Rex Regnant Sed Non Gubernat

Mercenaries Look Beyond Iraq
by Tom Griffin

As the position of the Coalition forces in Iraq looks increasingly untenable, it is not just the fate of the national military contingents that is in question.

Private military contractors, which make up the second largest Coalition contingent, are also considering their future following the end of the "Baghdad bubble," the boom in the industry spawned by lucrative U.S. government contracts.

Some of the beneficiaries of Pentagon largess are among the British firms that have recently formed their own industry body, the British Association of Private Security Companies, which is now holding its inaugural meeting [.pdf].

In a sign of the newfound respectability of these companies, the venue will be the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on London's Whitehall. Among those speaking will be high-profile mercenary Tim Spicer, who only a few years ago was persona non grata with the British government because of his role in the Arms-to-Africa affair.

Spicer's presence is likely to bring some unwanted attention to the conference in the shape of a "virtual protest" orchestrated by Irish human rights group the Pat Finucane Center (PFC). Details of the e-mail and phone protest were to be released on the center's Web site today.

The PFC has long criticized Spicer's role as a battalion commander in Belfast in 1992, when two of his soldiers shot dead 18-year-old Peter McBride. In spite of their murder conviction, Scots Guards Mark Wright and James Fisher were later allowed to remain in the army and serve in Iraq.

Spicer himself went on to a controversial mercenary career in Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, and later Iraq, where his company, Aegis Specialist Risk Management, holds one of the largest private security contracts.
Even Aegis, however, is now looking beyond Iraq. In a paper published by RUSI, Aegis analyst Dominick Donald argues that "the Iraqi private security market is clearly maturing: more discerning clients and a number of well-established providers mean lower bids and tighter margins. If these trends hold true, then security contracts are likely to be smaller and less worth the effort of larger, well-established PSCs [private security companies] with substantial overheads."

Donald's pamphlet "After the Bubble: British Private Security Companies After Iraq" is remarkably candid about the options for the sector. One of its proposals is that private security companies should target humanitarian aid as an area of expansion.

"Humanitarian and development assistance will increasingly be more closely tied to government policy," Donald argues. "This is a natural political extension of the fact that GWOT [Global War on Terror] will increasingly involve the UK's targeted use of soft power, of which humanitarian and development assistance is a perfect example."

Donald believes this will eventually lead to a falling-out between aid agencies and the governments that provide much of their funding:
"The sector's insistence on retaining the perception of political neutrality and humanitarian impartiality means that it is extremely reluctant to be in any way associated with government activity. Many would therefore see participation in a planning process as jeopardizing their independent status.

"Yet none of this holds true for PSCs. Might there then be an opportunity for the private sector, which would be far readier to work to government's directions?"

Remarkably, the main thrust of Donald's argument is not that PSCs can operate in areas too dangerous for aid agencies. Instead, the key selling point of PSCs is precisely that they need not "deliver assistance impartially on the basis of need."

This is a suggestion so cynical that it is surprising to find it committed to paper. Clearly, if aid budgets are diverted to PSCs delivering programs driven by geopolitical considerations, the logical corollary is that real humanitarian priorities will go unmet.

If that agenda is realized, the rise of the mercenary industry may prove to be one more disastrous consequence of the Iraq war. 

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants."

Bush & Co. has portrayed the bill as a tough way to deal with aliens to protect us against terrorism.

Frightened they might lose their majority in Congress in the November elections, the Republicans rammed the bill through Congress with little substantive debate.

Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush's list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens.

The bill also strips habeas corpus rights from detained aliens who have been declared enemy combatants. Congress has the constitutional power to suspend habeas corpus only in times of rebellion or invasion. The habeas-stripping provision in the new bill is unconstitutional and the Supreme Court will likely say so when the issue comes before it.

Although more insidious, this law follows in the footsteps of other unnecessarily repressive legislation. In times of war and national crisis, the government has targeted immigrants and dissidents.

In 1798, the Federalist-led Congress, capitalizing on the fear of war, passed the four Alien and Sedition Acts to stifle dissent against the Federalist Party's political agenda. The Naturalization Act extended the time necessary for immigrants to reside in the U.S. because most immigrants sympathized with the Republicans.

The Alien Enemies Act provided for the arrest, detention and deportation of male citizens of any foreign nation at war with the United States. Many of the 25,000 French citizens living in the U.S. could have been expelled had France and America gone to war, but this law was never used. The Alien Friends Act authorized the deportation of any non-citizen suspected of endangering the security of the U.S. government; the law lasted only two years and no one was deported under it.

