Greeting from The City Of Brotherly Love.

It all happened here in Philadelphia. The formation of the Continental Congress, the first public reading of The Declaration Of Independence, and the Constitutional Convention. It was here that one of the most progressive political doctrines in history was penned, though one that would avoid one of this nation’s greatest evils in the process.

On the way down from New York we passed the turnoff to Trenton, where, on the day after Christmas, 1776, the tattered remnants of George Washington’s army, roughly 2,400 men, crossed the Delaware River and attacked 1,400 Hessian mercenaries. Washington’s force took the Hessian garrison suffering only two casualties and capturing over 900 prisoners. Up until that point, the Continental Army had been ravaged by the British and was, in truth, on its last legs.

Despite Emanuel Leutze’s famed portrait of Washington crossing the Delaware standing near the bow of a boat, Washington actually crossed the river in the dark and, most probably, sitting down given the icy conditions. In truth, the success of the attack is largely due to the skill and stubbornness of John Glover’s New Englanders who were responsible for handling the boats. Even though they would not get the army across the river in time for a night assault to be launched, their role in the attack was quintessential. Glover had argued prior to the attack that the conditions would not afford the expedience that Washington’s plan required. In the end, despite the Continental victory, Glover’s prediction obviously proved true.

Being in this part of the country is, for me, fascinating given my passion for American history. Looking out my hotel room window, for example, I can see the gates of Widener University, which was founded in 1821.

Tomorrow I will be playing in Arlington, Virginia, another famed location, and one of significant interest to me given my study of the American Civil War. Arlington House, which was once the home of Robert E. Lee, and had been the home of his wife’s family prior to that, now rests at the center of America’s most noted military cemetery. Shortly after the Civil War began, Arlington House was occupied by the Union. In 1864, after Union cemeteries were filled to capacity, then Quartermaster General, Montgomery Meigs, chose Arlington as the site for a new cemetery, going so far as to bury Union dead close enough to the front entrance of the mansion that it could never again be inhabited. Meigs own son would later be buried in what was once Mary Custis Lee’s rose garden. In 1955, the mansion itself was entered into the National Register Of Historic Places and has since become a memorial to Robert E. Lee, which I have always found both amazing and distasteful given that Lee’s army of Northern Virginia was responsible for populating the grounds of his once great estate with the graves of Union soldiers.

Following the war, Henry Adams would write - “I think Lee should have been hanged. It was all the worse that he was a good man, had a good character, and acted conscientiously. It’s always the good men who do the most harm.” Lee would go on to teach at what would later become known as Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

It is here in Philadelphia that the concept of America was born. It was here that some of the most progressive political ideas in modern history were given life, though the men responsible for their charter and enactment would fail to take into account the plight of millions of African Americans in chains despite the solace of liberty that they so ferociously championed. It is here in Philadelphia that America came into being and, at the same time, was set on a collision course with itself that would eventually lead to the most costly war in US history, a conflict that produced more American deaths than all other American wars combined to date.

It is here that the idea of America took flight only to be besieged by the relentless wiles of the plutocratic mere moments after her wings were spread. One wonders when her course will be corrected, when the value of her foundation will again be seen unspotted, and the dissention that rests at the core of her triumph will again be viewed as her most valued strength.

Today, while the President was referencing freedom and justice as being “written in our hearts by All Mighty God”, The New York Times began a new series entitled War Torn: A series of articles and multimedia about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home, which I think is sadly telling.

When I wrote The Boy Come Home for Hospital Music it was based on stories of paranoia and disparity felt by a handful of Iraq veterans that I had been corresponding with. Of course, the story that I convey in the song is fictional, but it is steeped in a psychology that, having corresponded with those veterans, is not.

The words “In God We Trust” first appeared on American currency during the US Civil War. It’s telling, given that that conflict was the deadliest in US history, that then Secretary of the Treasury, Simon P. Chase, received countless appeals from American Christians to have the motto, which was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956, placed on US currency. Prior to the 1956 adoption, the de facto motto of the nation had been, since its appearance on the Great Seal in 1782, E Pluribus Unum, or – “for many, one”.

During those catastrophic four years, the people of the United States perhaps looked to a greater power to somehow define the nation given the insanity that had torn it apart. And yet, those men that died to preserve it, religious or not, were duty bound to enact the nation’s first creed – for many, one.

