Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010

Iraq Forces Adv. – Link – Resentment

PMC’s create resentment and anger in the Iraqi people. They are seen as independent threats.
Chakrabarti 9 (Shantanu “Privatisation of Security in the Post-Cold War Period” Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses December http://www.idsa.in/system/files/Monograph_No2.pdf TBC 6/25/10)

In Iraq, like in Afghanistan, there has been a strong link between the private sector led reconstruction effort and the surrounding security apparatus and the Iraqi population’s perception of socio-economic exploitation. In the eyes of the local Iraqi population there are blurred boundaries between the foreign armies, international private contractors and PSCs who work for both—the occupying army and foreign private contractors.36 Such growing resentment among the local population adversely affects the counter-insurgency campaign and emboldens the various insurgent groups. Very recently, for instance, an Iraqi militant group, the Islamic Army, has released a propaganda film on the Internet, which has targeted the PSCs operating in Iraq. The release note of the propaganda film is titled ‘Bloody Contracts’. It says: In God’s will, the brothers in Central Media Department of the Islamic Army In Iraq are pleased to present this special segment about private security companies in Iraq and the role of their criminal acts under the umbrella of the occupation and how our brothers (the Mujahideen) have taught them lessons in retaliation for their crimes.37 According to Ben Venzke, the chief of Intel Center, an organisation which meticulously tracks insurgent and jihadist propaganda, the film ‘Bloody Contracts’ shows that the private security personnel are not being targeted just as an extension of the US forces but rather as a direct threat. While attacks on contractors are nothing new, this video is a sign that the threat profile for contractors has continued to increase and more direct threats are expected to take place in the future as the distinction between combat and non-combat duties begin to further erode.38

PMC’s generate anger and undermine the mission
Miller 5 (T. Christian Los Angeles Times December 4 http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/168/37230.html 6/25/10)

The private guards' sometimes aggressive behavior has created a wellspring of anger at the U.S. presence in Iraq. Countless Iraqis have had to endure the humiliation of being forced to stop or pull off the road as a convoy of unmarked SUVs races past, filled with men waving guns and making threatening gestures. "This is not a particularly effective way to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis," said Joshua Schwartz, co-director of George Washington University's government procurement program. "The contractors are making the mission of the U.S. military in Iraq more difficult." An incident in May is a case in point. Robert J. Callahan, wrapping up his tour as spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, was returning to his offices in the U.S.-controlled Green Zone when his convoy turned onto a broad thoroughfare running through Baghdad's Masbah neighborhood, said U.S. officials and Iraqi witnesses interviewed by The Times. At the same moment, Mohammed Nouri Hattab, 32, was headed north on the road in his Opel. He was moonlighting as a taxi driver, transporting two passengers he had picked up moments earlier. Hattab looked up and saw a five-car convoy speed out of a side street in front of him. He was slowing to a stop about 50 feet from the convoy when he heard a burst of gunfire ring out, he said. Bullets shot through the hood of his Opel, Hattab said, cut into his shoulder and pierced the chest of Yas Ali Mohammed Yassiri, who was in the back seat, killing him. The second passenger escaped without serious injury. The convoy roared on, leaving chaos in its wake. "There was no warning. It was a sudden attack," said Hattab, a slight man who can no longer freely move his right arm. Hattab said it was the third time since the U.S. invasion in 2003 that he had been fired on by Americans. On the first two occasions, U.S. troops who had mistakenly fired at him later apologized, he said. This time, he said, he has drifted in an endless legal fight for compensation, bouncing between Iraqi courts and U.S. officials. Hattab, an Oil Ministry employee now on disability leave, has seen his pay cut in half to $51 a month. "We thought [the Americans] would bring freedom. They got rid of Saddam," Hattab said. "Now it's going on three years and what? Where is this freedom?" The family of his passenger, Yassiri, has fared no better. The 19-year-old newlywed, a Shiite from an impoverished neighborhood in Najaf, was on a trip to Baghdad. Sitting in their two-room home on a dusty, unpaved street, family members said it wasn't until a Times reporter told them that they realized Yassiri had been killed by private guards and not U.S. soldiers, as they had been told. "We lived in poverty and oppression during the time of Saddam and we were expecting the opposite when he left," said Adil Jasim, 26, a family friend. "I say that the situation is the same and even worse. American forces came to occupy and to achieve their goals. They don't care about Iraqis."

Iraq Forces Adv. – Link – Perception

PMC’s destroy perception of the war – they obscure the true mission
Nandi and Mohanty 10 (Tanay Kumar Satabdee National Law University, Jodhpur, Gujarat National Law University, April 23 The Emergence of Private Military Firms and Their Impact on Global Human Rights SSRN TBC 6/26/10)

The privatisation of the military industry signals a blurring of the lines between public and private interests.64 It is often uncertain whether a state acts out of principle or simply out of the desire to make a profit. When private and public lines are perceived to blur it also becomes difficult for states to claim their policy follows a general and justifiable interest beyond that of the specific contract or firm65. This perception impacts on the legitimacy with which a security operation is viewed and leaves affected populations with feelings of injustice and resentment66.
PMC’s destroy perception of the war – Lobby for military solutions
Nandi and Mohanty 10 (Tanay Kumar Satabdee National Law University, Jodhpur, Gujarat National Law University, April 23 The Emergence of Private Military Firms and Their Impact on Global Human Rights SSRN TBC 6/26/10)

As PMFs develop into independent players in the market for force – and engage in extensive lobbying efforts67 – their interests are increasingly a decisive factor when determining the proper course of action in areas of conflict and crisis. As a result, policies focus on immediate security operations and military style solutions, in isolation from the social context and root causes of isolated or expanded conflict68. Social, economic and/or environmental issues are excluded from the analysis, providing additional justification for local populations to feel that the ‘West’ is less concerned about the human security and human rights of civilians and more about securing access to resources69.

PMC’s destroy the legitimacy of the war
Zedeck 7 (Rachel MA in international security and counterterrorism studies Private military/security companies, human security, and state building in Africa African Security Review 16.4 Institute for Security Studies pg. 99 December TBC 6/26/10)

The operations of PMSCs in conflict regions have historically been problematic. Lack of transparency, democratic oversight and accountability inevitably lead to a decreased perception of legitimacy on the part of these actors in the eyes of local governments and civilian populations. Increasingly, civilian populations perceive PMSCs as showing disdain for human rights, operating outside the framework of the rule of law and without accountability to the state in which they operate or regulation by the state in which the company originates (predominately the United Kingdom and United States). This culture of impunity leads to resentment of PMSCs who profi t from war in these regions. The feeling of resentment is exacerbated by the fact that many employees of PMSCs receive neither proper screening nor training in understanding or asserting human rights within the frame of established, international legal standards. This fundamental set of rights was defi ned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations in 1948. According to Laura Dickinson (2003:403, 405), a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, of the 60 publicly available Iraq contracts she examined, ‘None contains specifi c provisions requiring contractors to obey human rights, anticorruption, or transparency norms,’ nor do they appear to require training concerning the appropriate ‘use of force’. Dickinson cites an army inspector-general report on the conditions leading to the Abu Ghraib scandal which concluded that ‘35% of US contractor CACI’s Iraqi interrogators had no formal training in military interrogation policies and techniques, let alone training in international legal norms’.