Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010

PMC’s Bad – Outsourcing War Bad

Outsourcing the war bad- 8 reasons

Singer 7 (Peter, http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2007/1007militarycontractors.aspx, date accessed: 6/27/2010) AJK
Iraq, the clear pattern shows that military outsourcing:  Lets policymakers dodge tough, politically costly decisions, which makes for bad operational choices. Since the end of the Vietnam War, the United States has sought to ensure that there's a link between the public and the costs of war, so that good decisions would be made and an ethos of responsibility fostered. With about half our operation in Iraq in private hands, that link has been jeopardized. Encourages a "bigger is better" approach to operations, contrary to the best lessons of U.S. military strategy. Turning logistics and operations into a for-profit endeavor helped feed the "Green Zone mentality" of having Americans huddle inside sprawling bases in Iraq. Bigger bases may yield bigger profits for the private firms, but they also entail an isolation that runs counter to everything your field commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, told us we need to win a counterinsurgency campaign in the new Army-Marine Corps manual he helped write.   Inflames popular opinion about the U.S. mission. Even when no one gets hurt, the standard tactics used by Blackwater and other private military firms ignore the fundamental lessons of counterinsurgency warfare. Of course, not all contractors are "cowboys" or "mercenaries," as they are often described; many are talented ex-soldiers (for whose training we are now being doubled-billed, but that's another memo). But their "job," as Prince put it at the hearings, is quite different from the broader mission. Focused only on their contract, the private firms' standard practices include driving their convoys up the wrong side of the road, ramming civilian vehicles, tossing smoke bombs and opening fire with machine guns as warnings. As one contractor hired to guard U.S. officials put it, "Our mission is to protect the principal at all costs. If that means pissing off the Iraqis, too bad." Produces a series of abuses that undermine efforts to win Iraqi hearts and minds. The pattern of contractors hurting or killing civilians extends back to 2003, involving everything from prisoner abuse and "joyride" shootings to an alleged incident in which a drunken Blackwater contractor shot dead the bodyguard of Iraq's vice president after the two got into an argument inside the Green Zone on Christmas Eve 2006. Hurts American efforts in the "war of ideas," in Iraq and beyond. As one Iraqi official explained, even before the recent shootings: "They are part of the reason for all the hatred that is directed at Americans because people don't know them as Blackwater, they know them only as Americans. They are planting hatred because of these irresponsible acts." The recent shootings were covered extensively across the wider Muslim world, yet again hammering U.S. attempts at public diplomacy. Undermines efforts to build up Iraqi civilian institutions, the very things we need to get our troops out. Iraqi officials say that recent incidents have "embarrassed the government," making it seem as if the contractors were above the law. As one Iraqi soldier said of Blackwater: "They are more powerful than the government. No one can try them. Where is the government in this?" Creates huge vulnerabilities that undermine the overall mission. When the insurgency flared dramatically in 2004, contractor convoys suspended operations, leading one retired U.S. Army general to describe our military supply system as a "house of cards." When the Iraqis recently banned Blackwater, it wasn't just the firm that stopped operations for five days; so, in effect, did all U.S. diplomatic and intelligence efforts in Iraq, because they were completely reliant on Blackwater guards to leave the Green Zone. Forces policymakers to jettison promising counterinsurgency strategies before they even have a chance to succeed. The success or failure of the troop "surge" hinges on senior U.S. officials' ability to pressure the Iraqi government to share power more effectively and reach other political benchmarks. Instead of doing so, you and President Bush are now having to ask for Iraqi help and understanding to clean up the aftermath of the Blackwater fiasco.