It is this motto that is looked to in times of justifying the defense of liberty. It is the second, when the reality of the price being paid becomes apparent, that is clung to.

Not long ago, the less than adequate conditions that injured US veterans returning from overseas were made to endure were exposed to the nation. It caused national outrage, as it should have, and forced the administration to deal with a problem that they had perpetuated the existence of prior to it being uncovered by the media and becoming politically damaging. Lost in the enveloping comfort of In God We Trust, the nation, and its government, had forgotten…

…for many, one.

War Torn: Part 1

Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles…

“Late one night in the summer of 2005, Matthew Sepi, a 20-year-old Iraq combat veteran, headed out to a 7-Eleven in the seedy Las Vegas neighborhood where he had settled after leaving the Army.

This particular 7-Eleven sits in the shadow of the Stratosphere casino-hotel in a section of town called the Naked City. By day, the area, littered with malt liquor cans, looks depressed but not menacing. By night, it becomes, in the words of a local homicide detective, “like Falluja.”

Mr. Sepi did not like to venture outside too late. But, plagued by nightmares about an Iraqi civilian killed by his unit, he often needed alcohol to fall asleep. And so it was that night, when, seized by a gut feeling of lurking danger, he slid a trench coat over his slight frame — and tucked an assault rifle inside it.

“Matthew knew he shouldn’t be taking his AK-47 to the 7-Eleven,” Detective Laura Andersen said, “but he was scared to death in that neighborhood, he was military trained and, in his mind, he needed the weapon to protect himself.”

Head bowed, Mr. Sepi scurried down an alley, ignoring shouts about trespassing on gang turf. A battle-weary grenadier who was still legally under-age, he paid a stranger to buy him two tall cans of beer, his self-prescribed treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

As Mr. Sepi started home, two gang members, both large and both armed, stepped out of the darkness. Mr. Sepi said in an interview that he spied the butt of a gun, heard a boom, saw a flash and “just snapped.”

In the end, one gang member lay dead, bleeding onto the pavement. The other was wounded. And Mr. Sepi fled, “breaking contact” with the enemy, as he later described it. With his rifle raised, he crept home, loaded 180 rounds of ammunition into his car and drove until police lights flashed behind him.

“Who did I take fire from?” he asked urgently. Wearing his Army camouflage pants, the diminutive young man said he had been ambushed and then instinctively “engaged the targets.” He shook. He also cried.

“I felt very bad for him,” Detective Andersen said.

Nonetheless, Mr. Sepi was booked, and a local newspaper soon reported: “Iraq veteran arrested in killing.”

Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: “Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.” Pierre, S.D.: “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.” Colorado Springs: “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.”

Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them 2-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Falluja that blew off his foot and shook up his brain.

A quarter of the victims were fellow service members, including Specialist Richard Davis of the Army, who was stabbed repeatedly and then set ablaze, his body hidden in the woods by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq.

And the rest were acquaintances or strangers, among them Noah P. Gamez, 21, who was breaking into a car at a Tucson motel when an Iraq combat veteran, also 21, caught him, shot him dead and then killed himself outside San Diego with one of several guns found in his car.”

Continue reading ‘Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles’ here.

I have a penchant for Revels and Fudgesicles. Last night, while watching a film in bed, I got up and went to the freezer to grab one of each. Being that I eat them so fast, I got one of each thinking that I’d just gulp them down. Of course, by that time, I was extremely drowsy and, after returning to bed and the film, remember only eating the Fudgesicle.

At around five this morning I woke up with my laptop on my legs and a completely melted Revel resting on my chest. Thankfully it was still in the package and only messed up the t-shirt up that I was wearing. Of course, I have no recollection of how it got there. The last thing that I remember is eating the Fudgesicle, the Revel being on the nightstand next to me.

When I do conk out, it’s not uncommon for me to fall asleep with my laptop on my chest or lap. In fact, I have to give my MacBook Pro credit for being somewhat indestructible being that it has tumbled to the floor next to the bed on numerous occasions when I have rolled over in my sleep. So far, after more than a year and a half, it has survived hitting the concrete floor next to my bed, something I find rather ironic given the problems that I’ve been having with my new iMac – though I can’t really complain because I bought it specifically to record with and it does that just fine, so.

