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Journalist Jeremy Scahill warns against the growing power of corporate
private armies and the "disintegration of the nation state apparatus."
There was good news and bad news about Afghanistan this week. And it
was the same news.
That's right. The Senate held confirmation hearings for Lieutenant
General Stanley McChrystal, slated to be the next commander of U.S.
forces in Afghanistan. Here's how two different news organizations
reported his testimony:
The Associated Press headline read, "War in Afghanistan is
'Winnable,'" but the "Washington Independent" reported that the
general had, quote, "painted a bleak picture of the Afghanistan war"
and that the United States "needed to show significant progress within
'18 to 24 months' or risk the war spiraling out of control."
What we know for sure is that the fighting in Afghanistan is
escalating. At least 21 thousand more American troops are going in and
the number of private security contractors working for the military
there jumped 29 percent in the last three months alone. Get this:
there are now more private security contractors in Afghanistan than
there are U.S. soldiers. And as of next year, according to new
Pentagon documents, the war in Afghanistan will be costing more than
the war in Iraq.
It's the job of experienced, knowledgeable investigative reporters to
throw a monkey wrench into the spin machine and try to make some sense
of all this. They're an endangered species, but one of the best in the
business is Jeremy Scahill, who's been digging into Pentagon documents
and thick congressional hearings for several years now. He's twice
winner of the George Polk Award for special achievement in journalism,
and author of this best selling book, BLACKWATER: THE RISE OF THE
WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL MERCENARY ARMY. Jeremy now runs the new Web
site, RebelReports. Jeremy Scahill, welcome back to the JOURNAL…
Jeremy Scahill: It's great to be with you Bill.
Bill Moyers: How do explain this spike in private contractors in both
Iraq and Afghanistan?
Scahill: Well, I think what we're seeing, under President Barack
Obama, is sort of old wine in a new bottle. Obama is sending one
message to the world, but the reality on the ground, particularly when
it comes to private military contractors, is that the status quo
remains from the Bush era. Right now there are 250 thousand
contractors fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's about 50
percent of the total US fighting force. Which is very similar to what
it was under Bush. In Iraq, President Obama has 130 thousand
contractors. And we just saw a 23 percent increase in the number of
armed contractors in Iraq. In Afghanistan there's been a 29 percent
increase in armed contractors. So the radical privatization of war
continues unabated under Barack Obama.
Having said that, when Barack Obama was in the Senate he was one of
the only people that was willing to take up this issue. And he put
forward what became the leading legislation on the part of the
Democrats to reform the contracting industry. And I give him credit
for doing that. Because he saw this as an important issue before a lot
of other political figures. And spoke up at a time when a lot of
people were deafeningly silent on this issue. I've been critical of
Obama's position on this because I think that he accepts what I think
is a fundamental lie. That we should have a system where corporations
are allowed to benefit off of warfare. And President Obama has carried
on a policy where he has tried to implement greater accountability
structures. We now know, in a much clearer way than we did under Bush,
how many contractors we have on the battlefield. He's attempted to
implement some form of rules governing contractors. And it has
suggested that there should be greater accountability when they do
commit crimes.
All of these things are a step in the right direction. But,
ultimately, I think that we have to look to what Jan Schakowsky, the
congresswoman from Illinois, says. We can no longer allow these
individuals to perform what are inherently governmental functions. And
that includes carrying a weapon on U.S. battlefields. And that's
certainly not where President Obama is right now.
Moyers: But many people will say of course, the truth, which is he
inherited a quagmire from the Bush administration. What's he to do?
Scahill: Well, there's no question that Obama inherited an absolute
mess from President Bush. But the reality is that Obama is escalating
the war in Afghanistan right now. And is maintaining the occupation of
Iraq. If Obama was serious about fully ending the occupation of Iraq,
he wouldn't allow the U.S. to have a colonial fortress that they're
passing off as an embassy in Baghdad. Bill, this place is the size of
80 football fields. Who do you think is going to run the security
operation for this 80 football field sized embassy? Well, it's
mercenary contractors.