The Sedition Act provided criminal penalties for any person who wrote, printed, published, or spoke anything "false, scandalous and malicious" with the intent to hold the government in "contempt or disrepute." The Federalists argued it was necessary to suppress criticism of the government in time of war. The Republicans objected that the Sedition Act violated the First Amendment, which had become part of the Constitution seven years earlier. Employed exclusively against Republicans, the Sedition Act was used to target congressmen and newspaper editors who criticized President John Adams.

Subsequent examples of laws passed and actions taken as a result of fear-mongering during periods of xenophobia are the Espionage Act of 1917, the Sedition Act of 1918, the Red Scare following World War I, the forcible internment of people of Japanese descent during World War II, and the Alien Registration Act of 1940 (the Smith Act).

During the McCarthy period of the 1950s, in an effort to eradicate the perceived threat of communism, the government engaged in widespread illegal surveillance to threaten and silence anyone who had an unorthodox political viewpoint. Many people were jailed, blacklisted and lost their jobs. Thousands of lives were shattered as the FBI engaged in "red-baiting." One month after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, United States Attorney General John Ashcroft rushed the U.S.A. Patriot Act through a timid Congress. The Patriot Act created a crime of domestic terrorism aimed at political activists who protest government policies, and set forth an ideological test for entry into the United States.

In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the internment of Japanese and Japanese-American citizens in Korematsu v. United States. Justice Robert Jackson warned in his dissent that the ruling would "lie about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need."

That day has come with the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It provides the basis for the President to round-up both aliens and U.S. citizens he determines have given material support to terrorists. Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Cheney's Halliburton, is constructing a huge facility at an undisclosed location to hold tens of thousands of undesirables.
In his 1928 dissent in Olmstead v. United States, Justice Louis Brandeis cautioned, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." Seventy-three years later, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, speaking for a zealous President, warned Americans "they need to watch what they say, watch what they do."

We can expect Bush to continue to exploit 9/11 to strip us of more of our liberties. Our constitutional right to dissent is in serious jeopardy. Benjamin Franklin's prescient warning should give us pause: "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."

Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. Her new book, "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law," will be published in 2007 by PoliPointPress. 

On October 17, with little fanfare, the unitary decider signed H.R.5122, or the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007. “The act provides $462.8 billion in budget authority for the department. Senate and House conferees added the $70 billion defense supplemental budget request to the act, so overall, the act authorizes $532.8 billion for fiscal 2007,” explains Jim Garamone of the American Forces Press Service.

According to a press release from the office of Senator Patrick Leahy, however, the bill takes a “sizable step toward weakening states’ authority over their [National] Guard units, according to the congressional leaders who are leading the fight for Guard empowerment.” Leahey and senator Kit Bond, a Montana Republican, “said the conference agreement is expected to include a provision making it easier for the President to declare martial law, stripping state governors of part of their authority over state National Guard units in domestic emergencies. The provision is opposed by the National Governors Association and by key leaders in both the House and Senate.”

Frank Morales, an Episcopal priest and activist in New York City, writes that the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 actually encourages the establishment of martial law “by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President’s ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement.

With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.”

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Bush demanded Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco yield to him the command over any National Guard troops sent to the area. “Bush wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would have allowed him to take control over all armed forces deployed, including Louisiana’s National Guard troops. But under the terms of the act, he had to get the assent of the legislature or the governor of the state. The legislature was not in session and Blanco refused,” writes Deirdre Griswold. As of September 11, 2005, Griswold notes, citing the Los Angeles Times, “Bush has not yet invoked the Insurrection Act, but his administration is still discussing how to make it easier for the federal government to override local authorities in the future.”

Leaning on Blanco was considered politically sensitive. “Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?” an anonymous senior administration official told the New York Times on September 8, 2005. Blanco “rejected a more modest proposal for a hybrid command structure in which both the Guard and active-duty troops would be under the command of an active-duty, three-star general—but only after he had been sworn into the Louisiana National Guard,” the New York Times adds.

Bush’s Martial Law Act of 2007 modifies the Insurrection Act and deals yet another blow to the Posse Comitatus Act. “Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is entitled, ‘Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies,’” explains Morales. “Section 333, ‘Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law’ states that ‘the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of (’refuse’ or ‘fail’ in) maintaining public order, ‘in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.’”

