Blackwater In Iraq could be a worse problem than you think

[NNN0LHI]

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=N2E0MWNhMjMxZjVhM2JmMjA0Yzg0ODNmNzVjMTk5ZDc=

Mercenaries vs. Counterinsurgency

Last week’s incident involving the Blackwater security firm received a lot of attention — and not as much as it deserves. Security contractors perform many vital functions, but in Iraq they are also undertaking roles of military significance outside the military chain of command. And that is asking for big trouble.

Security contractors invariably argue that they provide only defensive services, and do not undertake offensive operations. In a counterinsurgency battlespace, this is a distinction without a difference. In Iraq, driving down the street in an armed truck is an offensive operation. This is especially true because, as the Washington Post recently reported, the contractors are operating under rules of engagement that specifically acknowledge their right to take the actions necessary to defend themselves. And what does that mean? It means whatever the contractors reasonably think it means.

The problem is not that military rules don’t apply to the contractors, as the Post article claims, but rather that military strategy doesn’t apply to them.

Actions taken in self-defense are normally justified when necessary and proportional. It may well be that Blackwater satisfied that narrow rule. But these contractors are not simply going about their daily lives. They are careening loudly down the streets of Iraq at top speed, switching lanes into oncoming traffic at will, waving everything and everyone out of their way, pointing heavy machine guns at Iraqi cars heavily laden with women and children, with no regard for anything except to protect themselves and their charges. That is their job.

Hence, even if the facts of the most recent Blackwater shooting incident are in fact as Blackwater claims they are, there is still a big problem. The modus operandi of these contractors squarely contradicts some of the most essential elements of the current military strategy — the strategy that has produced all the good news we’ve heard out of Iraq this year.

The counterinsurgency (or “COIN”) manual says that the only way to separate the insurgents from the civilian population is to get the population on your side. From this premise follows a series of propositions that the manual itself calls paradoxical:

Sometimes, the More You Protect Your Force, the Less Secure You May Be

1-149. Ultimate success in COIN is gained by protecting the populace, not the COIN force….

Sometimes, the More Force is Used, the Less Effective It Is

[annabanana]

1. It could not possibly be

worse than I think. They are lawless thugs running roughshod over the citizens of a country at the behest of an invading force.

[Turbineguy]

2. If we bring them back to the U.S.

we'll have to invent more crimes to build more prisons for them to run.

[groovedaddy]

3. And where is Iraqi sovereignty in this matter?

"WE" (the U.S.) forced a law down their throats that says they have no recourse in this matter?
That's just great for "p.r."

[acmavm]

4. Remember all the propaganda that flew when the Soviet Union

went into Afganistan? And the US government called them all kinds of mother f**kers for doing it? And gave support in arms and intelligence to the Taliban (or rebels, whatever??) to fight the evil invaders? Well hell, at least the Soviets didn't turn the country over to a bunch of money grubbing dysfunctional civilian thugs.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. The Iraqis are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here.

[bbgrunt]

6. astutely said.