Contractors outnumber U.S. troops in Afghanistan

Follow The Money. Remember war = money. What is of value in Iraq or Afganistan? Some of the oldest and most profitable oils on the planet (poppy and crude). The costs of these wars has taxed the people of this country and maybe the whole country into ruin. But some are cashing in. Who has and is profitting from these wars? Follow the money.

I thought Blackwater was out of Iraq and had pending murder charges, but apparently that didn't stop the president from letting them go back in.

Someone more powerful than him is pulling the strings behind the private army mercenary corps, and those lunatics will eventually pose a real-world threat to American freedom if those guns are ever pointed at American people. Those bastards don't care who they kill; they just care about when they get paid.

Ok. So the govt is not capable of doing their jobs anymore.

Wait, I have an idea....let's put the govt in charge of everyone's health care except for those in Congress!

http://www.infowars.com/

what...you mean we forgot to believe the first lie, and now we are doubting the next one?

what...you mean the liberal media is responsible for the lies we were told about Iraq

or 9-11?

or do you mean that we knew all along why we were at war, and we are just all such a bunch of mindless lemmings being led off the side of a hillside that we can't remember why we were at war?

I'm pretty sure we never really knew in the first place...and still don't.

I didn't there were mercs during WWI and II. I didn't think anyone would have the money.

It seems weird that there were more mercs in the Korean war than in Vietnam.

Maybe the ratio will change after we pull out of Iraq. The ones leaving there will probably end up there.

Private contractors were not necessary in previous wars, especially during and after WWII because of the massive mobilization and a fair universal draft. The US military could easily call up on massive amounts of technical training and manpower requirements because those people were already in the military. This is why the rebuilding of Europe and Japan went relatively smoothly. When considering Afghanistan, you are talking about a country that has not had a function government in decades. Many positive developments in Iraq, such as the deployment of MRAPs that have dropped the lethality of road side bombs, cannot be deployed to Afghanistan because the country just doesn't have the infrastructure. Until the US population is willing to have a universal and fair draft similar to what occurred during WWII, the military will be forced to continue to depend on private contractors to provide the necessary technical support. The US military does not have the personnel to provide all the electricians, plumbers, construction crews, lawyers, doctors, etc needed to rebuild the country.

Privatization always costs more and the results are not as good and the contractors not as accountable.
Marines are accountable to the chain of command and if any of them had acted like these fools they would lose rank or worse.

This not change i guess Yes we can
doesn't mean we will.

Maybe if you paid your soldiers right, and looked after during and after all the wars you keep sending them to, then you would have more recruits. Just a thought

look at who if setting up the private contractor contracts, like we'll lose the fight for other country right to democracy without them being there to buy everything in sight and kill whoever gets in the way. Bunch a friggin thugs, maybe someone should do a human interest story on "the upside of being a private contractor" .

From the article

"The 68,197 contractors — many of them Afghans — handle a variety of jobs, including cooking for the troops, serving as interpreters and even providing security, the report says. "

This is obfuscation on two fronts.

1. Most of the contractors in Afghanistan are not mercenaries, they are contractors like KBR or other construction like companies, others are financial experts, or lawyers... there are a whole lot of jobs that are being done by civilians over there simply because we do not have the expertise in the military. Blackwater and the other groups make up a fairly small fraction of the total number of contractors over there...

2. The other wars did not have mercenary contractors, nor did they have as much to rebuild with little local input... Afghanistan does not have a plethora of civil engineers for us to hire to redesign blown up roads... so we have to ship them there... that was not a problem after the world wars... they had them there... Korean war, not that much was destroyed along those lines... same with Vietnam, of course we were not involved in the reconstruction of that either... Iraq was severely mishandled, so I do not even know why you would use that as a comparison.

I f that's true,... it's disgusting. Makes you wonder what any war is really about - ideals, revenge, power or money. So,... the US is actually an occupying force in Afghanistan,... who invaded, is looking for control and doing what they please. Because it's a war that fundamentally can't be won,... we're gonna at least do what we can to profit.

I HATE WAR!

With all this R & R it's like spring brack out there

http://current.com/items/90846592_boys-gone-wild-gitmo-ii.htm

War profiteering.

That's what been costing the U.S. Govt so much to fight these wars...Xe ( formally known as Blaackwater), and a bevy of other mercenary companies are getting paid in full with U.S. Gov't dollars for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Military Industrial Complex is a 50+ billion dollar industry. & with massive lobbying power in D.C., it basically it boils down to this, if there are no battles and/or wars to be fought, these mercenary contract companies suffer their bottom line figures. Most large media outlets barely cover this issue...which is part of the problem as well.

Wars make big $$$ for private military contractors.

Pres., and formal General, Eisenhower warned the American people about the Military Industrial Complex b4 he left office.

Peace, unfortunately, doesn't yield profits. That's why the paradigm needs to be changed.

These "Contractors" need to be called out for what exactly they are, so everybody knows how the American people are being cheated.

Contractor=Mercenary. Not only do they make more money, but since they are under contract with the government, they cannot be tried in our courts for crimes such as murdering a family, but our soldiers can. Also, they don't have to take orders from our generals and endanger our own troops when they do these commando operations that turn out to be bloodbaths. Next thing you know, American military are getting shot at in retaliation, while these Blackwater guys are in a Kabul brothel drinking Coronas. Why should we think this war is going to end? There's even more money once they get the Heroin.