For the current President, “enforcement of the laws to restore public order”
means to commandeer guardsmen from any state, over the objections of local
governmental, military and local police entities; ship them off to another
state; conscript them in a law enforcement mode; and set them loose against
“disorderly” citizenry—protesters, possibly, or those who object to forced
vaccinations and quarantines in the event of a bio-terror event.

The law
also facilitates militarized police round-ups and detention of protesters, so
called “illegal aliens,” “potential terrorists” and other “undesirables” for
detention in facilities already contracted for and under construction by
Halliburton. That’s right. Under the cover of a trumped-up “immigration
emergency” and the frenzied militarization of the southern border, detention
camps are being constructed right under our noses, camps designed for anyone who
resists the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush administration.

Back in January, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a $385 million contract to construct detention centers at undisclosed locations in the United States. As usual, the New York Times either missed over glossed over the significance of this development, characterizing it instead as a waste of taxpayer money. Peter Dale Scott, however, hit the nail right on the head. “For those who follow covert government operations abroad and at home, the contract evoked ominous memories of Oliver North’s controversial Rex-84 ‘readiness exercise’ in 1984. This called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to round up and detain 400,000 imaginary ‘refugees,’ in the context of ‘uncontrolled population movements’ over the Mexican border into the United States. North’s activities raised civil liberties concerns in both Congress and the Justice Department. The concerns persist.”

As Scott notes, plans for detention camps are nothing new, and indeed “have a long history, going back to fears in the 1970s of a national uprising by black militants. As Alonzo Chardy reported in the Miami Herald on July 5, 1987, an executive order for continuity of government (COG) had been drafted in 1982 by FEMA head Louis Giuffrida. The order called for ’suspension of the Constitution’ and ‘declaration of martial law.’ The martial law portions of the plan were outlined in a memo by Giuffrida’s deputy, John Brinkerhoff.”

Brinkerhoff told PBS: “The United States itself is now for the first time since the War of 1812 a theater of war. That means that we should apply, in my view, the same kind of command structure in the United States that we apply in other theaters of war.”

Giuffrida was the Reagan administration’s first director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency from 1981 to 1985 and was the head of then-Governor Reagan’s California Specialized Training Institute, a National Guard school. In “1970 he had written a paper for the Army War College in which he called for martial law in case of a national uprising by black militants. Among his ideas were ‘assembly centers or relocation camps’ for at least 21 million ‘American Negroes,’” writes Sam Smith.

“During 1968 and 1972, Reagan ran a series of war games in California called Cable Splicer, which involved the Guard, state and local police, and the US Sixth Army. Details of this operation were reported in 1975 in a story by Ron Ridenour of the New Times, an Arizona alternative paper, and later exhumed by Dave Lindorff in the Village Voice…. Cable Splicer, it turned out, was a training exercise for martial law. The man in charge was none other than Edwin Meese, then Reagan’s executive secretary. At one point, Meese told the Cable Splicer combatants: This is an operation, this is an exercise, this is an objective which is going forward because in the long run … it is the only way that will be able to prevail [against anti-war protests.]”

In response to Richard Nixon’s October 30, 1969, issuance of Executive Order 11490, “Assigning Emergency Preparedness Functions to Federal Departments and Agencies,” which consolidated some 21 operative Executive Orders and two Defense Mobilization Orders issued between 1951 and 1966 on a variety of emergency preparedness matters, Howard J. Ruff noted: “The only thing standing between us and a dictatorship is the good character of the President and the lack of a crisis severe enough that the public would stand still for it” (see Diana Reynolds, Civil Security Planning).

Not only is Bush’s lack of “good character” obvious, he also considers himself our unitary decider with the power to ignore over 750 laws. “Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ‘whistle-blower’ protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research,” the Boston Globe reported in April.

“From the inception of the Republic until 2000, Presidents produced signing statements containing fewer than 600 challenges to the bills they signed. According to the most recent update, in his one-and-a-half terms so far, President George W. Bush (Bush II) has produced more than 800,” explains the American Bar Association Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements and the Separation of Powers Doctrine.

“It has become clear in recent months that a critical mass of the American people have seen through the lies of the Bush administration; with the president’s polls at an historic low, growing resistance to the war Iraq, and the Democrats likely to take back the Congress in mid-term elections, the Bush administration is on the ropes,” concludes Morales. “And so it is particularly worrying that President Bush has seen fit, at this juncture to, in effect, declare himself dictator.”