Private contractors will make up at least half of the total military workforce in Afghanistan going forward, according to Defense Department officials cited in a new congressional study.
As President Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan unfolds, the number of contractors will likely jump by between 16,000 and 56,000, adding up to a total of 120,000-160,000, according to an updated study from the Congressional Research Service.
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The most recent Quadrennial Defense Review, a key strategic overview of American defense and military policy, runs over 100 pages. Just five sentences of the QDR document addresses the use of private contractors, the CRS study notes.Besides crunching the numbers, the study also looks at whether contractors can undermine U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the issue of abuses of civilians by contractors.
It seems this is the way of the future.
We can go to frivolous war and yet not have to send inner city kids to fight. Seems like a win win but this is bad. Too much $$$
We need a DRAFT. In that way, war is truly taken as a last resort. Inner city kids go BUT conservative kids also will have to be taken out of tennis practice and serve as well.
Yeah, those dang inner city kids use all the oil in the country, they should have to go fight for it.
What will these contractors be doing while in Afghanistan? Will they be building infrastructure for an oil pipeline? Will they be fighting the residents of Afghanistan?
The larger question is, what the fuck are we doing there in the first place?
I wonder. . .
They are not contractors. Obama is sending Community organizers to Afghanistan to preach non violence! Hope and Change! A slogan used and embraced by the insane!
Ah Rome… it’s good to see your empire is still around using barbarian mercenaries to fight your battles…
Wait…
This sucks. If we’re going in, let’s go in with troops, not highly paid contractors with questionable controls on them. Who are they? What will they be doing? Why are we paying private corporations big bucks for stuff the military should be doing? Maybe Cheney started it to line the pockets of his fat cat friends (hello Halliburton), but Obama shouldn’t be continuing it.
Are they trying to pretend they’re not sending as many troops if they send contractors instead?
#5 Isn’t that how empires end… relying on mercenaries…
What a joke! Nations building based on emotions.
The USSR tried for 10 years and look what good it did them… well… it did them a great deal of good as USSR is no longer because they went bankrupt. So, the US is willing to spend billions and billions in this heap of rubble because of… what? Osama? A guy that was atomized years ago?
You will only create enemies that hate you even more because you – and the Brits, the Dutch, the Danes, the Norwegian and the occasional German and French (maybe) trespass, culturally and politically supporting the corrupt Karazai regime, brother incuded.
Was nothing learned from the Vietnam war?
What is the end-game…..?
#5 is right – and the empire spread out to thin and imploded
Please call us mercenaries. Why would anyone want to be in the Army when we can get paid more and be written up in Soldier of Fortune magazine?
#1 Dallas …conservative kids also will have to be taken out of tennis practice and serve as well.
Can’t see the service being better than the rest of their game if they don’t do their tennis practise.
#8 is correct. Call them mercenaries.
The politically correct term “Private Contractors” is just meant to make them sound like something nicer than what they are: hired soldiers.
The first time I heard the term, I thought they were talking about companies like McDonalds, or construction companies sent to help rebuild. It took me over a year to realize what the term meant, and I guarentee that many others still don’t understand.
#11 I don’t recall you complaining a whole lot when President Cheney and his monkey were in office.
Now, you seem to dismiss the issue as being Prez Obama’s for not immediately undoing all the dirty deeds of that shitty administration.
We all wish it were that easy to simply go a separate route. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. The wiser people understand this, it is evidently way over your head.
12 Dallas,
WRT pedro:
Lapdogs don’t change owners you know.
Just to play the other side of the coin, the expensive part of troops isn’t the initial pay doled out in service, but the years of either retirement or medical reitrement salary the military will owe to servicemen. If you’re trying to cut long term costs to the military this is actually a pretty sensible thing. Now as for Machiavelli’s warnings against the use of Mercenaries, that’s a whole different can of worms.
Using “highly paid contractors” is far more cheaper than using the military. You cannot simply go by individual salaries alone. There are lots of hidden costs with the military.
If an aggressor nation is going to occupy another country, there’s always a need to leave an occupying force. Just like the Nazi’s in France, you install your own leader, form your own police, and leave advisors behind to control their resources.
16 deowll
“Since when have liberals been willing to risk death to protect this nation?”
Right… because we know Conservatives like Cheney and Bush were right at the front line during their war time call up… But when it came time to send the youth of America to die for Shell, they couldn’t make up facts fast enough.
But, you’re obviously a typical American: no sense of history.
#16 I’ll let you in a little secret…
Sure it all sounds cool and patriotic and stuff nit a HUGE percentage of military enlistees are poor kids that need a income.
Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Look it up. It’s from that high school course you opted out in favor of Crockpot cooking ideas.
16, Liberals tend to be self-absorbed elitist snobs. 🙂
20, Dallas, This is what happens when you do away with the draft. Doing away with the draft allowed the rich to opt out.
Regardless, we now have an all VOLUNTEER military in which case those who do enlist don’t feel sorry for themselves because of what social class they came from.
That being said, please don’t distort the truth. The majority of enlistees are from the middle AND poor classes with the lion’s share of that in the middle class.