Use of Iraq contractors costs billions, outnumber soldiers

Private armies are a very important part of democracy.

Just like George Orwell predicted.

International pork for the good ol' boy network.

Sure some contractors are getting paid a lot of money because they are highly skilled. Others however are not. They pay high because they have to for risk factors and also the ability to justify huge bills they pass on to the gov't.
Power and Money. War is always about power and money. Anybody who thinks any different doesn't know jack about history.

Iraq for Sale is a great non-partisan documentary explaining the vast array of negative results of privatizing the war, as we've done.

All of this can also be applied to the way any industry is privatized, namely prisons. The Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) now makes imprisoning people their business. Instead of focusing on rehabilitation or public safety, private businesses push for stronger punishments to keep customers (prisoners) to therefore bill the government for more, out of a forced, unnecessary need to build more prisons. As any business, it is efficient, and recycles 2/3 of materials, meaning 2/3 of the people return (taken from One Nation Under Guard video on current.com). Obviously the emphasis is not on public safety, and no concern is given to the lives impacted, including the children growing up without a parent. Your tax dollars fund the pockets of these profiteering CEOs, just as they fund the pockets of the over-spending private military CEOs. Let's tell our government to return to a time when it was in the interest of its people, and pressure them to end privatization of government sectors. How? Write a personalized letter to your congressperson. Snail mail is most effective!

Soldiers make like 50k with a family for a year in Iraq. Blackwater makes 140k for a 9 month deployment. But in slight defense of BlackWater, When my friend left the Army as a E5. He joined Blackwater, and he said that some shit was messed up, but most of the people in Blackwater are good people who follow the rules.

Unfair to say that everyone in blackwater is a blood craving killer. Plus now my friend after Iraq is doing security work in Japan for 150k a year. That pretty good at 28

I was offered a job by a friend for $300 or $500 a day to work for a private security contractor. He was on leave for a month and told me the pay depended on whether or not I was willing to do things that would break the rules
of engagement that our troops had to follow (shooting first at presumed bad guys, after "bad" guys return fire, then US soldiers have official green light to "return" fire).
I explained that I have no military training. He said no big deal you mostly hide behind US soldiers and rarely have to do anything anyway. Real soldiers in front, real soldiers in back but I'd be the one making the real money. That job would have saved my ass financially but I couldn't justify it, so I said no thanks. FUBAR!

Wait, Dick Cheney and all the other Conservative economists swore to us (on Bibles no less!) that "privatizing the military" was going to save us money -- didn't they?

Yes, I distinctly remember this concept being etched in a stone tablet that is lit by a single spotlight in Bush's Oval office.

The Conservative Commandements.

Written just below "All government is evil and must be destroyed!" it is written "Privatizing instantly makes everything cheaper and more efficent!"

Huh.

I wonder how they managed to pay for all those uber-expensive contractors and still keep tax cuts for the ultra wealthy?

Walter Reed has been out of toilet paper for about 6 months now --- but that's probably just a coincidence, right?

Can someone give me a bit of info about private contracting in other wars and how it started in the first place? Also, do these contractors go through military training? Do the contractors make money while the soldiers don't? I got a lotta questions, thanks!

Why not pay soldiers more? We're paying someone...

Blackwater contractors got $750. according to the book, "Blackwater," by Jeremy Scahill

I guess it's either this or have a draft.

Just another way for the powers that be to profit on the war. I really want excessive war profiteering in an unjust or unfounded conflict to be considered illegal.