PMC’s Bad – Rape

PMC’s have a history of raping young children
Isenberg 4/21 (David, Huffington Post, April 21, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david–isenberg/pmc–and–sex–crimes_b_546169.html)KFC

My first thought is how is it that some contractors can't seem to keep it in their pants? This is an issue that seems to keep happening over the years; from the days when DynCorp contractors were involved in a sex trafficking scandal in Bosnia when employees and supervisors engaged in sex with 12 to 15 year old children, and sold them to each other as slaves to the gang–rape of Jamie Leigh Jones a former KBR employee who claimed that seven KBR employees drugged and gang–raped her on July 28, 2005 at Camp Hope, Baghdad, Iraq. For those who like to dismiss such things as isolated occurrences just head on over to the "Rape, Hazing, Discrimination & Harassment" section of Ms, Sparky's blog and you will be promptly disabused of such a notion. In fact the situation is serious enough that the sexual assault of employees of U.S. military contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan will be tracked by the Pentagon under a system it is setting up. Evidently the fact that the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) declares that sexual assault committed by the Armed Forces and DOD civilians and contractors accompanying Armed Forces in contingency operations is a criminal offense that is punishable by court-martial is not enough to keep assaults from happening. The IG report reviewed contracts that support Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom for language in clauses that address the prevention of sexual assault or harassment of or by contractor personnel. It also determined whether DOD and/or DOD contractors provided sexual assault/harassment prevention and response training to contractor employees prior to deployment. What it found was: That of the 10 DOD contractors reviewed, 8 did not have policies or training requirements for sexual assault prevention and response. This condition occurred because contractual requirements were not established to ensure that contractors were aware of DOD's definition of sexual assault or that contractors should report sexual assault complaints to Military law enforcement during contingency operations. In addition, sexual assault prevention and response policy was not applied to contractors and contractors were not required to complete such training as part of theater–specific individual requirements training. The Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G–3/5/7, and Air Force contracting officers did not provide adequate oversight of contractor deployment training for sexual assault prevention and response. This condition occurred because the Kellogg, Brown, and Root Services, Inc. Continental United States Replacement Center (CRC) and Fluor Corporation CRC operations were inappropriately approved, despite the contractors' sexual assault awareness and reporting training not meeting the minimum training requirements. Further, contractor employees were processed through pre–deployment sites without ensuring that sexual assault prevention and response training was completed.
PMC’s risk overthrowing host governments and taking advantage of legal ambiguity for things like rape.
Beutel 5 (PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANIES: THEIR EMERGENCE, IMPORTANCE, AND A CALL FOR GLOBAL REGULATION by M. Dee Beutel A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Norwich University, June 2005, http://princess.digitalfreaks.org/thesis/beutelmdthesis.pdf)KM

A further fear is that the PMC will gain sovereign control over the state, leaving the current government as nothing but a puppet. Tim Spicer, the former CEO of Sandline, denies that such a thing could ever happen due to the small deployment of contractors to any given conflict situation. Since so few troops are active, PMC’s do not have enough muscle on the ground to dictate national policy.197 This reassurance does not address the situations where almost full armies worth of troops are deployed. In the current Iraq War, contractors are the second largest force, surpassing even the United Kingdom. Under these rapidly changing conditions, reassurances from only five years ago lack conviction. Spicer also offers reassurance that PMC’s hold themselves to local and global laws.198 While this may have been true for Sandline, DynCorp has proven this to be a fallacy. A concern in hiring mercenaries is that the selected soldiers would be unstable, a group of sadists, and misfits. This apprehension led to the large PMC’s’ assurances that they can provide vetted, stable soldiers.199 DynCorp disgraced this process when its contractors established a sex ring in Bosnia. This is a well established PMC that provides protection to major figures in Afghanistan, as well as State Department employees, and is active in Latin America. In 2002 two employees of DynCorp accused their co-workers of keeping underage women as sex slaves, video taping rapes, and the trafficking of women. Some of these women were as young as 13 years old trapped in the situation as the DynCorp contractors confiscated their passports. After the scandal broke, the soldiers involved were simply fired and sent home. They were outside of military justice as they were not part of the military, and used their position as military contractors to avoid local law as well. Outside of firing the whistleblowers and the offenders, DynCorp ignored the incident all together.200