The moral of this story is three fold…

One: Don’t eat frozen treats in bed.

Two: Get carpet if you tend to fall asleep with your laptop on you.

Three: You know you’ve lost all consideration for yourself when your lifestyle routinely includes eating frozen treats in bed that end up melted all over you because you’ve fallen asleep and when you finally do wake up and discover what’s happened you see your laptop still resting on your legs so decide to check your email.

Got Me So Down I Got Me A Headache

I’m not sure if anyone has bothered to watch the Republican and Democratic primary debates of late. During the Republican debate in New Hampshire, the topic of the Bush Doctrine came up, and listening to those running for the Republican candidacy debate American unilateralism and preemption was literally enough to make my stomach turn. Not because most of them believe in it per say, but because their understanding of US history with regards to unilateralist intervention is so unbelievably limited that it terrifies me to think that these men represent the Republican party’s brightest. Even Ron Paul’s comments regarding US unilateral interventionism were limited in scope, with none of the candidates even bothering to delve into the reality that it has been a significant aspect of US foreign policy since the end of the Second World War.

Listening to the likes of Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and Rudy Giuliani opine on the subject of preemption and unilateralism was embarrassing to say the least. It makes one want to mail each of them ten copies of A People’s History Of The United States disguised as pop up books.

Author and historian Shelby Foote, who passed away several years ago, put it best in Ken Burn’s famed documentary The Civil War, saying…

“We think that we are a wholly superior people. If we’d been anything like as superior as we think we are, we would not have fought that war. But since we did fight it we have to make it the greatest war of all time, and our Generals were the greatest Generals of all time. It’s very American to do that.”

Foote’s view is accurate with regards to American history, and how it is remembered and largely glorified, in that the suspect practices of American government are commonly, and vastly, overlooked, and more often than not, even after the shortest periods of time, altered to appear noble and therefore justified.

For the most part, the people of the United States labour under such misconceptions, having been fed justifications for the actions of their governments, ones that have been manipulated to such an extent that culpability is not something that is included with regards to the shaping of the world that we presently live in.

It is, with regards to American history, a very American tradition to usurp the truth for the sake of protecting, and even over glorifying, the country’s reputation. Generations of Americans have thusly been educated under such pretense, and it has, more than anything, led to the massive degradation of not only its government institutions, but the diminishment of the intellectual level with which politicians address the public.

Case in point…

It’s raining, dark; the streets empty and the doorways filled. On the streets you have to wait it out, try to stay dry, try to find somewhere sheltered from it so that maybe you can catch a few hours of sleep in the hopes that it will have stopped.

I needed laundry detergent yesterday. I went around corner to the store. In Blood Alley something was happening; three squad cars, two officers pulling shot guns out of their trunks. No idea what it was about, but there was a huge construction crane in the alley so maybe something had transpired between the alley’s usual inhabitants and the construction crew. Could have been a drug bust, there could have been an assault; it could have been about a few of the ill-tempered dogs that have been roaming around back there recently.

Things are obviously calmer down here in the winter. No summer tourists to be herded away from, to be pushed by security companies into back alleys so as to protect the illusion of old-world charm. It’s been unseasonably warm though, so at least that’s something. Even with the rain, it’s not as biting as it usually is this time of year. If there’s an upside to global warming in this neck of the woods it’s that if you live outdoors things aren’t as condemnable. At least that’s something.

Drugs and booze. Two steadfast allies of the dispossessed. They make you forget, time machines that offer unconscious passage into the future so that you can lose a day, or three, not having to deal with the reality of where you’ve ended up. Ten blocks uptown the city’s well-to-do scoff at it all while they hit the bars on the weekends and drink themselves silly, press lips to bongs, snort cocaine in the bathrooms of the city’s finer nightspots. The difference is that they have beds to break their falls at the end of the night. The difference is that they do it because it’s a socially accepted ritualistic endeavor. Escape is escape though, and ultimately everyone’s trying to escape something in the end. Admit it or not.

At the very least, if you’re waiting for the rain to stop, you’ve got something truly pressing to escape - the reality that when it does, very little will have changed besides the weather.

