by metavision
Tue Jun 5th, 2007 at 09:34:24 AM EST
In the past week I have seen two articles about Iraq contractors with very different numbers that cannot be reconciled. Few countries besides the US and UK have been "selected" for the contracts and I don´t believe there are "scores of companies" involved if we consider the sub-sub-contract schemes.
So who´s counting? And who´s believing?
Common Dreams (from Reuters)
Lawsuit in Outsourced US War is Moved Out of Court
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/27/1483/
....Blackwater Security Consulting, one of scores of companies now fielding close to 130,000 civilians who work alongside the U.S. military in Iraq.
(The first comment regarding activism, ends with "The streets are empty, the shops are full..."!)
vs. Magnifico´s
The Independent: Security staff who make up a private army in Iraq
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2594165.ece
There are 44,000 private security contractors in Iraq, forming what the US Senate dubbed the "largest private army in the world".
The difference is staggering and I have read a figure of 120,000 in the US press before, so I tend to believe the higher number. That would give us an almost 1:1 ratio of contractors to soldiers, before the "surge".
*What kind of an army cannot feed, clothe, supply, maintain or secure itself? The contracts include everything from the "housekeeping slaves" from poor countries, to all "security" types. This is a brand new, invented "demand" in the market that must count as "economic growth" in all the typical numbers. Just recycling the "redeployment" numbers in both armies every 3-6... months and publishing them at the right dates, makes me see the employment numbers as the tale they are.
*Is the neocon, oil-adjunct, industry-of-fear equal to the (neocon) army? It´s a neocon´s win-win dream to control the oil by 1)letting the country pay with lives, costs, debt and internal neglect, 2)while profiting from the invented private army, which 3)will continue to grow with the neocon-controlled msm that parrots fear and hatred everyday across the globe.
*What´s the point of NATO trying to hold the mess of two neocon armies in an illegal war? And the neocons have the nerve to ask for more troops from the EU... Free troops, no contracts, because the EU is still sucking its thumb.
I believe chosen pieces of the worst I see in the msm and all adds up to profit for the neocons, regardless of the issue I read about. I hope nobody will kid themselves about any positive motive in the neocon montsters´ minds.
The "serious" press is not even good at copying the right numbers.
