"But, our analyst notes, the violence in Falluja seems home-grown in a town where there is fierce loyalty to clan and a potent mix of nationalism and Sunni Islam.

This, he says, undermines US claims that violent attacks are largely the work of foreign Islamic militants while Iraqi opposition to their presence is on the decline."*

Looks like the BBC are now struggling to toe the coalition line. More US troops have died in Iraq in a year than in the first 3 years of the Vietnam war (Pilger). They'd better allow some democracy or there'll be a bloodbath. I bet the 'governing council' will morph into two or three identical political parties, say the 'Democratic Iraqi Party', the 'Democratic Islamic Party of Iraq' and the 'National Democratic Party', then 'free elections' will be held. The subsequant puppet government will be armed to the teeth by the US and America, (Indonesias murderous Kopassus units love BAe's MP5 submachine guns) and will repress the population 'democratically'. The 'people versus the puppets' will be portrayed as 'terrorists versus the entire fabric of all democratic civilization everywhere' and the Iraqi people will once more have been fucked over by the West, but hey, they're probably used to it.

I really hope I am completely wrong on this :-I



* =  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3589057.stm

A timely article on mercenaries for the neo-liberal Economist mag:

 http://www.economist.co.uk/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=2539816

THE BAGHDAD BOOM

British companies have been grousing about losing out to the Americans in Iraq. But in one area, British companies excel: security

THE sight of a mob of Iraqi stone-throwers attacking the gates to the Basra palace where the coalition has its southern headquarters is no surprise. What's odd is the identity of the uniformed men holding them off. The single Briton prodding his six Fijians to stand their ground are not British army soldiers but employees of Global Risk Strategies, a London-based security company.

Private military companies (PMCs)—mercenaries, in oldspeak—manning the occupation administration's front lines are now the third-largest contributor to the war effort after the United States and Britain. British ones are popular, largely because of the reputation of the Special Air Service (SAS) regiment whose ex-employees run and man many of the companies. They maintain they have twice as many men on the ground as their American counterparts. According to David Claridge, managing director of Janusian, a London-based security firm, Iraq has boosted British military companies' revenues from £200m ($320m) before the war to over £1 billion, making security by far Britain's most lucrative post-war export to Iraq.

It's a lucrative business. A four-man ex-SAS team in Baghdad can cost $5,000 a day. Buoyed by their earnings, the comrades-in-arms live in the plushest villas in the plushest quarters of Baghdad. Their crew-cut occupants compare personal automatics, restock the bars and refill the floodlit pools of the former Baathist chiefs.

Established companies have expanded; new ones have sprung up. Control Risks, a consultancy, now provides armed escorts. It has 500 men guarding British civil servants. Global Risk Strategies was a two-man team until the invasion of Afghanistan. Now it has over 1,000 guards in Iraq—more than many of the countries taking part in the occupation—manning the barricades of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Last year it also won a $27m contract to distribute Iraq's new dinar. Erinys, another British firm, was founded by Alastair Morrisson, an ex-SAS officer who emerged from semi-retirement to win a contract with Jordanian and Iraqi partners to protect Iraq's oil installations. CPA officials say the contract is worth over $100m. Erinys now commands a 14,000-strong armed force in Iraq.

In industry jargon, these companies' manpower is split into Iraqis, “third-country nationals” (Gurkhas and Fijians) and “internationals” (usually white first-worlders). Iraqis get $150 a month, “third-country nationals” 10-20 times as much, and “internationals” 100 times as much. Control Risks still relies on westerners, but ArmorGroup, a British rival, employs 700 Gurkhas to shepherd America's primary contractors in Iraq, Bechtel and KBR. Erinys's corps of pipeline protectors is overwhelmingly Iraqi. The cheapness of the other ranks, compared with western soldiers, is one reason why PMCs are flourishing. “Why pay for a British platoon to guard a base, when you can hire Gurkhas at a fraction of the cost?” asks one.