Irony For Friday, January 4th, 2008

Chinatown is two blocks over. It’s been there since the 1880’s. It’s filled with countless restaurants. None of them deliver.

I’m not kidding.

Toasters

When I was a kid we used to make toast on an electric heater in the basement. It was one of those long floor heaters, the sort with the metal grill on the front. We would put pieces of bread on it and wait a while, turn them over, and then butter them.

We used to not lock our doors at night as well though. Things change.

Covered In Blood

I was thinking last night on the career of William Tecumseh Sherman, his complexities and hypocrisies, his characterizations of warfare in its purest form, especially those penned during his campaign to take Atlanta and later his march to Savannah, and something that he wrote in his memoirs that I have always found extremely telling…

“I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting—its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers … it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated … that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.”

For some reason that always reminds me of the words of Vassilis Epaminondou…

“If you kill one person you are a murderer. If you kill ten people you are a monster. If you kill ten thousand you are a national hero.”

To be frank, US threats that it will cut aid to Pakistan over recent occurrences there are nothing but lip service. The fact of the matter is that for the last six years they’ve done business with the very same military regime that they’re now appearing to condemn. When it comes to democratic reform, the yammering of the Secretary of State is about as far as it’s actually going to go unless the United States is faced with a government that is either considered hostile or of little consequence to their interests…

“In a rare criticism of General Musharraf, the US Government last night described the declaration as “regrettable” and said it was opposed to anything that would impede Pakistan’s return to democracy.

But Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he did not anticipate it would upset military co-operation between Islamabad and Washington.”

Without the support of the Pakistani military, primarily the ISI, the chances of a coup occurring are slim to none - that is, if the United States worked with the military to institute a new military ruler. And while there have been grumblings of discontent within the ranks, the influence of the ISI in particular can never be discounted with regards to the survival of their own position of power within the political infrastructure of the country. To think that someone such as Mrs. Bhutto doesn’t realize that would be far fetched. And with that realization comes the conclusion that were the military to support anyone, and elections were held, promises would ultimately have to be kept to those that openly lent their support for the purposes of transparency. And that, despite outward appearances, would not produce a democratic Pakistan. Just one with a different government that is indebted to the same ghost power as the last, the same ghost power that continues to play both sides in Pakistan and, perhaps, even beyond.

Updated: This piece by Tariq Ali is a must read…

“For anyone marinated in the history of Pakistan yesterday’s decision by the military to impose a state of emergency comes as no surprise. Martial law in this country has become an antibiotic: in order to obtain the same results one has to keep doubling the doses. This was a coup within a coup.

General Pervez Musharraf ruled the country with a civilian façade, but his power base was limited to the army. And it was the army Chief of Staff who declared the emergency, suspended the 1973 constitution, took all non-government TV channels off the air, jammed the mobile phone networks, surrounded the Supreme Court with paramilitary units, dismissed the Chief Justice, arrested the president of the bar association and inaugurated yet another shabby period in the country’s history.

Why? They feared that a Supreme Court judgment due next week might make it impossible for Musharraf to contest the elections. The decision to suspend the constitution was taken a few weeks ago. According to good sources, contrary to what her official spokesman has been saying (”she was shocked”), Benazir Bhutto was informed and chose to leave the country before it happened. (Whether her “dramatic return” was also pre-arranged remains to be seen.) Intoxicated by the incense of power, she might now discover that it remains as elusive as ever. If she ultimately supports the latest turn it will be an act of political suicide. If she decides to dump the general (she accused him last night of breaking his promises), she will be betraying the confidence of the US state department, which pushed her this way.

The two institutions targeted by the emergency are the judiciary and the broadcasters, many of whose correspondents supply information that politicians never give. Geo TV continued to air outside the country. Hamid Mir, one of its sharpest journalists, said yesterday he believed the US embassy had green-lighted the coup because they regarded the Chief Justice as a nuisance and “a Taliban sympathiser”.

The regime has been confronted with a severe crisis of legitimacy that came to a head earlier this year when Musharraf’s decision to suspend the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry, provoked a six-month long mass movement that forced a government retreat. Some of Chaudhry’s judgments had challenged the government on key issues such as “disappeared prisoners”, harassment of women and rushed privatisations. It was feared that he might declare a uniformed president illegal.

