Private military contractors? What private military contractors?

April 11, 2006

There were several interesting exchanges between the president and student at Johns Hopkins yesterday — on a question regarding global sex trafficking, [tag]Bush[/tag] told a student, “You know more about this subject than I” — but when it came to [tag]private military contractors[/tag] in Iraq, and the law that governs their conduct, the president seemed completely clueless.

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. It’s an honor to have you here. I’m a first-year student in South Asia studies. My question is in regards to private military contractors. Uniform Code of Military Justice does not apply to these contractors in Iraq. I asked your Secretary of Defense a couple months ago what law governs their actions.

Bush: I was going to ask him. Go ahead. (Laughter.) Help. (Laughter.)

Q: I was hoping your answer might be a little more specific. (Laughter.) Mr. Rumsfeld answered that Iraq has its own domestic laws which he assumed applied to those private military contractors. However, Iraq is clearly not currently capable of enforcing its laws, much less against — over our American military contractors. I would submit to you that in this case, this is one case that privatization is not a solution. And, Mr. President, how do you propose to bring private military contractors under a system of law?

Bush: I appreciate that very much. I wasn’t kidding — (laughter.) I was going to — I pick up the phone and say, Mr. Secretary, I’ve got an interesting question. (Laughter.) This is what delegation — I don’t mean to be dodging the question, although it’s kind of convenient in this case, but never — (laughter.) I really will — I’m going to call the Secretary and say you brought up a very valid question, and what are we doing about it? That’s how I work. I’m — thanks. (Laughter.)

This was the whole exchange. C&L, of course, has the video.

Now, I don’t expect the president to know the details of every area of public policy, but the war in Iraq is in its fourth year and private military contractors have been a controversial element of the fighting from the beginning. Bush not only has no idea how to answer a question about how the private soldiers operate legally, but he also seems to think the whole subject is hilarious.

And did you notice that line at the end? “That’s how I work,” Bush said. Unfortunately, the president got that one right.

Dang! He doesn’t even know the talking points.

The operative talking point was, I thought, that the government can discontinue the contract with those “contractors” (read: mercenaries) who engage in crime.

Of course, mercenaries being mercenaries, the question that I would have asked would have been what contingency did the White House have to deal with the perfectly real possibility that the Iranians (or whomever) were to use their oil money to make sure that the Blackwater mercs stepped aside when the insurgents wanted to assassinate somebody or attack US troops. Or, hell, to carry out revenge against Sunnis or Shia or whoever the highest bidder wanted dead. In fact, that could explain the apparently “random” sprees of killing by our mercenaries–kind of a bonus gig to do on one’s downtime.

  • After watching that video I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Just when you thought Bush couldn’t be more pathetic.

    This is what happens when an arrogant, undereducated man with tremendous (undeserved, unearned) power starts to lose it. He seems to be truly cracking up, his instincts are totally shot, and he doesn’t seem to care or even understand what kind of impression he is making. His sophmoric attempts at humor and charm fall flat.

  • Now if candidate or President Kerry (or Gore) had been asked that question and had given a decent answer, he would have been derided as being “stiff” or too much of a “wonk”. This is what the people seemed to want. Anyone who didn’t already know this is what W was by November of 2004 is as clueless as he is.

  • Shruby reminds me of John Wayne Gacy, the killer clown. Pure evil barely covered by an eroding veneer of banal boobosity. If he’s going crazy, he doesn’t seem to mind going out to let people see it.

  • “The operative talking point was, I thought, that the government can discontinue the contract with those “contractors” (read: mercenaries) who engage in crime.” – Mr. Flibble

    Yes, but if there is no law, there is no crime. So we can never punish military contractors.

  • Is he so incompetent he can’t master the art of the non-answer answer? Really this question — “And, Mr. President, how do you propose to bring private military contractors under a system of law?” — begs for a couple minutes of blather if the speaker doesn’t know or doesn’t care.

  • Lance,
    Well, sure–but that *was* the talking point, wasn’t it? Or is it no longer operative. I can’t keep up these days.

