What happens when everybody has drones?

As I said, I go back and forth on drones. They are some middle ground between doing nothing in the face of non-state terrorist groups and putting U.S. boots on the ground to futilely occupy countries where terrorists hide. Certainly the U.S. needs legal guidelines to check executive whims, especially when drones are used in countries where the U.S. does not have any other military presence. Drones are clearly a violation of other nations' sovereignty.

Beyond that, should the U.S. seek an international treaty or convention on drones?  Chances are other nations won't use them like we do. They won't have 200 analysts and decision-makers poring over the real-time data. No, they will use the drones for targeted killings on their borders, in their own tribal areas, and against near neighbors, and they won't sweat the details.

When the Whole World Has Drones

By Kristin Roberts

March 21, 2013 | National Journal

URL: http://mobile.nationaljournal.com/magazine/when-the-whole-world-has-drones-20130321?page=1

Unnoticed, U.S. is in permanent global war mode

Peace activist and journalist Tom Engelhardt always comes correct, with surprising but well-researched facts and statistics.  Here's how he sums up his comprehensive description of Washington's "monopoly on war":

Washington may be mobilized for permanent war.  Special operations forces may be operating in up to 120 countries.  Drone bases may be proliferating across the planet.  We may be building up forces in the Persian Gulf and “pivoting” to Asia.  Warrior corporations and rent-a-gun mercenary outfits have mobilized on the country’s disparate battlefronts to profit from the increasingly privatized twenty-first-century American version of war.  The American people, however, are demobilized and detached from the wars, interventions, operations, and other military activities done in their name.  As a result, 200 Marines in Guatemala, almost 78% of global weapons sales, drones flying surveillance from Australia -- no one here notices; no one here cares. 

War: it’s what we do the most and attend to the least.  It’s a nasty combination.

We may honor our troops and feel patriotic and yet still admit that our U.S. Military has become the least publicly-understood and accountable institution in the federal government.  We really don't know who is doing what, where, why, when and for whom.  (Hopefully, for us, ultimately.)  Are we comfortable with everything they're doing in our name?  How can we begin to answer if we don't come close to knowing what they're doing?  

We tend to take these things on trust, perhaps because we trust in the honor and integrity of our troops; but the truth is that our armed forces are directed by our elected officials.  (Think Joe Biden and John McCain.  Do you want to leave it to them to decide?)  Yet relative to its size (about 20% of the federal budget), manpower (more than 2 million), and geographic scope (more than 1,000 bases outside the U.S.), the U.S. Military enjoys tremendous secrecy and receives little public scrutiny.  

There's nothing unpatriotic about admitting that, or starting to ask more hard questions about our military.  Indeed, our Founding Fathers would expect nothing less from us.

Monopolizing War?  What America Knows How to Do Best 

By Tom Engelhardt

September 13, 2012 | Tom Dispatch

URL: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175592/

More U.S. military contractors under fire

This story just confirms a lot of things I've been saying for a few years. Anybody who knows a bit about government contracting knows that, comparatively, the Pentagon has done it really quick & dirty in Iraq, with poor planning, no gov't oversight personnel, and no incentives for contractor performance.

More broadly, the unprecedented level of outsourcing in Iraq & Afghanistan is a result of domestic political opposition to large troop numbers overseas; the fact that we're fighting two wars in two theaters simultaneously, in addition to the over 800 U.S. bases which must be manned worldwide; the downsizing of our military after the Cold War; crony capitalism, where GOP-friendly contractors can lobby for easy, no-compete contracts; and an anti-government ideology which says that private contractors can do anything better than the gov't -- even when it comes to fighting America's wars.

In all these wars we've started, perhaps we forgot about a little thing called patriotism? Our soldiers don't fight and die just for the paycheck. They embody a code of honor, and fight for love of country. Call me crazy, but I doubt any private contractor measures up to that standard.



Military Contractors Are Hard to Fire
By Richard Lardner
February 2, 2008 | Associated Press

ITT Federal Services International, a defense contractor hired to maintain battle gear for U.S. troops in Iraq, repeatedly failed to do the job right.

Combat vehicles ITT declared as repaired and ready for action flunked inspections and had to be fixed again. Equipment to be sanitized for return to the United States was found caked with dirt. And ITT's computer database for tracking the work was rife with errors.

Formal "letters of concern" were sent to the contractor. Still, the Army didn't fire ITT. Instead, it gave the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based company more work to do. Since October 2004, ITT has been paid $638 million through the Global Maintenance and Supply Services contract.

