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Edited by Noah Shachtman | Contact

Guns-for-Hire Accused of Gitmo Abuse

mercenaries5.jpgd9qimh.jpgWaPo: "New allegations of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay released by the FBI on Tuesday put private contractors at the center of interrogation operations, raising questions once again about where they fit in the military's chain of command."

Contractors have traditionally not been subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the body of laws that governs the behavior of soldiers. Other laws apply to contractors, but many remain untested.

"You have two different types of people operating under different sets of rules," said Scott L. Silliman, executive director of the center on law, ethics and national security at Duke University.

Comments

Yes, I'd agree with you, but the article is from Proceedings magazine and my comments simply reflected what I thought in general at the time about the issue of PMC's and how they stand outside of the civilian/military legal jurisdiction. It was not directed to any specific firm, but the security industry in general and the trends or direction it might take (for the worse, I might add.)

Posted by: atacms at January 4, 2007 10:07 PM


Given the current breach of contract/negligence lawsuits against Blackwater over wrongful contractor deaths, that might be bad, unless the docs are more or less public domain, inwhich case they might be an interesting read.

just my $.02

Posted by: mrnitropb at January 4, 2007 8:06 PM


The more things change the more they stay the same. If america is at war why do we need mercenaries to do our dirty work?

Posted by: joe at January 4, 2007 6:41 PM


Noah, as Professional Liability underwriter who reviewed Blackwater prior to their Falluja incident, I'd like to post a PDF article (1382KB) that I got from the US Naval Institute's Proceedings issue together with some comments that I added when I was looking at Blackwater in a professional perspective.

Is that possible?

Posted by: atacms at January 4, 2007 4:41 PM


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