The struggle to demand a separation of powers between the state and the judiciary, which has always been weak, was of critical importance. Pakistan’s judges have usually been acquiescent. Those who resisted military leaders were soon bullied out of it, so the decision of this chief justice to fight back was surprising, but extremely important and won him enormous respect. Global media coverage of Pakistan suggests a country of generals, corrupt politicians and bearded lunatics. The struggle to reinstate the Chief Justice presented a different snapshot of the country.

The Supreme Court’s declaration that the new dispensation was “illegal and unconstitutional” was heroic, and, by contrast, the hurriedly sworn in new Chief Justice will be seen for what he is: a stooge of the men in uniform. If the constitution remains suspended for more than three months then Musharraf may be pushed aside by the army and a new strongman installed. Or it could be that the aim was limited to cleansing the Supreme Court and controlling the media. In which case a rigged January election becomes a certainty.”

I wrote, some weeks ago, that nothing would come of the criminal behaviour that Blackwater has been guilty of in Iraq. I stand by that statement, despite various investigations into criminality, predominantly to do with the events on September 16th of this year at Nisoor Square in Western Baghdad.

Witnesses of that event claim that Blackwater personnel did not come under fire, but rather opened fire without provocation. They are, believe it or not, in the majority as far as witnesses go. Unfortunately, they’re Iraqis, and thus somehow not as believable as, for example, Blackwater representatives that deny any wrong doing. And who, at the end of the day, is the Western public going to believe? Iraqis or Blackwater’s prim and proper all-American president?

The event hasn’t hurt Blackwater’s contractual relationship with the government either, having recently secured a $92 million dollar contract with the Pentagon to operate flights in Central Asia and a portion of a $15 billion dollar contract to help fight the ‘war on drugs’.

The ugly truth is that despite what happened at Nisoor Square that day, or on a variety of other occasions that could certainly be deemed criminal, Blackwater will be protected by The State Department because the State Department’s chief goal in this affair is to protect itself. It doesn’t matter if the Iraqi government passes legislation ending the immunity from prosecution of foreign security contractors, nor does it matter that the military is now in control of supervising all State Department security convoys in Iraq. Like the Abu Ghraib scandal, those ultimately responsible for oversight with regards to Blackwater’s conduct will never be properly scrutinized. And it’s not as if the conduct of Blackwater hadn’t been brought to the State Department’s attention by the Iraqi government in the past either. Not surprisingly, on those occasions, absolutely nothing was done, which only helped expand the company’s reckless parameters.

It is easy for us to claim that the rule of law now exists in Iraq, having been hammered over the head that the country has been gifted democracy, but the reality is that it is entirely ambiguous in its application, and certainly does not have the power to reach into the realm of dealing with foreigners that are guilty of war crimes. Going in, the United States took steps to protect themselves, the most important being their refusal to adhere to the scrutiny of the International Criminal Court. Had they not, then the President down to those guilty of the Nisoor Sqauare massacre could very well be tried for war crimes. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world, we live in this one – the one in which nations that profess to promote justice and transparency are, themselves, anything but just or transparent. Such is the reality of nations that knowingly have the ability to exercise their own set of specific rules precisely because they cannot be confronted. Justice, liberty, and a host of other terms are merely warm remembrances used to placate societies that desperately want to believe that such principles actually still endure. A Greek orator once remarked - “the theatre never was what it was”. The same is true of those principles on which we lean for comfort and a sense of lasting right. We are not only not what we once were, but we never were to begin with. And until we come to terms with that, then government by and for the people will never truly exist, let alone justice being done to those among us that are guilty of crimes against others deemed of less worth.

Today the Iraqi government has, not surprisingly, softened their position on Blackwater Security, claiming that it won’t take immediate steps to expel the firm from the country following an incident last week which resulted in the deaths of 11 civilians. Despite the fact that Iraqi investigators have video evidence that Blackwater personnel fired first, the government has no doubt been pressured by the State Department to ease its condemnation, most probably to help ensure the safety of independent security contractors, fearing that attacks on them might increase – which is rather ironic given the conduct of Blackwater with regards to their unapologetic use of excessive force.

