Private Security Companies in Iraq

Exactly how many Americans are serving in Iraq and what they are doing there might not seem like complicated questions. Stories in the media regularly talk about the 150,000 U.S. military personnel in the Iraq theater. Coverage of events inside Iraq, which includes the actions of U.S. troops there, was the third-biggest news story in the American media for the first quarter of 2007, according to PEJ research.

But those numbers do not include some 30,000 employees of U.S. and European-based Private Security Companies (PSCs), who work in some of Iraq’s most dangerous areas.

These PSC employees are not like other contractors in Iraq. Many of them carry weapons and are hired to protect important people, facilities and convoys. They have been involved in firefights and scores of them, the exact number is unclear, have perished. Yet there are many basic unanswered questions about these armed forces, which add by 20% the number of foreign troops in the country.

As a starting point, the financing can be difficult to track. Some PSC personnel are paid directly by the U.S. government, while others work as sub-contractors or sub-sub-contractors for other companies doing business in Iraq.

The issue of who is in charge of them in the field also can be confusing. While PSCs work alongside the U.S. military in Iraq, ultimately they serve at the discretion of the groups that hire them. Those employers may be the government, but they could also be some third party.

One thing is clear. Private security companies are doing jobs once largely undertaken by the military. And experts say they are being used in unprecedented numbers in the war in Iraq.

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Chimpy McBush rewrites the history of Viet Nam

Chimpy, that flip flopper, must have disagreed with himself back when he was a young monkey during the actual Amerikkkan attack on Viet Nam.
When it was time for Chimpy (and his other Neokkkon pals) to fight in Viet Nam he joined, with his daddy's help, the national guard to avoid doing exactly that.

And when it was time to do his guard duty he went AWOL and busied himself snorting coke, slurping bourbon, conquering virgins and working on right wing extremist political campaigns right here in the US.

His inexpert analysis of history in which he compares Japan at the end of world war II to Viet Nam in the 1970s not only exposes his complete incapacity for critical thinking, but is yet one more strong indication that this unelected pretender, this cheating, lying, anti-democratic class warrior, this bird brained war monger is stupid enough to lead what is left of America into an attack on Iran.