'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

NYT on the 'blond beasts'

The NYT's Craig Smith had a good piece from Kabul in yesterday's paper about the problematic behavior of the (US mercenary) 'blond beasts' who've been guarding Hamid Karzai.

(I wrote here back in July about the BBs who were guarding Iyad Allawi at the time. Not sure if they stiull are? Not sure, actually, if Allawi ever leaves the Green Zone these days... )

Anyway, here's some of what Smith writes:

A century or so ago, American missionaries fanned out across the globe to spread not just their religion but Western ways to the "uncivilized" masses. Then came the Peace Corps, which sent idealistic young Americans to build schools and dig wells and show the world how good the United States could be. These days, though, belligerent men with sunglasses and guns are America's most visible civilian representatives in some parts of the world.

The United States has hired private contractors to perform functions like palace security and even interrogations both here and in Iraq, where they were implicated in the prison abuse scandals. A C.I.A. contractor in Afghanistan has been charged in connection with the death of an Afghan man in custody in June 2003. Their relationship to the American military is sometimes unclear even to Americans, let alone to their allies.

[German Army Capt. Georg] Auer and Western diplomats complain that the American government's use of such ambiguous forces has sown confusion and resentment in Kabul.

So murky are the lines of authority, Captain Auer said, that it sometimes seems any American with enough muscles and guns can pose as a representative of the United States government. He gave the example of Jonathan K. Idema, recently convicted by an Afghan court on charges of detaining and torturing Afghans as part of an apparently private hunt for terrorists.

Even NATO's International Security Assistance Force thought Mr. Idema was working for the United States, and on three occasions responded to his calls for backup. So overwhelming is American force these days that NATO officers ostensibly in charge of Kabul's security do not challenge the authority of Americans, even those out of uniform.

Contractors do not live by the same constraints as active-duty soldiers. At best, they reinforce the stereotype of Americans as brawny and boorish. At worst, their blurring of the military-civilian line serves as a reminder that military discipline not only keeps up morale, but encourages moral behavior. [HC emphasis there]

DynCorp is the same company whose employees hired child prostitutes while working in Bosnia a few years ago, until some people started complaining. Rather than face local justice or courts-martial, the perpetrators were simply sent home...

One of the whistleblowers, a DynCorp employee named Ben Johnston, lost his job for speaking out. He later told Congress, "DynCorp is the worst diplomat our country could ever want overseas."

...

No one denies the need for extraordinarily tight security in Afghanistan, especially for President Karzai, who has escaped at least two assassination attempts.But allies in Kabul say that America would do well to act a little gentler, particularly as it presses the same NATO allies to come up with men, money and matériel for the tedious reconstruction work needed to stabilize Iraq and keep Afghanistan from unraveling into a dangerous narco-state. The private security forces, they warn, only breed resentment among allied soldiers engaged in the unglamorous work of peacekeeping - not to speak of Afghans.

They can also undercut part of that mission. Diplomats point out that the presence of peacekeeping troops is meant not only to keep troublemakers at bay but also to put a friendly face on the foreign military presence in the country.

But what do you expect? Give many young men a powerful weapon, wraparound sunglasses, a salary much higher than that of a serving soldier, and rules of engagement that are considerably more permissive than those that constrain soldiers-- and why should they care if their behavior ends up undercutting part of the broader mission?