Outsourcing the Fun Stuff

A Changing Military in a Modern World

Anyone who remembers reading Beetle Bailey in the Sunday funnies remembers that the consequences of the silly missteps of our hero resulted in his assignment to KP duties – kitchen patrol – read, potato peeling. That was back in the days when the Army prepared meals for soldiers.

Today’s Army is the very model of a modern major enterprise. Meals are outsourced. Oh, they might be prepared on base, but most likely, a caterer is contracted for the job. It’s just one of hundreds of functions the US military no longer does for itself. Our military is dedicated to operating as efficiently as the most successful businesses our capitalistic society has engendered.

And it makes sense. Sort of. In the words of one of the logistical experts of the US Army, “The outsourcing of non-core competencies is a recognized best practice. The reasons for outsourcing logistics functions include lower costs, a streamlined labor force, access to top personnel, and cutting-edge technologies. According to the Outsourcing Institute, 85 percent of companies now outsource work they used to do in-house. ... They provide significant economies of scale through their specialization. By partnering with world-class providers of logistics services, a company can improve its service levels, profitability, and response times dramatically."
(Source: Larry Smith, “Commercial Logistics Best Practices for the Revolution in Military Logistics”, Concepts Development Division, Army Logistics Integration Agency.)

You outsource things that aren’t at the core of your enterprise. The idea is that there is a private enterprise that concentrates on this function and has the leading edge in technology and methodology. Any former GI would probably agree that private enterprise could be better at catering, making uniforms, constructing boots, even plumbing. All sorts of things.

Sorry, but it scares the bejeezus out of us to think that our military has determined that there is some company out there that is more experienced and better trained and more efficient and better equipped than the United States Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and CIA, at: interrogating prisoners, fighting in an urban guerilla insurgency environment, providing security for diplomats and high level military officers, tracking down enemy operatives, and “neutralizing” them. That company, apparently, is Blackwater.

Blackwater, it seems, is SO good at those things that they can be (and ARE) hired to do those things without the requirement of bidding on the contract. They are simply handed the work, and the money. Lots of money.

And here’s an irony: in most cases, we trained their personnel, at taxpayer expense, and then they quit and joined up with Blackwater. For lots of money.

It gets worse. You see, a private company isn’t constrained by the same rules and regulations and conventions as actual soldiers and Marines. And the way it worked for years was they got a “get out of jail free” card in Iraq, where they make up a significant percentage of our military force. Since January of this year, Defense Department contractors in Iraq were finally made subject to Iraqi law. Except, apparently, for Blackwater. Oh yeah, we forgot to mention, they call themselves Xe now. (It’s pronounced SHE.) You see, Blackwater, we mean Xe, is contracted through the State Department now, not Defense. So they can stay armed, protecting diplomats, without being subject to Iraqi law.

You may recall the reason Iraq revoked Blackwater’s license and changed the rules to put US contractors under Iraqi law. In September of 2007, while “protecting” a diplomatic convoy, they opened fire on civilians in Nisour Square, killing 17 people. But since these guys are clearly the ‘top personnel’, have ‘cutting-edge technology’ and provide ‘significant efficiencies of scale’, the State Department and President Obama decided they could stay. And gave them an extra $20million at the end of July, bringing the total paid by the State Department to Blackwater for Iraq service so far to over $1billion.

Aren’t we lucky? Outsourcing this military function to Blackwater – oops, Xe – will really make us popular with the Iraqis. (They already suffer some stigma, since one former executive of Blackwater has been quoted as saying that Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, sees himself as a Christian Crusader whose mission is to eliminate Muslims.) Too bad they are expected to leave Iraq, finally, in September.

And besides, we’re sure we got a super bargain because we the people are a really big customer of theirs. Not only do we hire them as mercenaries in Iraq, we also use their services in Afghanistan (part of the 70,000 contractors there), New Orleans, and for assassinations!

Yes, assassinations. Yeah, yeah, they’re illegal, both domestically and internationally, but the CIA spent about $20million to set up a hit squad, and worked with Blackwater – that is, Xe – to plan the logistics of it. So founder Erik Prince knew about the assassination squads before Congress did! Now that’s an insider.

Of course the New York Times and the Washington Post report that these squads never actually did anything, and Leon Panetta cancelled the handshake contracts when he heard about them as new director of the CIA. Basically, they say, we spent $20million on a Power Point presentation. (That makes us feel better.)

Old Beetle Bailey would be so much happier to be a soldier in today’s Army. All the unpleasant non-combat stuff he was forced to endure is outsourced, and so is a lot of the combat stuff. Even better, he could join a private enterprise like Blackwater, and do all the fun combat stuff for a fat paycheck and no “Sergeant Snorkle” standing over him enforcing the rules. What a comic strip that would be!

(Thanks to Jeremy Scahill at The Nation, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, for many of the above facts.)

JM