Nagging feeling regarding "private contractors" in Iraq...

[KansDem]

I’ve had this nagging feeling for some time now about the “private contractors” running rampant in Iraq.

Remember when President Clinton was soundly chastised for putting restraints on the CIA in who it could “hire” for intelligence-gathering operations? As I recall, he did not want US agencies to hire criminals and terrorists. But he was ridiculed by the right wing and the GOP as being naïve and not practical.

President Clinton tied the hands of the FBI and CIA by not allowing these agencies to recruit informants in terrorist cells, if these people had a history of human rights violations. This single act precluded the agencies from acquiring good intelligence.
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/Ldotvets/Bubba_12.html

Congressional leaders agree that America's spy agencies, long hampered by politically correct restrictions, must be allowed to get down and dirty in the fight against terrorism. In the works are the removal of restrictions against hiring foreign agents with less-than-sterling reputations - a ban that robbed the CIA and other covert operations of the ability to employ the kind of less-than-respectable human assets who can get the job done by whatever means necessary. So determined are members of Congress who exercise oversight of the intelligence community that even the revocation of 25-year-long ban against using foreign agents to assassinate foreign targets is under consideration. "We have got to be a hell of a lot more aggressive," Sen. Richard C. Shelby, R-Ala., vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, told the New York Times. R. James Woolsey,
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/9/18/204922.shtml

Now we’ve had disclosures about the mistreatment of Iraqi POWs at the hands of “private contractors.” Reports of beatings, rape, murders are finally filtering out to the public. At first I wondered “how could any US soldier be connected with this? How could I, if a member of the US Armed Forces, even remotely consider abusing someone like what we have recently witnessed?” I thought “How could any officer give an order to rape, beat, sodomize, otherwise sexually demean, or murder a POW?” “How would I respond if given such an incredulous order?” Was I too being naïve? After all, I come from a military family; my dad was in the Navy and served in WWII and Korea. I remember many a story of honor and duty while growing up.

But then we learned of the contemporary “private contractor” and was surprised to learn such “professionals” were operating in a kind of paramilitary capacity (ie, prison guards).

And now with the horrible execution recently witnessed by many on the Internet and the questions arising from that incident; questions regarding the orange jump suit, the demeanor of the “assassins;” the detainment of the victim for 10 days/2 weeks by US/coalition forces; the lawsuit filed by the parents against the US, etc., could one conclude that there are shadowy figures operating in the Mideast (is this an understatement?). I’m not referring to spooks or spies on intelligence-gathering missions, but an extremely evil group operating outside the realm of law and accountability, and civility, who are hired for their human rights-less “specialties” In other words, has the US, after scoffing at and ignoring Bill Clinton’s declaration, gone out and actively recruited and hired KNOWN violent pedophiles, KNOWN brutal sex offenders, KNOWN gruesome killers, in order to “win” the Iraq War and achieve the goals of the shadow figures? And, if so, how was this accomplished? I wouldn’t think ads in mercenary magazines would find “the right professionals.” However, perusing the sex-offender lists maintained by many counties/states and looking through police reports and court documents to find violent, brutal malefactors could produce a list of potential POW prison guards. After all, people on these lists would have a difficult time finding employment in his/her home community. And who is responsible for all this? Is it in the higher echelons of the US government directly, or is this a chore for someone several people (and thus several layers of accountability) away from those in power?

Perhaps I’m a bit slow on the uptake, but it's not that big a jump from hiring criminals in terrorist cells for spying to hiring violent criminals (in or out of terrorist cells) to carry out questionable operations. If remotely true, this is (for me) a frightening realization.

[w13rd0]

1. A couple of Pinochet guys...

...or those that carried out the house bombings of families for the South African apartheid regime...they'd take jobs that many of us would find appauling I'm sure...

[Texican]

2. Actually That is Who Some of them Are

There were eighty of them killed the other day, not four. Some of them were South African mercs who killed ANC politicians and others. One of them shot an ANC politician in the head while he was in his car in his driveway.

[CityZen-X]

3. Berg's Killers Were Mercs!

That is my opinion and I will hold to it!
Why doesn't the media state it like it is? They call these Dogs of War "private contractors" when they are Mercenary's These dogs are paid killers who do it for the adrenalin rush, the lust for killing, and of coarse the money. And here we have them running amok through out Iraq committing untold crimes, and answering to no one.
And you can bet that they were the ones that infected our troops with their demonic sadism at Abu Guraib. They are nothing but hit men on the payroll, courtesy of the Federal Mafia!