Analyst: 'Private Contractors are as American as Apple Pie'

"While many commentators acknowledge that private military and security contractors are not mercenaries, some of them still contend that their use, both qualitatively and quantitatively, is a new phenomenon, something that emerged full blown from free market apostles like Ronald Reagan, George Bush (senior and junior) and Bill Clinton," military analyst David Isenberg writes in his "Dogs of War" column for UPI.

"But any fair-minded reading of history should quickly expose such a view for what it is: namely nonsense.

"Private contractors are as American as apple pie. In fact, without private contractors there would not have been an America. Or, to paraphrase Genesis: In the beginning, God created private contractors.

"Private contractors helped set the stage for what would become America. Consider that Capt. John Smith was hired by the Virginia Co. to provide security and conduct military operations for the English settlers at Jamestown. He led the 1606 [sic] expedition to Virginia and was elected head of Jamestown colony."

And so on. Isenberg goes on to quote generously from a history of the 400-year tradition of private military contractors that appeared last year in Serviam, the magazine of the private contractor industry. A good reminder to those who think that the Blackwater phenomenon is something new.

(Pictured: Captain John Smith, the first PMC in America, is honored on a 1907 US postage stamp.)

A Vast Conspiracy Indeed...

If you do a news search for "Blackwater" these days, you'll get a number of hits, though few are about private security contracting. One particular vein of stories is worth examining.

Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest public relations firms, has been hired by Blackwater. You don't have to be a right-wing militant to recognize that the company has had a lot of mud slung at it lately; anyone in their position would be well-advised to get some PR folks. But returning to the news...

Burson-Marsteller's Mark Penn (pictured), a pollster and political guru, has been working for Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, a story that the Telegraph, among others, has picked up. That's turning up a lot of the red herring Blackwater stories. In fact, Burson-Marsteller is all over the news: they're working for the Labour Party of Britain, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and a variety of other entities.

Why bring this all up? It's not simply to demonstrate the wiles of internet searches. In fact, it shows just one more way that Blackwater is a fairly normal member of the international business community (if in a somewhat more dangerous line of work). According to the Virginian-Pilot, Blackwater trains Virginia Beach police and sheriff’s deputies, a variety of other "cops, federal agents, servicemen, merchant marines, game wardens, forest rangers and security guards. They came from across the country and the globe, including Switzerland, Italy, Chile and Canada."

If Blackwater is part of the vast right-wing fascist-Zionist-Bushite conspiracy, it is a vast conspiracy indeed, wide enough to include the Canadians, the Arabs, the left wing of both the British and American political scenes, the game wardens and even the ever-neutral Swiss. Now if you really think all those folks are in cahoots, well, feel free to join the Foil Hat Conspiracy.

This would all be amusing, except that some people take such talk seriously, while others like Congressman Waxman pick it up and try to foist their nonsense on Congress. Ladies and gentlemen, let's try to stick to the facts.