Robert Scheer on Blackwater
Robert Scheer talks about Blackwater and other such contractors and how they are a world of their own in what was once Iraq. Scheer likens the people like Blackwater's to the mercenaries who were sent by the British to the US during our own war of independence. One of the most infuriating things that the Founding Founders had against the British was their hiring of such people, even though they were token in number. And now, the Iraqi government -- or what is supposedly called that -- is demanding that Blackwater leave Iraq in the wake of a shooting that left some innocent civilians dead.
The fact of the matter is that the Republicans, devoid of new ideas, are relying on the same tired old politics as usual -- old, as in ancient history. One of the lessons from the fall of the Roman Empire was that mercenary armies were ineffective -- in many cases, they would turn on their masters and overpower them. If the government is forced to rely on mercenaries to do its dirty work, then this is a sure sign of weakness and a lack of willingness among the public to fight its wars, for whatever reason.
The lessons on not using mercenary armies go back even farther -- back to biblical times. Back in the Old Testament, the rulers of Judah were warned against the reliance on foreign armies to fight their wars. For instance, Asa was chastised for bribing the Syrians to break their alliance with Israel and drive them away from besieging Judah. And Zedekiah was chastised for relying on Egypt to try to break the yoke of Babylon.
There were very practical reasons for this far beyond "God said so." The fact of the matter is that foreign or mercenary armies are not fighting for their homes or freedom; only for their pay. A nation can survive only if their own people are willing to fight for their homes and freedom. If the people are not willing to fight for their homes and freedom, as in the case of the Romans, then no amount of hiring of mercenaries can disguise the fact that such a nation is rotten to the core and not likely to survive.
Now, in our case, it is not like foreign troops are on our soil. But the fact that our people are not willing to take up arms for the purpose of propping up a country halfway around the globe should tell people something -- that we do not have the will or the resolve to go and referee some conflict halfway around the globe. The same was true with the British, and in Vietnam, and here. The Egyptians did not have the resolve to prop up the Israelis, for all of their flowery promises they might have made.
Scheer writes that the Bush administration is hoping that all this will blow over, and they might be right. The Iraqi "government" is toothless and will have trouble enforcing their will should Blackwater choose to defy it, possibly relying on the laws that Paul Bremer wrote allowing them to stay. But this does not alter the fundamental flaw of their strategy in the long run. Blackwater and similar such firms are hated even more than our troops are, and their misdeeds reflect on us, not on them.
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