Privatization of the military IS a bad thing

To the delight of liberals and anyone who knows anything about foreign policy, it looked like Blackwater Worldwide would finally be gone from our military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was after the 2007 Baghdad shooting in which Blackwater security personnel opened fire needlessly on a group of civilians, killing 17. Their license was revoked and those responsible were sent to court. Afterwards, the company changed its name to XE, and everybody forgot about the issue. They are somehow still operating in Iraq, however, as are dozens of other "mercenary" armies. Their primary duty is to assist in day to day security operations within Iraq's major cities. They have become so successful at their job that they have even begun to develop their own variants of armored cars, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and other sensitive military hardware.

Few have characterized the increase in private contractors in Iraq as the privatization of the military. I will do so here. Privatization has been happening throughout the bureaucracy over the last several decades. Private contractors are now tasked with many of the operations that our agencies used to do. This is problematic enough in areas such as public education, where school choice has led to racial and class segregation of schools, but in the military it is reprehensible for several reasons.

When the private sector comes into a market, they will almost always offer higher wages and better benefits than its public counterpart. In the military, this will be especially true, ceding the most qualified strategists and foot soldiers to the mercenary armies. The regular military, which is our REAL safeguard against foreign threats, will have a lessened potential to resist a foreign invasion. The mercenary armies do not and never will have the type of organization to conduct offensive military actions against sophisticated forces. The mercenary forces also make it difficult to organize an effective PR campaign with the local people on the ground. The U.S. Army does a very good job at this, employing interpretors and handing out candy. Blackwater shoots 17 people. Not very consistent. Another problem with having a divided armed forces would mean the military's scarce funds would be stretched even further. Having to fund another several forces within our funding structure is fine when there are only one or two contracting firms with a limited role within the country. If the trend continues, corporations like Blackwater will have a much larger role in our military. They will need more money to continue developing their technologies and organizational structure. It would be like splitting the cost of one army between two. Our regular armed forces would be shafted.

One darker issue is the issue of corporate power. Allowing the military to be controlled by large corporations like Blackwater dangerously undermines the authority of the United States government. Multinational corporations already control our legislative branch of government. Do we want to give them the armed forces too?

This is what is so surprising. Politicians go on and on about protecting our troops by continuing to fund expensive fighter aircraft, but ignore a serious threat to one of our most important institutions. Public education is in crisis because of privatization. We cannot afford to have the military follow that path, especially while we are engaged in two wars. Strengthening the military? Republicans, you want to be listening to this.