From King George the Third to the Third President George: History Repeats Itself. Or, Why Blackwater is Worse Than Whitewater

Paul Finkelman

“He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.”

The was the complaint, leveled against George, the ruler of a great nation, who sent hired guns to suppress the people of an emerging nation on the other side of the ocean.

The complaint, of course, was against King George the Third, and was written by Thomas Jefferson. It is in the Declaration of Independence. Yet, in all sorts of ironic ways, Jefferson’s complaint might easily be uttered by Iraqis and Americans who sympathize with their plight.

This week’s Sunday New York Times had two front page stories on that murky, previously almost unknown company, Blackwater USA, which is the largest of a number of firms providing between 20,000 and 30,000 private security guards in Iraq -- what Jefferson might have called “large Armies of foreign Mercenaries.”

These guards are heavily armed and appear to have no external authority over them. Their job, loosely defined, is to protect Americans and other westerners in Iraq. They do so with helicopters, armored cars, and serious amounts of firepower. According to the Times, they bully their way through the streets of Baghdad and other cities, and apparently drive as fast as 120 miles an hour in convoys on the way to the airport. They have killed scores of Iraqis, and frightened even westerners with their cowboy on helicopter tactics.

Blackwater and the other contractors have in effect created private armies or mercenaries. Congress has ordered that the Blackwater mercenaries and other private armies be placed under the same rules of engagement as the United States military. But, according to the Times, “no action has been taken, leaving the contractors in a legal no-man’s land – in effect, at liberty to treat all Iraq as a free-fire zone.” (NY Times, Sept. 23, Week-in-Review, p. 3). In practice there is no one controlling them and no one authority from whom they take orders. They are hired guns, who it appears, are accountable to no one, unless, or until, they are indicted for criminal activity. However, as the N.Y. Times noted (Sept. 23, 2007, Sec. 1; p. 14) “Even if murder charges [against Blackwater employees] were referred to Iraqi courts, it is unclear what real legal peril would be faced by Blackwater or any of its employees.” This is because in 2004, the chief U.S. civilian in Iraq, L. Paul Brenner, III issued Order 17, which, as the Times writes, give “security companies working for the United States government immunity from prosecution” in Iraq.

Iraq is surely a dangerous place. Over one hundred private contractors have been killed there. Blackwater, and other companies, guard these civilian contractors. They are the new mercenaries. They wear no national uniform; they are not really subject to traditional military discipline. And, like all mercenaries, they have no patriotic interest in the outcome of conflict. They have only three goals. They want to survive; they want to protect those they are assigned to protect; and they want to get paid a lot of money. If someone else offers them more money, they might quit the job they now have, and move to a new employer. They would not be “defecting” to the enemy, because they are not soldiers.

The dangers of using a private army are clear. Employees of various companies, including Blackwater, USA, have been charged to senseless killings, reckless killings, and just plain cold blooded killings. I hesitate to say they have participated in murders, because “murder” implies a legal regime where murder is a crime. These mercenaries seem to above the law.

The new mercenaries are not merely civilian employees of western contractors. They have also been hired by Department of State to be bodyguards for U.S. officials in Iraq, including the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Thus we have the odd, utterly peculiar situation. The United States government is hiring mercenaries who are not even under our legal authority, to do the job that our own military or federal law enforcement agencies should do. We have outsourced the protection of our more important diplomatic and civilian officials to hired guns.

This policy raises significant questions about the nature of our mission in Iraq. It also seems to be an implicit insult to our own military. Are the U.S. Marines – the traditional embassy guards – no longer able to protect our ambassador? Are the Marines and other forces spread so thin that they cannot spare troops to defend the U.S. embassy and its staff? Or is the nature of the Iraq adventure such that we do not want marines and soldiers in this kind of “harm’s way.” Rather, we want mercenaries who do not have to answer to U.S. law or military law, to protect the ambassador, so that the mercenaries can always shoot first and ask questions later, and not be subject to any legal sanctions.