EQUIPO NIZKOR |
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25Jul12
US army share responsibility with mercenaries
American army is not participating in supply lines for example through Pakistan to Afghanistan. The protection of the supply lines is done by the private military companies. What is this? This is a sort of an institution which hires very qualified, very often retired people from the American armed forces and the CIA and it is keeping them as participators in the American aggressions all through the world. But they are not uniformed, they are paid in a different way. So, when it comes to casualties of American army for example in Afghanistan it is about 4000 people through these ten years. But the private paramilitary companies are not counted into these losses whereas during these ten years American private paramilitary companies have lost almost a thousand people.
So, it is not counted into the overall number of the American army losses. And the CIA in its turn is doing the same thing. For example you remember Abu Ghraib in Iraq. The prisoners of Abu Ghraib were kept by the private paramilitary forces and that's why there was a tremendous excessing in violation of human rights, not only military of the American army violated but mostly the paramilitary private companies were violating the rights of the prisoners and they have inflicted so many insults on the national religion and character.
So, this development is taking a growing role in American military expeditions. The administrations are in position to minimize the military losses. Various American institutions are using them for a rather dirty work. You remember that there was a lot of discussion about the American secret prisons in Europe, including the Eastern Europe, and in other parts of the world, especially in the Asian and Arab countries. They were kept by the paramilitary forces and the representatives of the CIA only brought and left them there under the guard of the private paramilitary representatives.
And when we come to outsourcing we find that this allows Americans to hire local people for money of course for a very dirty work inside their own country. The natives are working for the Americans and in this sense they are considered to be part of the whole exercise. I think it is a dangerous thing and it really removes the barrier between the violation by American army of human rights of the prisoners and POWs and so on and a simple and irresponsible, they are not committed to anybody except for their companies, I mean these people who work for American paramilitary institutions.
And mind you - the American army has a manual of war operations and this manual of war operations prescribes what kind of behavior the American army should follow against the enemy, against the POW's and what is allowed and what is not. And in this manual they are keeping the main elements of Geneva Convention.
But these private paramilitary institutions are not bound by this kind of things and this allows the American administrations and certain representatives to use them to carry unprecedentedly dirty work with all kinds of violations of human rights. And somehow it has not yet become a certain problem which is being discussed. But the time will come and the Americans would be forced to explain what kind of thing it is this private paramilitary force, by which laws they operate and who is responsible for them in the long run. Let's wait for this time when the international community will touch upon this very sensitive issue.
Mr. Yevstafiev, but is there any international regulation perhaps looking into the issue now? If we talk about for example the presence of the US, say in Iraq or in Afghanistan, the US are pledging to reduce their presence there to certain numbers etc, do I get it right that those private military contractors are not taken into account?
No, you see, the outsourcing goes further. It brings these private paramilitary institutions into the American foreign policy because it has been announced that some private paramilitary institutions are going to participate in training of Afghan army and Iraqi detachments and this allows Mr. Obama to claim that he is moving out American military people. Of course he is moving because he pledged to do this but nobody speaks about the fact that instead of this army on private contracts and agreements with the local governments they introduce the private paramilitary institutions for defending the perimeter of very sensitive buildings, installations and so on. And on the surface it appears that there already 10 000 of Americans in Kabul for example but if you look into the matter you will see that there are thousands of people who are connected to the idea of making, as this was recently announced, of making Afghanistan their strategic ally.
I think it is a dangerous thing and it really removes the barrier between the violation of American army of human rights of the prisoners and POWs and so on and a simple and irresponsible, they are not committed to anybody except for their companies, I mean these people who work for American paramilitary institutions. And mind you - the American army has a manual of war operations and this manual of war operations prescribes what kind of behavior the American army should follow against the enemy, against the POW's and what is allowed and what is not. And in this manual they are keeping the main elements of Geneva Convention.
But these private paramilitary institutions are not bound by this kind of things and this allows the American administrations and certain representatives to use them to carry unprecedentedly dirty work with all kinds of violations of human rights.
Sir, thank you so much. And just to remind you our guest speaker this time was our expert Gennady Yevstafiev, retired Lieutenant General of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.
[Source: By Yekaterina Kudashkina, The Voice of Russia, Moscow, 25Jul12]
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