But, as I said yesterday, little will become of it. The Iraqis will probably attempt to have legislation altered with regards to the immunity of foreign contractors, they’ll fail, and it will all be forgotten. Because that is the reality of a nation that is militarily occupied, no matter how the joys of democracy are spun an ocean away.

Just for fun, here some light reading from The Independent’s Daniel Howden and Leonard Doyle…

“Making a killing: how private armies became a $120bn global industry

In Nigeria, corporate commandos exchange fire with local rebels attacking an oil platform. In Afghanistan, private bodyguards help to foil yet another assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai. In Colombia, a contracted pilot comes under fire from guerrillas while spraying coca fields with pesticides. On the border between Iraq and Iran, privately owned Apache helicopters deliver US special forces to a covert operation.

This is a snapshot of a working day in the burgeoning world of private military companies, arguably the fastest-growing industry in the global economy. The sector is now worth up to $120bn annually with operations in at least 50 countries, according to Peter Singer, a security analyst with the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“The rate of growth in the security industry has been phenomenal,” says Deborah Avant, a professor of political science at UCLA. The single largest spur to this boom is the conflict in Iraq.

The workings of this industry have come under intense scrutiny this week in the angry aftermath of the killing of Iraqi civilians by the US-owned Blackwater corporation in Baghdad. The Iraqi government has demanded the North Carolina-based company is withdrawn. But with Blackwater responsible for the protection of hundreds of senior US and Iraqi officials, from the US ambassador to visiting congressional delegations, there is certainty in diplomatic and military circles that this will not happen.

The origins of these shadow armies trace back to the early 1990s and the end of the Cold War, Bob Ayers, a security expert with Chatham House in London, explains: “In the good old days of the Cold War there were two superpowers who kept a lid on everything in their respective parts of the world.”

He likens the collapse of the Soviet Union to “taking the lid off a pressure cooker”. What we have seen since, he says, is the rise of international dissident groups, ultranationalists and multiple threats to global security.

The new era also saw a significant reduction in the size of the standing armies, at the same time as a rise in global insecurity which increased both the availability of military expertise and the demand for it. It was a business opportunity that could not be ignored.

Now the mercenary trade comes with its own business jargon. Guns for hire come under the umbrella term of privatised military firms, with their own acronym PMFs. The industry itself has done everything it can to shed the “mercenary” tag and most companies avoid the term “military” in preference for “security”. “The term mercenary is not accurate,” says Mr Ayers, who argues that military personnel in defensive roles should be distinguished from soldiers of fortune.

There is nothing new about soldiers for hire, the private companies simply represent the trade in a new form. “Organised as business entities and structured along corporate lines, they mark the corporate evolution of the mercenary trade,” according to Mr Singer, who was among the first to plot the worldwide explosion in the use of private military firms.

In many ways it mirrors broader trends in the world economy as countries switch from manufacturing to services and outsource functions once thought to be the preserve of the state. Iraq has become a testing ground for this burgeoning industry, creating staggering financial opportunities and equally immense ethical dilemmas.

None of the estimated 48,000 private military operatives in Iraq has been convicted of a crime and no one knows how many Iraqis have been killed by private military forces, because the US does not keep records.

According to some estimates, more than 800 private military employees have been killed in the war so far, and as many as 3,300 wounded.

These numbers are greater than the losses suffered by any single US army division and larger than the casualties suffered by the rest of the coalition put together.

A high-ranking US military commander in Iraq said: “These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There’s no authority over them, so you can’t come down on them hard when they escalate force. They shoot people.”

In Abu Ghraib, all of the translators and up to half of the interrogators were reportedly private contractors.

Private soldiers are involved in all stages of war, from training and war-gaming before the invasion to delivering supplies. Camp Doha in Kuwait, the launch-pad for the invasion, was built by private contractors.

It is not just the military that has turned to the private sector, humanitarian agencies are dependent on PMFs in almost every war zone from Bosnia to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Which raises the next market the industry would like to see opened: peacekeeping. And the lobbying has already begun.”

Historical resentment has its drawbacks, especially when you’re militarily occupying a country. In the case of Iraq, its Shia majority has been under the thumb of Sunni minority governments since the British installed Faisal as king in 1923. During the tenure of Saddam Hussein they were persecuted, as were the Kurds, and following the Gulf War were left hung out to dry by the international coalition when they attempted to stand against Hussein’s regime.

