Diplomatic Immunity
the military's twisted path to blackwater
2007-11-07
By Monroe Anderson

Just as the prophets of mass destruction were reassuring us (again) that we're winning the war in Iraq, another wrench got thrown into their forever generating cycle of spin in the form of members of the diplomatic corps who came thisclose to chanting "hell no, we won't go."

The rant was ignited by the State Department's new rules forcing foreign diplomats to fill a surging number of vacant positions in Iraq or face being fired. The revolt erupted because members of the foreign service have not been shoved into serving overseas -– or else -– since that quagmire of a generation ago, Vietnam. Although only three have been killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion, American diplomats remain high-value targets.

"In any other embassy in the world," said Jack Crotty, a 36-year veteran of the foreign service, "the embassy would be closed at this point." Speaking anything but diplomatically, Crotty called the forced deployment to the US embassy in Baghdad a "potential death sentence."

For the 200,000 troops currently deployed there that is certainly an apt assessment. That point, and the pointlessness, of the Iraq occupation has not been missed by many young black Americans. They see the president's war as unnecessary, unjust and unpopular. And they know that, too often, black soldiers are the first to be marshaled to combat jobs and the last to be promoted to a higher rank.

And apparently they know not to fall for the Bush okie-doke. Since the start of the Iraqi war, blacks have been turning away from the military in record numbers. In fiscal year 2000, more than 42,000 African American men and women signed up. Five years later, slightly more than 17,000 volunteered. That's a 58 percent drop -– and a dramatic departure from the past.

From the Revolutionary War through Vietnam, blacks were front and center when given a chance to stand up and be counted. They believed the armed forces were a shot at establishing first-class citizenship and a reliable route to living the American dream. Now it's time for new recruits. In the five-year period when blacks were saying "thanks, but no thanks," the military was recruiting more Latino and Asian immigrants who see service as a path to American citizenship. The number of Latino enlistees grew to 13.5 percent from 10.5 percent and Asian enlistees grew to 4.1 percent from 2.6 percent.

Still, their growing ranks are not enough to make sure that we, as our war president is fond of saying, "get the job done." The simple solution? Outsourcing. Just as the Bush administration has overseen the escalation of outsourcing American jobs to foreign lands, it has been passionate in surrendering duties traditionally performed by U.S. troops to mercenaries.

Blackwater USA, which is hellbent on becoming the mother of all war profiteers, has been a big beneficiary of the government's privatization policy. Dead set on competing with U.S. national security operations much like Federal Express competes with the U.S. Post Office, the private military company has already garnered more than $1 billion in government contracts–two thirds of them no bid.

More than 90 percent of Blackwater's revenue comes from the Bush administration. And you can believe the $50,000 annual salary for enlisted personnel pales in comparison to the $445,000 annual tab for each Blackwater “employee.” And while there are periodic reports reaffirming Blackwater's shoot-first-question-later approach in Iraq, their soldiers of fortune are responsible to no government department or official.

The U.S. military's transition to fewer blacks and more Blackwater is an obvious distress signal. Young African Americans may have been the canary in the coal mine but now most Americans have come to see the light. The three dead diplomats pale in comparison to the numbers of others who had been sentenced to die in the war with evolving explanations on why we must fight it. Meanwhile, 3,856 US soldiers -–a record 853 in 2007 alone -– and somewhere between 76,226 and 83,042 innocent Iraqi civilians have died.

Rest assured there are many more sentences to come.

Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. He is a regular contributor to Ebonyjet.com.