The Army's ongoing arrangement with ITT, detailed in an audit from the Government Accountability Office, shows how captive the military has become to the private sector for overseas support. Even when contractors don't measure up, dismissing them may not be an option because of the heavy pace of operations.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., co-author of legislation creating a special commission to examine wartime contracting, said poor-performing contractors are more likely to get bonuses than to be penalized.

"It has just been a mess," McCaskill, a former state auditor, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's bad enough how much this war is costing. But it's heartbreaking the amount of money that has just gone up in smoke."

In ITT's case, there were too few soldiers to handle the maintenance duties and no other contractors ready to step in quickly, according to Redding Hobby, the Army Sustainment Command's executive director for field support operations.

"I'm not sure that our manning levels would have allowed us to do anything except wring our hands and worry and work people harder and work people overtime," Hobby said in a telephone interview.

In a brief statement, ITT said it objected to the GAO's conclusions and has "taken numerous corrective actions." The company also said it has met the Army's requirements.

Contract personnel working for the Defense Department now outnumber U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; there are 196,000 private-sector workers in both countries compared to 182,000 troops.

Contractors are responsible for a slew of duties, including repairing warfighting equipment, supplying food and water, building barracks, providing armed security and gathering intelligence.

The dependence has come with serious consequences.

During a congressional hearing on Jan. 24, Jack Bell, a senior Pentagon acquisition official, called the situation "unprecedented" and one "that, frankly, we were not adequately prepared to address."

A shortage of experienced federal employees to oversee this growing industrial army is blamed for much of the waste, fraud and abuse on contracts collectively worth billions of dollars.

"We do not have the contracting personnel that we need to guarantee that the taxpayer dollar is being protected," said William Moser, the State Department's deputy assistant secretary for logistics management.

"We are very, very concerned about the integrity in the contracting process," added Moser, who appeared at the same hearing as Bell. "We don't feel that we've had major scandals up to now, but we don't feel like that we can continue in the same situation."

The office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has 52 open cases related to bribery, false billing, contract fraud, kickbacks and theft; 36 of those cases have been referred to the Justice Department for prosecution, according to the inspector general's office.

The Army Criminal Investigation Command is busy, too. The command has 90 criminal investigations under way related to alleged contract fraud in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, according to spokesman Chris Grey. Two dozen U.S. citizens have been charged or indicted so far — 19 of those are Army military and civilian employees — and more than $15 million in bribes has changed hands, Grey said.

To deal with the problem, the Army is implementing many of the recommendations of a blue-ribbon panel formed last year to reform contracting procedures. The most significant are the creation of a contracting command to be led by a two-star general and the addition of 1,400 acquisition personnel.

[Well it's about time. This is what I've been saying all along! -- J]

David Maddox, a retired four-star general who served on the panel, said the Army understands the need to change. He's less sure the message has spread throughout the Defense Department. That's necessary to drive the broader changes needed to curb future problems in defense contracting.

"The Army is moving out," Maddox said. "I'm a little more concerned with the degree DoD is moving out."

The audit by the GAO, Congress' investigative arm, does not say there were any improprieties stemming from the ITT contract. Rather, neither the contractor nor the government were ready for the demands placed on each.

At one point, although the Army had documented several incidents of poor performance, ITT was paid an additional $33 million to overhaul 150 Humvees a month. Over a nearly yearlong period, the contractor never came close to meeting the mark but still got the money, according to the GAO.

Many of the problems occurred in 2005 and 2006, when the insurgency in Iraq was at its height and there was a heavy burden on the contractor to get equipment back into the fight as quickly as possible, according to Hobby, the Army Sustainment Command official.

The terms of the contract called for ITT to be compensated for all labor costs. That meant the company was often paid twice to fix equipment it didn't repair correctly the first time.

"Although it sounds bad economically, back at the time we were trying to (implement) a repair program that would maintain equipment for our soldiers, and that was a good alternative," Hobby said of the ITT contract. "It was expensive. We knew there were risks there. And, quite frankly, we didn't have the government (personnel) in place to ensure success. But we've learned an awful lot of lessons from this."

The ITT contract and other similar support arrangements will be changed so a company's profits are linked to performance, Hobby said.

"We are transitioning to a contract that gives an incentive to the contractor," Hobby said. "Our argument would be, 'We paid you to fix these vehicles, they didn't get fixed on time, so you lose your award fee.' A penalty, so to speak."

ITT's performance has improved substantially, Hobby said, and the Army will decide in the next few months whether to extend the arrangement for another year.

Still, he doesn't diminish the gravity of the GAO's audit.

"I think if Joe Sixpack or Sally Homemaker read that report, they would probably have the same feeling," Hobby said when asked why ITT's contract was not terminated. "I share your pain."