Moyers: So we're supposed to be withdrawing from Iraq. But you're
suggesting, in all that you've written, that I've read lately, that we
will be leaving a large mercenary force there.
Scahill: Absolutely. In fact, you're going to have a sizable presence,
not only of U.S. forces, certainly in the region, but also in Iraq.
These residual forces… I mean, Bill, you remember, during Vietnam, the
people who were classified as military advisors. Or analysts. And, in
reality, the U.S. was fighting an undeclared war. So, in Iraq, I think
that we've seen reports from Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News' Pentagon
correspondent. He's quoting military sources saying that they expect
to be in Iraq 15 to 20 years in sizable numbers. Afghanistan, though,
really is going to become Obama's war. And, unfortunately, many
Democrats are portraying it as the good war.
Moyers: Let me show you a snippet of what he said in Cairo on
Thursday. Take a look:
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Make no mistake. We do not want to keep our troops in
Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for
America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically
difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every
single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were
not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to
kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the
case.
Scahill: Well, I mean, we have two parallel realities here. We have
the speeches of President Obama. I'm not questioning his sincerity.
And then you have the sort of official punditry that's allowed access
to the corporate media. And they have one debate. On the ground
though, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, you hear the stories of the
people that are forced to live on the other side of the barrel of the
gun that is U.S. foreign policy. And you get a very different sense.
If the United States, as President Obama says, doesn't want a
permanent presence in Afghanistan, why allocate a billion dollars to
build this fortress like embassy, similar to the one in Baghdad, in
Islamabad, Pakistan? Another one in Peshawar. Having an increase in
mercenary forces. Expanding the US military presence there.
Moyers: Walter Pincus is an old friend of mine, an investigative
reporter at "The Washington Post" for, you know, 30 or more years now.
A very respected man. He reported in "The Washington Post" last fall
that these contracts indicate how long the United States intends to
remain in Afghanistan. And he pointed, for example, to a contract
given by the Corps of Engineers to a firm in Dubai to build to expand
the prison, the U.S. prison at Bagram in Afghanistan. What does that
say to you?
Scahill: Right. Look, we have President Obama making it a point,
regularly, to say, "We're going to have Guantánamo closed by early
next year." The fact is that, at Bagram, we see an expansion. They're
spending $60 million to expand that prison. You have hundreds of
people held without charges. You have people that are being denied
access to the Red Cross in violation of international law. And you
have an ongoing position, by the Obama administration, formed under
Bush, that these prisoners don't have right to habeas corpus. There
are very disturbing signals being sent with Afghanistan as a
microcosm. Not to mention these regular attacks that we're seeing
inside of Pakistan that have killed upwards of 700 civilians using
these robotic drones since 2006. Including 100 since Obama took power.
Moyers: Some people have suggested that the increasing reliance on
military contractors in Afghanistan underscores the fact that the
military is actually stretched very thin. General McChrystal said,
this week, he admitted that he doesn't even know if we have enough
troops there to deal with the situation as it is now. Does that
surprise you?
Scahill: No. It doesn't surprise me. Because this is increasingly
turning into a war of occupation. That's why General McChrystal is
making that statement. If this was about fighting terrorism, it would
be viewed as a law enforcement operation where you are going to hunt
down criminals responsible for these actions and bring them in front
of a court of law. This is turning into a war of occupation. If I
might add about General McChrystal, what message does it send to the
Afghan people when President Obama chooses a man who is alleged to
have been one of the key figures running secret detention facilities
in Iraq, and working on these extra judicial killing squads. Hunting
down, quote unquote, insurgents, and killing them on behalf of the
U.S. military. This is a man who's also alleged to have been at the
center of the cover-up of Pat Tillman's death, who was killed by U.S.
Army Rangers.
Moyers: But he apologized for that this week be before Congress.
Scahill: Well, it's easy to apologize when your new job is on the
line. It's a different thing to take responsibility for it when you
realize that the mistake was made, or that you were involved with what
the family of Pat Tillman says was a cover-up.