Nobody knows how long government contracts will last after the CPA dissolves on June 30th. But multi-billion World Bank and UN reconstruction funds should provide rich pickings. Amid rising violence, the Program Management Office, which handles America's $18.6 billion aid budget for Iraq, has raised its estimates of security costs from an initial 7% of contracts to 10%. Blackwater, the American firm protecting Iraq's American proconsul, Paul Bremer, says in many cases costs run to over 25%. That's bad news for Iraqis hoping for reconstruction, but great news for PMCs.

The boom has led to two worries. The first is lack of regulation. Stressed and sometimes ill-trained mercenaries operate in Iraq's mayhem with apparent impunity, erecting checkpoints without authorisation, and claiming powers to detain and confiscate identity cards. A South African company guarding a Baghdad hotel put guns to the heads of this correspondent's guests. According to the CPA, non-Iraqi private-security personnel contracted to the coalition or its partners are not subject to Iraqi law. Even the industry is concerned. Regulation is vital, says ArmorGroup's Christopher Beese, if Iraq is not to descend into the law of the jungle.

Second, the boom may be eroding Britain's defences. Just when the war on terror is stretching the SAS to the limit, the rising profitability of private sector work is tempting unprecedented numbers of its men to leave. An SAS veteran estimates that some 40 of its 300 corps requested early release from their contracts last year. Another guesses that there are more ex-SAS people in Iraq than there are currently serving in the regiment. Head-hunters poaching military talent, say critics, risk turning the army's elite corps into little more than a training school for PMCs.

Islamic terrorist, as some call them, have terrorised the world for some 1400 years.
most recently in the past 25 years the problem has grown into a full time quest to
conquer the world. Every conflict going on in the world today has the smell of Islam
coming from the core. Your article blames the The United States for the four Men
from the United states for being killed. You blame the four men for who they were.
Your speak of Mercenaries, illegal occupying powers, Iragi Resistance, privtised
American Special Forces. Your article never blames but praises the murder and displaying
the bodies hanging from the bridge. Not once in your article do you blame the murders
and animals that actually did the killing. I guess it would not do for me to be in
power for Falluja would not exist today. It would be a pile of ashes. I am not sure your
intent on the article but it is bais and one sided

"Every conflict going on in the world today has the smell of Islam coming from the core."

Oh really? So the civil war in Colombia is the fault of Islam too, eh?
How about the conflict in Haiti?
The uprising in Bougainville?
The uprising in Corsica?
The uprising in West Papua?
The conflict between China and Vietnam over the Spratly Islands?
The civil war in Mexico between the Mexican state and the Zapatistas?
The civil war in Peru between the Peruvian state and the Sendero rebels?
The civil war in Nepal between the Nepali state and the Maoist rebels?
The civil war in Myanmar between the Burmese state and the Karen rebels?
The conflict between pro-Chavez and anti-Chavez factions in Venezuela?
The civil war between North and South Korea?
The civil war in Sri Lanka?
The civil war in Northern Ireland?
The civil war in Sierra Leone?
The conflict in Zimbabwe?
The growing troubles between China and Taiwan?
The war between the Ugandan state and the fanatical Christian thugs in Uganda?

There's a whole world happening outside your American TV set, you fucking moron.

You say:

"Your article blames the The United States for the four Men from the United states for being killed. You blame the four men for who they were."

I do place the blame for the deaths of the Blackwater personell on the policies of the US government (successive administrations). I detail some of the oft-overlooked facts that lead me to this opinion in the article. As to "You blame the four men for who they were" - well, I said that being armed, paid mercenaries made them legitimate targets for Iraqi resistance fighters. I said categorically that this does not justify the post-mortem mutilations, but we should none the less seek to understand where such displays of intrahuman hatred come from. The perpertrators sure as hell weren't born 'savages' or other such orientalist nonsense, and they probably weren't 'just following orders' or engaging in 'harmless pranks' (Rush Limbaugh) like the prison guards in Abu Ghraib, which leads to an important point: Which is worse, mutilating the dead or mutilating the living? Though both are abhorent, humanity compells me to see the latter as a greater crime.

As to the other nonsense about the evils of Islam, I think Ian's post above puts that fairly comprehensively to rest.

Tom