Post 9/11 there have been countless discussions about the lack of accountability for foreign forces and privatised mercenaries in theatres of war. This debate isn’t so new and Western governments have clearly long believed that they have the right to act and kill as they wish: SAS soldiers were to be provided with life insurance…
Showing all posts tagged privatisation
Those who want more conflict are making a little dollar out of it
The nexus between big business and government is an ever-tightening one. It’s an area I’ll be covering in a forthcoming book (due in a while). Just this week has seen a litany of media stories that highlight the inherent problems. More wars and detention to maximise profits? You better believe it. Sydney Morning Herald today:…
Why states are happy to pass security jobs to private armies
Privatised mercenaries are largely beyond international law and that’s the way they like it. The UN has set up a working group to find ways to regulate a massively increasing industry. Jose L. Gomez del Prado spoke in Geneva in November and articulated the challenges of controlling a world that many governments love: In the…
Here’s an idea; let’s get mercenaries from Iraq and send them to another war
Just what the world needs; another privatised war with unaccountable players: Somalia’s transitional government is using private security firms and Arab governments to train and fund a paramilitary force to battle pirates in the region that have threatened international shipping. A lawyer representing Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) said on Tuesday that a security contractor,…
British tax dollars going to the Serco beast
Sigh: 684 payments from government totalling …£169,479,414 (showing 10 largest, see all) …£3,982,623 from NOMS on 2010-09-20 (details) …£3,931,259 from NOMS on 2010-08-12 (details) …£3,770,493 from NOMS on 2010-06-18 (details) …£3,754,305 from NOMS on 2010-07-20 (details) …£3,680,296 from NOMS on 2010-06-04 (details) …£3,493,239 from DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION on 2010-05-13 (details) …£3,453,153 from Department for Work…
How hard is it to discuss Serco and refugee policy?
The corporate media is hopeless. Here’s a feature in today’s Australian newspaper about Christmas Island, the increasing crisis of refugees being overcrowded and residents getting upset over it all. But there’s no mention at all of Serco, the British multinational running the place, a firm integral to the institution. Not good enough: An Amnesty International…
The minor taste of accountability in Afghanistan
Expect these kinds of stories to happen far more often. Lawless contractors in a lawless land is a recipe for disaster: Afghan authorities arrested an employee of a British private security company this week and sentenced him to eight months in jail, the latest move in the government’s crackdown on private security firms. Global Strategies…
Nothing in the Wikileaks documents? Please
One: The prime minister of Mauritius has accused Britain of pursuing a “policy of deceit” over the Chagos islands, its Indian Ocean colony from where islanders were evicted to make way for a US military base. He spoke to the Guardian as his government launched the first step in a process that could end UK…
Iraq and Afghanistan come to American streets and homes
The future has arrived. Another installment in the stunning Washington Post series, Top Secret America called Monitoring America, on the bleeding of the “war on terror” into mainstream US life. Often privatised, mostly secret. This is the creation of a truly all-seeing police state in a so-called democracy: The months-long investigation, based on nearly 100…
ABC TV News 24 on refugees and government failures
I was invited back on ABC TV News24’s The Drum tonight with host Waleed Aly and guests Jo Stella and ABC journalist Gillian Bradford (video here). We talked mostly about domestic politics especially asylum seekers and the parlous state of refugee policy on both major sides of parliament. I argued that Labor has spent the…