Moyers: You know, you talk about military contractors. Do you think
the American people have any idea how their tax dollars are being used
in Afghanistan?
Scahill: Absolutely no idea whatsoever. We've spent 190 million
dollars. Excuse me, $190 billion on the war in Afghanistan. And some
estimates say that, within a few short years, it could it could end up
at a half a trillion dollars. The fact is that I think most Americans
are not aware that their dollars being spent in Afghanistan are, in
fact, going to for-profit corporations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
These are companies that are simultaneously working for profit and for
the U.S. government. That is the intricate linking of corporate
profits to an escalation of war that President Eisenhower warned
against in his farewell address. We live in amidst the most radical
privatization agenda in the history of our country. And it cuts across
every aspect of our society.
Moyers: You recently wrote about how the Department of Defense paid
the former Halliburton subsidiary KBR more than $80 million in bonuses
for contracts to install what proved to be very defective electrical
wiring in Iraq. Senator Byron Dorgan himself, called that wiring in
hearings, shoddy and unprofessional. So my question is why did the
Pentagon pay for it when it was so inferior?
Scahill: This is perhaps one of the greatest corporate scandals of the
past decade. The fact that this Halliburton corporation, which was
once headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney, was essentially
given keys to the city of U.S. foreign policy. And allowed to do
things that were dangerous for U.S. troops. Provide then with unclean
drinking water. They were the premier company responsible for
servicing the US military occupation of Iraq. In fact, they were
deployed alongside the U.S. military in the build up to the war. This
was a politically connected company that won its contracts because of
its political connections. And the fact is that it was a behemoth that
was there. It was it was the girl at the dance, and they danced with
her.
Moyers: Yeah. The Army hired a master electrician, I read, in some
congressional testimony, to review electrical work in Iraq. He's now
told congress that KBR's work in Iraq was, quote, "The most hazardous,
worst quality work he'd ever seen." And that his own investigation,
this is not a journalist, this is an employee of the Army, had found
improper wiring in every building that KBR had wired in Iraq.
Scahill: Right. And we're talking about thousands of buildings. And so
we've had, U.S. troops that have died from electrocution in Iraq as a
result of the faulty work of KBR. This should be an utter scandal that
should outrage every single person in this country. And, yet, you find
almost no mention of this in the corporate media.
Moyers: Do you get discouraged writing about corruption that never
gets cured?
Scahill: Well, I don't believe that it necessarily doesn't get cured.
I think that I'm very heartened by the fact that we have a very
vibrant independent media landscape that's developing right now. You
know, to me, I once put on the tagline of an article that I wrote
early on in the Obama administration that I pledge to be the same
journalist under Barack Obama that I was under President Bush. And the
reason I felt that it was necessary to say that is that I feel like we
have a sort of blue-state-Fox culture in the media. Where people are
willing to go above and beyond the call of partisan politics to give
Obama the benefit of the doubt. This is a man- it's time to take off
the Obama t-shirts. This is a man who's in charge of the most powerful
country on earth. The media in this country, we have an obligation to
treat him the way we treated Bush in terms of being critical of him.
And, yet, I feel like many Democrats have had their spines surgically
removed these days, as have a lot of journalists. The fact is that
this man is governing over a policy that is killing a tremendous
number of civilians.
Moyers: You mentioned you mentioned drones a moment ago. I was
impressed to hear our new commander of our troops in Afghanistan admit
this week that the United States cannot go on killing civilians. He
said, in fact, this is creating a dangerous situation for our own
country.
Scahill: Well, that that I mean, on the one hand, that those words are
true. I think that the fact is that, when you are killing civilians,
in what is perceived to be an indiscriminate way certainly by the
people of Pakistan you're going to give rise to more people that want
to attack the United States. They view themselves as fighting a
defensive war. But never are the statistics cited that come out of
Pakistan. 687 people are documented to have been killed. That the
Pakistani authorities say are civilians since 2006. In the first 99
days of this year over 100 people were killed. And the fact is…
Moyers: By American military action?
