Some Things are too Important to be left to the Market

Guys GONE WILD!!!! http://www.mahalo.com/armorgroup-hazing (Your tax dollars at work).

I always have to give this lecture near the beginning of my class when we talk about why some markets work well without government interference, and others, well, they require government interference. How would you feel, as an example, about letting our uranium supplies go to the highest bidder in a completely unregulated market? Does that strike you as a good idea? I can’t imagine any responsible American citizen arguing for that position. That’s a pretty unsubtle example but there are more. I’ve found any story that talks about farming out other stuff related to national security (rampant in the Rumsfeld Doctrine) usually puts me in a no-way frame of mine. Really, some things are just too important to be left to the profit motive.

So, here’s the three headlines and they all belong to stories concerning the State Department and the Pentagon. ABC news reports in a exclusive story that the Controversial Blackwater Security Firm Gets Iraq Contract Extended by State Dept;Company Banned From Operating by Iraqi Government Earlier This Year. I read that story right after I read this one in Politico entitled ‘Lord of the Flies’ in Kabul. I then went to the LA Times to skim U.S. to boost combat force in Afghanistan where I found the following lead paragraph.

Support units will be replaced by up to 14,000 ‘trigger-pullers,’ and noncombat posts will be contracted out, Defense officials say. The swap will allow the U.S. to keep its troop level unchanged.

Didn’t we replace Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush or did I miss something? What is going to get contracted out to the lowest bidder looking for high profits? What costs are they going to cut to provide something resembling “service”? What service will that be?

Let me just backtrack to that Lord of the Files article a moment.

About 10 percent of the 150 English-speaking guards employed at the embassy by ArmorGroup, a private security company headquartered in Britain and Florida, approached the Project on Government Oversight and described “a pervasive breakdown in the chain of command and guard force discipline and morale,” according a letter sent to Clinton by executive director Danielle Brian.

An e-mail from one of the guards described parties on days off, during which guards and their supervisors urinated on themselves and others and ate potato chips and drank vodka from the cracks of buttocks.

“You will see that they have a group of sexual predators, deviants, running rampant over there,” one guard, whose name was withheld, said in an e-mail to POGO, adding, “They are showing poor judgment.”

Pictures accompanying POGO’s letter corroborate at least some of the allegations. The e-mail and photographs were given to reporters by POGO.

Then there’s the ABC exclusive. You remember Blackwater Security Firm, right?

Blackwater rose to infamy in 2007 when some of its guards, who were escorting an embassy convoy through crowded Baghdad traffic, allegedly fired indiscriminately, killing 17 Iraqis. The incident sparked massive protests among Iraqis and hastened calls for a U.S. withdrawal from the country.

Five of the guards were charged with 35 counts of manslaughter and federal fire arms charges last year and pleaded not guilty in court earlier this year. One of the Blackwater guards involved in the shooting, Jeremy Ridgeway, agreed to testify against the five Blackwater guards last November and pleaded guilty to charges of one count of manslaughter, attempt to commit murder and aiding and abetting.

A U.S. official says the U.S. informed the Iraqi government that the decision was made “because the complexity of transition from one company to the next was going to take a little bit more time.”

“They were understanding,” the official said of the Iraqis.

So, I’m assuming you’re kinda getting my drift by now on why I think that soldiering ‘n’ stuff isn’t one of those things we should be leaving to the profit motive, the lowest bidder, and to folks that don’t swear oaths to the U.S. Constitution and are held accountable to our Military codes and treaties? Sound reasonable?

Update: WaPo reports details on the POGO recommendations and this tidbit on which Senator agreed to renew their contract !!!

The report recommends that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates immediately assign U.S. military personnel to supervise the guards. It also calls on the State Department to hold accountable diplomatic officials who failed to provide adequate oversight of the contract.

“These are very serious allegations, and we are treating them that way,” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said. “The secretary and the department have made it clear that we will have zero tolerance for the type of conduct that is alleged in these documents.

The guards work for ArmorGroup North America, which has a $180 million annual contract with the State Department to protect the embassy and the 1,000 diplomats, staffers and Afghan nationals who work there. The State Department renewed the contract in July despite finding numerous performance deficiencies by ArmorGroup in recent years that were the subject of a Senate subcommittee hearing in June.

At the time, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State William Moser acknowledged “deficiencies” by the contractor but said “performance on the ground by ArmorGroup North America has been and is sound.” Subcommittee Chairman Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) agreed to the renewal of ArmorGroup’s contract, though she said she had reservations.

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