How do you establish the rule of law in Iraq with a bunch of lawless mercenaries running around?

[NNN0LHI]

http://cjonline.com/stories/081007/opi_190210565.shtml

End impunity for U.S. contractors in Iraq

By Frank Kendall
MinutemanMedia.org
Published Friday, August 10, 2007

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. government is employing private companies in areas of conflict to an unprecedented extent. A 2006 Pentagon census estimates approximately 100,000 U.S. government contractor personnel in Iraq alone, not including subcontractors. They perform a variety of roles ranging from logistics, reconstruction and security to training military personnel, and operating and maintaining weapons systems. But when contractor employees reportedly torture detainees and shoot at civilians in Iraq, nothing is done to investigate and hold the companies and individuals accountable.

This, despite the reporting of hundreds of incidents in which shooting, assaults and other violent acts were allegedly committed by military or security contractors.

According to international human rights organization, almost all contractors are able to act with virtual immunity from prosecution for grave human rights abuses. Amnesty International said the government's outsourcing has been without adequate oversight, thus facilitating human rights violations, and described the contracting process as a murky system that creates a "virtually rules-free zone in the war on terror."

The lack of legal accountability for contracted employees presents a serious problem for military commanders. Well-established systems exist for holding military personnel responsible for criminal activity. When the Army or Marine Corps deploys, it takes with it a code of law and the means to enforce it. These clear, applicable and enforceable legal procedures do not exist for civilian contractors.

Some contractors are theoretically bound by the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act that makes them subject to prosecution under federal criminal statutes. But the scope of MEJA's application is unclear and more importantly, even where MEJA clearly applies to contractors, there is no U.S. federal law enforcement in Iraq. To date there has been only one indictment under MEJA — of a security contractor who was working for Kellogg, Brown and Root (Halliburton) in Iraq.

This lack of civilian prosecutions, during a time when the military has prosecuted scores of soldiers for criminal acts, indicates a climate of impunity for violations committed by U.S. contract employees, a situation that is fundamentally counter to the U.S. objective of establishing the rule of law in Iraq. Such an environment impedes the military's ability to enforce consistent standards for the troops and alienates the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, whose support the United States is trying to gain.

[billyoc]

1. I know, it's impossible, just look at these guys!

Oh, wait, sorry, that's from New Orleans. :eyes:

[LiberalFighter]

2. I was going to say shoot the SOB's

What the hell. They are not legal law enforcement so shoot them anyway.

[LiberalFighter]

3. Generally, individuals are subject to the law of the land

even if they are not citizens of the land.

Iraqi's need to assert authority over these contractors.