Scahill: Right. By American military action with these robotic drones.
Moyers: 60 Minutes, on CBS News, recently got some very special access
to the military. And came out with a report on drones. Let me show you
a few excerpts from that.
LARA LOGAN: Right now, there are dozens of them over the skies of Iraq
and Afghanistan. Hunting down insurgents every minute of every day.
The fight for the pilot is on the video screen. Here a truck full of
insurgents in Afghanistan is being tracked by the pilot. When the
ground commander gives the order-he first, hitting his target. The
trigger is pulled in Nevada. Inside these cramped single white
trailers of small offices.
COL. CHRIS CHAMBLISS: And that white spot that this guy is carrying is
actually a hot gun. It's been fired and already know that it's been
used. We've met positive identification criteria that these are bad
guys. And so now we can go ahead and strike these targets.
Moyers: Now, many people are like that fellow. They say that these
drones are new miracle weapons that enable the United States military
to kill the bad guys, as he said, without exposing Americans to
danger. There's truth in that, right?
Scahill: Now, I have a lot of respect for Lara Logan, the CBS
correspondent. She's really put her neck on the line and been in the
thick of battle, and has been injured in battle. But I think that this
piece was propaganda. She allowed the military to make claims about
the effectiveness of their weapons that are being contested
passionately by the people on the ground in Pakistan itself. I
recently did an article about "Time" magazine's coverage of this. They
said that the Taliban are using civilians as human shields. And that's
why so many civilians have been killed. Their source for that was an
Air Force intelligence officer who was allowed to speak on as though
it was a Pentagon press release. I think that this is sick. Where you
turn war, essentially, into a videogame that can be waged by people
half a world away. What this does, these drones, is they it sanitizes
war. It means that we increase the number of people that don't have to
see that war is hell on the ground. And it means that wars are going
to be easier in the future because it's not as tough of a sell.
Moyers: You will find agreement on people who say war is hell. But
you'll also find a lot of people in this country, America a lot of
Democrats and Republicans, who say Jeremy Scahill is wrong. That we
need to be doing what we're doing in Afghanistan because, if we don't,
there'll be another attack like 9/11 on this country.
Scahill: I think that what we're doing in Afghanistan increases the
likelihood that there's going to be another attack.
Moyers: Why?
Scahill: Because we're killing innocent civilians regularly. When the
United States goes in and bombs Farah province in Afghanistan, on May
4th, and kills civilians, according to the Red Cross and other
sources, 13 members of one family, that has a ricochet impact. The
relatives of those people are going to say maybe they did trust the
United States. Maybe they viewed the United States as a beacon of
freedom in the world. But you just took you just took that guy's
daughter. You just killed that guy's wife. That's one more person
that's going to line up and say, "We're going to fight the United
States." We are indiscriminately killing civilians, according to the
UN Human Rights Council. A report that was just released this week by
the UN says that the United States is indiscriminately killing
civilians in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world. That should
be a collective shame that we feel in this society. And yet we have
people calling it the good war.
Moyers: So, step back to that issue of military contractors. You've
been you've been writing about privatization and military contractors
for a long time. In the large scheme of things what do you military
contractors represent to you?
Scahill: Yeah. Well, I think that what we have seen happen, as a
result of this incredible reliance on private military contractors, is
that the United States has created a new system for waging war. Where
you no longer have to depend exclusively on your own citizens to sign
up for the military and say, "I believe in this war, so I'm willing to
sign up and risk my life for it." You turn the entire world into your
recruiting ground. You intricately link corporate profits to an
escalation of warfare and make it profitable for companies to
participate in your wars. In the process of doing that you undermine
U.S. democratic processes. And you also violate the sovereignty of
other nations, 'cause you're making their citizens in combatants in a
war to which their country is not a party. I feel that the end game of
all of this could well be the disintegration of the nation state
apparatus in the world. And it could be replaced by a scenario where
you have corporations with their own private armies. To me, that would
be a devastating development. But it's on. It's happening on a micro
level. And I fear it will start to happen on a much bigger scale.
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