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  • Uesseler, Servants of War

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    GabrielRamos
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    Uesseler, Servants of War

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    Uesseler, Servants of War

    Авторское право:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Отметить как неприемлемый контент
    38 просмотров14 страниц

    Uesseler, Servants of War

    Загружено:

    GabrielRamos
    Uesseler, Servants of War

    Авторское право:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Скачайте в формате PDF или читайте онлайн в Scribd
    Отметить как неприемлемый контент
    из 14
    Servants of WAR \a-4 Orden, JeramulaySitoms Internacienal DrcJavierAlealde 830-1130 Private Military Companies The New Service Industry ‘There are people who believe that everything done with a straight face is rational. Gore Capstone Licurensene Andy Melvilleisin his mid-twenties. A former British soldier, he iscur- rently the head of the English FMC Erinys, which is active in Iraq. ‘The US. Defense Department has given the firm a contract worth more than $50 million to protect its vanguard units and technical troops. In an interview with PBS on April 21, 2005, Melville said “What we do is classified. We don’t wish [others] to know what our clients are, where we're operating and how we're operating.” Jason McIntosh, spokesman for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a PMC based in San Diego, Califoraiay is ie wise tight lipped: “We refrain from talking about things our cus~ tomers don’t want us talking about: Thar's just good policy.” In 2004 Sanho Tree of the Institute for Policy Studies in Servants of War Washington described the frustrating points about trying to research private military companies. They carry out state func tions, Tree wrote. They receive money from U.S. taxpayers, fly planes that belong to the U.S. government, and use American nilitary bases—they carry out all their activities in the name f the American people. But when you try to get information from them, Tree wrote, they just say “Oh no, we're a private company—we don’t have to talk to you.”* "These statements underscore the difficulties of trying to find out exactly which services individual PMCs have been con- tracted to provide. Along with the companies’ inherent reluc- tance to divulge their secrets, the problem isa legal one. Because they operate as private businesses, they are under no legal obliga- tion to provide information to third parties—or even lawmakers, ‘Thus, che Bush administration was able to refuse to respond toa request by the U.S. Congress for a comprehensive list of PMCs ‘There is no way of knowing exactly how many PMCs have been contracted for work in Iraq, for instance, or what sort of individ- ual contracts for which sorts of services have been concluded. The government is not required to disclose contracts with a volume of less than $50 million to Congress. Only agreements above that amount are officially publicized, and they represent a minority of the contracts that have actually been signed—precisely because it is common practice to split up contracts into subagreements s0 that they do not exceed the $50-million mark, Nor is easy to glean information from the companies’ profiles on the Internet. However stylish and expensive their websites may be, descriptions of the activities of the firms concerned are like “personal and property pro- ‘isk analysis,” “crisis management,” “education and » “strategic planning,” and “air transport.” Only the usually restricted to general tection,” “ waining, | 2 Private mattary Compantes images of often heavily armed men in military action indicate that the services on offer are not of the usual civilian sort. Some ~firms are so specialized that the services they provide are largely incomprehensible to the lay person. SAIC, for example, includes in its list of services on offer “Battle Management,” “Electronic Combat/Warfare,” “Information Warfarelinformation Opera- tions,” and “Mission Planning Systems.” Generally speaking, PMCs provide the full range of ser- vices and hardware normally associated with the mandates of national armies, defense forces, and foreign intelligence agen- cies as well as police forces, customs officials, border guards, and internal intelligence agencies. PMCs have, however, con- centrated their offerings on four areas; security, training, intel- ligence, and logistics. ‘THE BROAD SPECTRUM OF SERVICES Security isa relatively broad area, encompassing the protection. of individuals, property, facilities, and institutions. PMCs are hired to ensure the well-being of politicians, businesspeople, and VIPs who are under threat. They conduct area searches,

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