For some reason the LA Times and others are into euphemisms when it comes to clear cases of private armies working against US interests.
There have been no suggestions that American officials had a role in Sameraei’s escape Sunday afternoon. But the B-movie scenario of a rich businessman hiring armed muscle to bust himself out of jail from inside the fortress-like, U.S.-protected enclave could further contribute to Iraq’s image of instability and lawlessness. The flamboyant former government minister’s arrest and prosecution were held up by Iraqi and U.S. officials as a rare example of good government prevailing in the new Iraq.
His high-profile escape, splashed across Iraqi television channels Monday night, also could further damage the reputation of the U.S., which is already believed by many Iraqis to have wasted and stolen billions of dollars in Iraqi revenue.
Iraqi officials were enraged by his escape and the suggestion that any Americans had a hand in it.
“We think that there are a lot of terrorist operations through the money that was taken through corruption,” said Sheik Sabah Saadi, chairman of the Iraqi parliament’s anticorruption committee. “Ayham Sameraei has announced on more than one occasion about his support for the resistance and the insurgents and even claimed he was a mediator between the resistance and other factions.”
Fuck them. Seriously, you either fight under the flag, or you are nothing more than a hired thug. You can sit there and try and make excuses and say they aren’t all like that, but in the end, the presence of ‘private security’ creates just these sorts of incidents that are counter to the national security interests of the United States. There is no accountability and ultimately they are just seen as other Americans.
Oh, and the escaped prisoner is pals with Rezko. Small world.
H/T Rich
…aah, but soon you can be a hired thug trained right here in the Land of Lincoln at the Blackwater North facility in Mount Carroll http://www.blackwaterusa.com/press/bwnorth2.asp
I agree. There is something sleazy about the privatization of an army. Something unseamly about hired guns to fight for the country. creepy.
very sleezy. Especially since the army pays blackwater something like $1000/day for each mercenary. The merc usually gets around $600 of that.
Doing the math, that’s $365,000 a year per man, and over $200,000 to the merc.
I’m sure some mercs get less, that’s the going rate (I think) for ex special forces.
Compare that to the average soldiers pay, somewhere around $20k a year, for a low level soldier. Not sure what special forces get, probably in the $60k range if they’re experienced.
So, spec ops forces don’t have an incentive to stay in the army. The incentive is to retire, hook up with Blackwater, and make 10 times what they were making.
It’s called war profiteering. And, once upon a time, it was illegal.