Was Your Police Department Trained by Blackwater and Other Mercenaries?

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http://www.alternet.org/books/was-your-police-department-trained-blackwater-and-other-mercenaries



By the time President Obama announced the withdrawal of Ameri­can troops from Iraq, PMSCs [private military and security companies] were in line to collect billions of dol­lars in contracts for at least another five years. They included SOC, Inc. (the firm with the extensive training site in Nevada, whose con­tract to safeguard the Baghdad embassy would bring in nearly $1 bil­lion), Triple Canopy (a five-year $1.53 billion contract for embassy security), ArmorGroup, Control Risks Group, DynCorp, Erinys, and Aegis. And as always, there were many smaller firms working as subcontractors, though these were not listed on the government’s Baghdad Embassy website. What was noted on the site, however, was a rather big caveat: “The U.S. government assumes no responsi­bility for the professional ability or integrity of the persons or firms whose names appear on the list.”

These contracts hardly resembled the feeding frenzy of the Iraq PMSCs surfacing in Iraq, some without track records and many in search of subcontracts. There were, in fact, enough unknown firms with unfamiliar names popping up in Baghdad that some underwrit­ers at Lloyd’s of London were uneasy. Insurers typically demanded that these companies produce what were called security protocols from the military if the companies wanted insurance for operating in unstable environments.

The Iraqi contracts would cushion some of the top firms during the industry’s transition from wartime. And while the gold rush in Iraq was ending, the pursuit for the next rush of markets had already begun. Where exactly were these markets? Wherever instability threatened development; wherever the military commitments of states exceeded their capacities; wherever preventive war was a rul­ing principle; wherever governments were viewed as incapable of supplying defense and security fast enough in times of sudden con­flict; wherever maritime terrorists threatened the shipping industry; and wherever kings, dictators, or presidents felt endangered by mass protests, such as the nations involved in what became known as the Arab Spring in 2011.

To be sure, there was plenty of work for PMSCs during the Arab Spring, especially protecting companies trying to operate in the midst of the political unrest. For example, in Bahrain, where Aegis had an office in Manama, the capital, the firm, according to its own release, implemented a “crisis management plan” for an unnamed multinational energy company and evacuated 100 or more people.