Hired guns

Christian Century, Jan 25, 2003

In April 2001, an American missionary family had the misfortune of flying in a small plane in Peru that was wrongly identified by spotters on the ground as containing drug smugglers. The plane was shot down by a local air force fighter jet, and Baptist missionary Veronica Bowers and her seven-month-old baby, Charity, were killed; her husband, James, and son, Cory, survived.

According to the New Republic (November 25), the spotters on the ground that ordered the attack were private contractors working for the CIA. For the past decade, the U.S. government has increasingly contracted with private military corporations (PMCs) to carry out operations around the world. For instance, DynCorp, one of the biggest PMCs, is taking over bodyguard service for Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, who has been guarded by American Special Forces. "Outsourcing" military operations with PMCs is particularly popular with the current administration, which touts the private sector as being more effective and efficient than government. It's not necessarily less expensive. Many employees of DynCorp and other such companies are former military personnel who draw larger salaries than they would in the military. But using private companies for foreign-defense procedures allows the government to conduct operations under the radar screen of congressional, media or public scrutiny. Further, private operatives are not subject to military command and are often outside criminal sanctions--a potential for mischief. For instance, some of DynCorp's employees engaged in a sex-slave ring operation in Bosnia.