When US forces entered Iraq in 2003, the Shia were the least of their concerns. At the time, the Iraqi army was controlled by Ba’athists, who, following the invasion, primarily melted into the countryside where they would help form what would later become the insurgency. What remained of the Iraqi army was, of course, disbanded by Paul Bremmer, easily the biggest mistake made by the United States post-invasion.

The reconstitution of the Iraqi military was thusly something that became a priority, and little consideration was given historic grudges with regards to who would ultimately constitute the majority of its ranks. With the rise of the Sunni insurgency, and the US need to expediently train an Iraqi military and national police force to help bolster security, many that joined the new Iraqi military establishment were not ignorant to the fact that it was a mechanism with which to confront past injustices and seize control of the establishment itself (re: in November of 2005, a secret underground prison was discovered in Baghdad where local police had interned and tortured Sunni captives).

Given the state of civil war that now exists in Iraq, the power wielded by Shia influences within the military establishment has played a significant role in countering US efforts to establish a uniform national security platform. The fact that a great deal of Baghdad has been successfully secured by Shia militias points to this reality. And there is certainly proof that it is becoming an ever increasing problem…

“As the Americans patrol the Sunni Arab neighborhood of Azamiyah, people keep turning to them for help. One man asks them to bring in a fuel truck stopped by Iraqi troops. Another complains that Iraqi soldiers just beat up his brother.

The Americans used to be loathed in Azamiyah, a longtime stronghold of insurgents and the last place where Saddam Hussein appeared in public. Now the animosity has given way to a grudging acceptance, because the people of this northern neighborhood want American protection from a foe they hate and fear even more: the mainly Shiite Iraqi army.

“We feel safe when the Americans are around,” says a computer engineer who gave his name only as Abu Fahd. He stopped going to work because of his fear of militiamen at the Shiite-dominated Health Ministry and now makes a living selling clothes.

“When we see the Iraqi army, we just stay home or close our shops.”

The story of Azamiyah, once a favorite with wealthy Sunnis and nationalists, shows once again how difficult it is to measure the success of the latest surge of American troops amid the shifting allegiances in Baghdad.

The accommodation between Azamiyah and the Americans represents a major breakthrough for the U.S. military, which had long considered the neighborhood among the city’s most dangerous. Yet the success is largely due to a sectarian divide so deep that it has poisoned institutions such as the Iraqi army, jeopardizing the chances of reconciliation and leaving the Americans caught in the middle.”

Be it the military establishment or the government itself, the numbers simply do not lie. It is impossible for a nation that is primarily composed of a group that has been historically misused to simply put the past behind it. The bizarre reality of Iraq’s future is that we may very well see US forces protecting a minority that has, up until this point, constituted their primary military opposition. It should therefore come as a surprise to no one that Sunni militias have agreed these past months to aid US efforts in exchange for arms and money, not to mention the ability to police their own enclaves.

It’s nice to see someone actually use the word ‘bribe’ for a change…

“American forces are paying Sunni insurgents hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to switch sides and help them to defeat Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The tactic has boosted the efforts of American forces to restore some order to war-torn provinces around Baghdad in the run-up to a report by General David Petraeus, the US commander, to Congress tomorrow.

Petraeus will tell Congress that there has been great progress at a local level in Iraq following a surge in the number of troops this year, but little sign of political reconciliation.

In a letter to US troops, the general wrote that “local Iraqi leaders are coming forward, opposing extremists and establishing provisional units of neighbourhood security volunteers”.

The Sunday Times has witnessed at first hand the enormous sums of cash changing hands. One sheikh in a town south of Baghdad was given $38,000 (£19,000) and promised a further $189,000 over three months to drive Al-Qaeda fighters from a nearby camp.”

As has been stated previously on this website, it should not be overlooked that the recipients of this money were, mere months ago, attacking US forces. It should also not be overlooked that by simply paying off militias to do your dirty work in hopes of creating inroads to better placate the position of the administration is not success, but rather a very dangerous undertaking that has the potential to backfire.

Not only have such groups received money, but they have also received arms as well. And while the appearance of oversight is projected with regards to their conduct, that is hardly the case.

