If this article in Foreign Policy is to be credited, there are nearly 40,000 civilian military contractors still in Afghanistan, mostly not American citizens. Unlike most Americans I have serious objections to the use of civilian military contractors on all sorts of grounds. I have even more serious objections to their employment being ignored.
Did you know that there is no reliable reckoning of how many civilian military contractors we employ?
Did I read it right?
You just criticized the first African/Arab/American President
I just criticized every president of the last half century.
Yeah, but this one billed Himself as open and accountable. No Dick Cheney here. Not that you can prove anyway. Mercenaries on the American payroll, probably doing things that make Mai Lai look like accredited day care.
Point One. For a lot of this, we give contracts for tasks to be performed rather than head counts. “Embassy security in Beirut” for example. Do we specify that 12 armed personnel must be on embassy grounds from 7AM to 6 PM and at least 10 guards at other times? Or is it sufficient to approve a contract that says “adequate personnel will be provided”? I’ll bet it is.
Point Two. Since Clinton days, when Republicans began making it an Essential, Highly Important, ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY thing that the government workforce be lowered in absolutely all possible areas, there’s been a tendency for agencies to chop down on civil service head counts and hive off work on outside contractors. Since the only numbers that Congressmen really want to hear are CS body counts, the fact that a civilian contractor might employ more personnel than had previously performed some task, generally for greater expense, is of absolutely no importance as long as the government’s work is being done. Well…. shrug…. that’s the way we’ve decided American government has to operate. In the 19th century, we shifted from a spoils system to civil service; in the 20th century, we switched to privatization, and I’m sure a heavenly choir of angels sang to celebrate both times.
Most of the contractors are, or at least were, food service, laundry service, maintenance, etc. This was done, as was pointed out above, to save money, though I am not sure that it does. I have some mixed feelings about these kinds of contractors, but on net they are probably ok if you aren’t concerned so much about the costs. (I suspect we lost millions if not billions on contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.) The ones that concern me are the ones out shooting.
Steve
Me, too. And that nobody seems to be keeping track.
I’m not sure it’s quite as easy to draw a line between “food service, laundry service, maintenance, etc. ” and “the ones out shooting”. The easiest example would be truck drivers. Lots of truck driver jobs were contracted out. If the truckers carry sidearms, which category do they fall under?
“If the truckers carry sidearms, which category do they fall under?”
Sidearms only? In Iraq or Afghanistan? I think they fall under the category of dead.
Steve