News noted

"Just following orders."

US military commander orders soldiers to 'kill all military-age men' and execute Iraqi prisoners.

No doubt this is because they "hate our freedom".

In the aftermath of World War II, we imprisoned and executed Nazi and Japanese commanders for doing exactly the same thing. This commander was given a "formal reprimand." That'll teach him.


An army of mercenaries, answerable to nobody

This disturbing news article describes how Bush-administration ideologues and far-right-wing "entrepreneurs" have used US tax money to build up a mercenary, private army that purports to be answerable neither to military justice nor civilian law. This is one of the exact complaints that the Declaration of Independence makes against the King George of its time: that his government was hiring mercenary armies that were answerable to nobody and, as a result, were predictably brutal and oppressive.

It also raises the very serious question of just who such a military force would be loyal to if a rogue President, or a militarist faction, decided to seize power by force. It's not for nothing that the Constitution requires military officers to swear loyalty to the Constitution, not to whatever person happens to hold political office at the moment.

And on top of everything else, it's a stunningly bad deal for the government, a blatant war-profiteering racket that siphons money out of federal coffers into the pockets of far-right Republican cronies at an amazing pace:

In 2005 after Hurricane Katrina its forces deployed in New Orleans, where it billed the federal government $950 per man, per day -- at one point raking in more than $240,000 a day. At its peak the company had about 600 contractors deployed from Texas to Mississippi....."

The company openly seeks more opportunity for military-style "homeland security" assignments in the domestic United States, blurring the distinction between military force and domestic policing:

"Since Katrina, it [Blackwater] has aggressively pursued domestic contracting, opening a new domestic operations division. Blackwater is marketing its products and services to the Department of Homeland Security, and its representatives have met with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The company has applied for operating licenses in all US coastal states. Blackwater is also expanding its physical presence inside US borders, opening facilities in Illinois and California...."

This distinction, for those of you who slept through the more entertaining parts of your civics classes, exists in order to keep rogue politicians from using military force to attack political dissenters, and to keep ambitious military "men on horseback" from seizing power a la Julius Caesar. What is the motivation for eliminating this distinction, as the Bush junta has consistently insisted on doing, first by militarizing the domestic National Guard for overseas conflicts, and secondly by placing unaccountable, mercenary military forces into domestic law enforcement positions?

Bloodthirsty psychopaths such as the commander discussed above would, no doubt, benefit from being in a mercenary army where their butchery would be immune from any oversight. And politically-connected corporations like Blackwater no doubt find it highly profitable. The rest of us should beware.

[Edit, 3/29/07. Corrected link. Thanks, Pablo.]