In plain language, the United States is now paying off elements of the insurgency to help combat a threat that was never as significant as the insurgency itself. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, whose significance has been massively exaggerated, has only ever represented a small percentage of the insurgency itself, a fact that is well documented. To claim that it is a greater threat to Iraqi security than sectarian violence is one that is entirely politicized, primarily for the sake of a continued US military presence in the country. As many experts have observed over the last few years, were the United States to abandon Iraq, Salafi Jihadi groups would most likely be the first on the chopping bloc. Further to that, and despite claims to the contrary by the administration, assertions that they possess the ability to actually seize control of the nation itself are utterly absurd and entirely baseless.

So what will paying off Sunni militant factions accomplish? While the term ‘reconciliation’ is employed, the truth is that it’s most likely a move to help combat the influence that Shia factions have within Iraq’s Interior Ministry and National Police Force. In fact, in a report by the Independent Commission on Security Forces in Iraq, it was suggested that it be ‘disbanded and reorganized’ altogether. So where does “establishing provisional units of neighbourhood security volunteers” come into play? Well, despite the evocation of al-Qaeda, it will allow local Sunni militias to assert their own brand of local justice, helping secure predominantly Sunni enclaves, thus placating their inhabitants.

So is this a measure meant entirely to help combat Salafi Jihadi groups? Or one that has a deeper purpose – the creation of vigilante Sunni militias that can exert control over those areas in which Sunni populations have been disenfranchised? And if that is the case, how successful with the United States be in keeping them in line? After all, these are the very same groups that have fought occupational forces for the last four and a half years. Is it unreasonable to think that they might be playing a game of their own?

Now, some might claim the move brilliant in that it might go a long way towards creating an atmosphere of reconciliation between occupational forces and Sunni insurgents. Then again, is it prudent to believe that for a fist full of dollars they will entirely abandon their beliefs? Is their not room to consider the possibility that they view this opportunity as a way to make inroads with regards to destabilizing the power of the largely Shia controlled government and that that is something that those now paying them off have also considered given their disdain for what they view as the ineffectuality of Iraq’s current government? And if that is the case, what deals are being cut behind the scenes with regards to future entitlements, and who is ultimately playing who?

Whenever I find myself in a lull with regards to examining The United States and its current policies, I always return to Ken Burns famed documentary The Civil War. If you have never seen it, it is not only one of the most quintessential examinations of the war itself, but also of the solidification of the American ideal. Despite the fact that it took place over one hundred and fourty years ago, it remains the most crucial event in American history, one that, more than any other, altered the nation’s perception of itself.

More Americans died during the Civil War than all other wars that the United States has been involved in combined. While the post WW2 era is often sited as birthing American militarism, I would argue that it only expounded on a psyche that was created during the Civil War. It was, I believe, that impacting an event.

Every time I watch it I am always rendered speechless by the wisdoms of men such as Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. Obviously, both were men that were forces during that period, and both remain two of the most important American political figures in US history. But what is always renewed whenever I revisit the series is just how different things might have been were such individuals not to have sacrificed themselves for their beliefs.

During his first term, and while the country was at war, Lincoln lost a son. Unable to truly grieve, he worked 17 hour days, was disliked by numerous men around him that thought him incompetent, and was not guiltless of using emancipation as a way to alter the direction of the conflict, especially as it was perceived by foreign powers. He was, in many ways, and despite his personal beliefs, tardy with respect to the abolitionist cause. Then again, he was trying to save the Union and, as is well documented, claimed the cause of Union to be of principle import above all other considerations. While a politically masterful move, the Emancipation Proclamation was a reversal of his original policy, but one that resulted in changing not only the course of the war, but the United States forever. He was a man, and President, with faults, but one intelligent enough to realize that they humbled his strengths in such a way as to expose the power and truth of his wisdom.

I often wonder how his legacy could have been so short lived with regards to influencing those that followed. His name has been evoked enough, it’s a shame that his character hasn’t.

While surfing around this evening I came across the second half of Al Gore’s recent interview with Keith Olbermann on Crooks And Liars. I must admit that if Gore doesn’t run in 2008, even as an independent, I will be somewhat disappointed. Were there ever a man who is the right man in his time for the task that the next President of the United States must face, it is, I believe, Al Gore.