this link. My curiosity is piqued because I just read an encyclopedia entry on Liberalism last night (Brittanica Online). So far I have been under the impression that Liberalism was the coming to fruition of a sense of the individual in Western societies. It was a conceptual break with the past in that Feudalism and Absolute Monarchy did not address the individual as weightily or respectfully as Liberalism would claim to do.
The idea of Liberalism was wielded politically to reduce the power of government. In mercantilist societies, the government (most likely a monarch) would control trade and protect domestic products through tariffs etc.,. Liberalism, with its focus on the rights of an up and coming trader/mercantilist/capitalist class, curbed the power of the government in some significant ways. The radical nature of this effect can be disputed. For instance, when parliament had their victory against Charles (enshrined in historical memory as The Magna Carta) the rights extracted at sword’s edge were not for people on the streets of London.
I think this discussion about what Liberalism means is an important one in today’s political climate, since the L word and Barak Obama have been mentioned in the same context quite a few times recently (specifically, New Republic, April 1, 2009, Shapiro).
I’d be very interested in any more details anyone might be able to provide about links (historical, political, conceptual) between fascism and liberalism.
I would suggest you very thoroughly investigate the word NEOLIBERALISM...plenty of links there....
When Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfiwitz decided to do an end run around law and regulations, getting their friends rich and hijacking the US political process (whatever little was left of it), I don't think their activities should have been dignified with a word like neo-liberalism. As people who reside on the left, we have come to resent and hate the word neo-liberal--mostly because of the realities of free trade policy and The Project for a New American Century. The distinction we made at the time (that neo-liberals were different than liberals) was an important one and had its reasons (reasons which I don't feel like I have to recount here). However, the comment I responded to above was one that I interpreted as characterizing Liberism as a political ideology that was somehow soft because it respected a facist point of view as valid political conversation. If you mean to say that neo-liberals are 'soft' in the same way, that would surely put a new spin on this dialogue.
From the article:
"Rocher thinks protecting civilians abroad could be better handled by private firms because mercenary casualties are more acceptable to the public than regular troops."
What might the public attitude toward mercenary murders be?