Dyncorp

While attention may be focused on Iraq, the U.S. government is also spending substantial cash on private security contractors in Africa. I had never heard of the AFRICAP contract until today, when I noted that the Department of State is looking to recompete a contract worth approximately one billion dollars to train peacekeepers and provide military logistics in Africa:

The State Department so badly managed a $1.2 billion contract for Iraqi police training that it can't tell what it got for the money spent, a new report says. Because of disarray in invoices and records on the project — and because the government is trying to recoup money paid inappropriately to contractor DynCorp International, LLC —auditors have temporarily suspended their effort to review the contract's implementation, said Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart W. Bowen Jr.

For many today, the mere term mercenary evokes inevitably the image of individual “soldiers of fortune” and other “dogs of war”. But the public generally ignores a far more horrific new reality: the fast growing role of Private Military Contractors (PMC’s). With the collapse of the soviet system in 1989, a new reality appeared. If in the past, some wild-eyed killers for rent or “soldiers of fortune” sold their skills to despots and dictators threatened to be kicked out of power, reactionary company owners out for having a militia capable to break strikes often and early or murky secret service special ops gurus, today, it are the “civilized” states, in full daylight, which sign the contracts: the Pentagon, the State Department, the UN, the OSCE, the African Union and even some NGO’s and the Red Cross!

Our military is being abused like a rented mule. We are at war with Afghanistan, Iraq and have lingered in past war torn nations like Germany and Korea for decades. Our military is at the breaking point. The fighting force of America is stretched so thin that it is dangerous. Now the Bush regime is looking towards Iran as the next country to be conquered in their futile desire for full spectrum dominance.

DynCorp International is a a private international security contractor that has sent more than 5,000 private security personnel and police trainers to 11 different countries for the U.S. State Department. Now the officials at DynCorp have another bright idea -- why not train and deploy 1,000 private "agents" to bolster Border Patrol forces along the Mexican border until the Patrol is able to achieve its mandate of hiring and training thousands of new agents.