  • I don’t know either (laughter), because after all, I’m not the President or Secretary of Defense (laughter). But I can be absolutely sure of one thing: there is absolutely no fucking way that out military contractors are subject to Iraqi law.

    How stupid does Rumsfeld think we are? As stupid as his boss, perhaps?

  • Theoretical Physicists and similar “deep thinkers” will be thrilled. They have for decades been seeking the “unifying theory” that explains everything. As it turns out, this misAdministration is, incrementally, inching closer to such a discovery.

    See, if you take their formula for defending domestic spying, and add it to their defense for selective “in the moment” declassifying to allow leaking of classified materials, factor in the coefficient of Bushie’s permanent and unbounded war on terror, and multiply as often as the need strikes, everything can be explained.

    Private contractors who might break laws? Not a problem, because it can’t really happen. You see, in a time of war, the Commander-in-Chief, as a unitary executive, can make laws without Congress, particular in a foreign country like Cuba or Iraq. (and this clearly goes double for military contractors). So before such a contractor could really be found to have broken a law, Dumbya would just selectively determine that isn’t the law. See, no problem – no law was violated, no need to worry about how to bring a private contractor to justice.

    The unifying theory. It can explain anything.

  • The entire session was an interesting study in opposites. On one hand, some very bright, articulate students asking serious questions of substance. On the other, the man who occupies the most powerful office in the world, not very bright, inarticulate and clowning about serious issues. If you are the type to see the students as elite intellectuals and Bush as a regular guy, this just bolstered your argument. But if you are the type to see Bush as a privledged, intellectually challenged dolt, here too was your proof. The students came across, as young people often do, as quite full of themselves; Bush, like presidents shouldn’t come across, looked dumb. My advise: vote anti-republican.

  • I think Bush signed an Executive Order shortly after the invasion that held all military contractors harmless from any and all claims in Iraq.

  • This would have been much better if the questioner had not laughed along with him and instead said “I fail to find any humor in what is going on in Iraq”

  • I simply can’t understand it. Bush is a complete,
    bumbling fool that any child can see, yet the
    Republicans, Democrats, press and media
    continue to carry on this pathetic charade that he
    is the president.

    How can we survive three more years of this?
    Somebody, please, just say it, on tv, in an
    editorial. George Bush is a fraud, and we’ve
    been had,and we need to get rid of him for the
    sake of our nation.

  • The use of private contractors has weakened our military’s ability to successfully procecute and win the war in Iraq. What military commander feels safe having a mercenary company in their area of operation that’s not even under their chain of command? And if the fighting gets too hot for the contractors, what penalty do they pay for deciding to cut and run? If I did that while I was in the Army, I would be facing court martial charges and jail time.
    Abu Graib is another point. The soldiers who took part in the torture there all faced charges, and were found guilty. What happened to the guys the CIA hired? Nothing, maybe sent to another facility, but for the most part swept under the rug.
    How do you maintain discipline and espirit de corps in the ranks when the soldiers see how the mercenaries that are over there are literally getting away with murder?

  • Mr. Flibble’s comment is enlightening, and of course frightening”

    The operative talking point was, I thought, that the government can discontinue the contract with those “contractors” (read: mercenaries) who engage in crime.”

    That reminds me of the lameness of Bush’s first response to the missing checks and balances in the wiretap program. When first confronted on the issue, Bush assured us that there were checks and blances because the executive officers overseeing the program had all taken oaths to uphold the Constitution.

    I can understand the Republican party running a very conservative oil man for president. In a Madisonian democracy you’re supposed to champion your interests in policy. But just what the hell were they thinking when they nominated this complete motard as their best man for running the country? Have they no sense of duty to the national interest?

  • I watched the C & L video and had much reactions similar to those noted in earlier comments. The exchange is disgusting if one is hoping for anything new from W. But, it also is a shining example of how little respect Bush has for citizens of this country. He reveals himself as he is unable to summon any of this tried and true obfuscating talking points. He basically says, “You suckers will settle for any crap I choose to pitch at you.” He clearly does not know the answer to a question that has been kicking around for some time (or perhaps he suspects that people will not accept the truth about the lack of legal oversight for contractors). He is not on firm enough ground to be defiant. So he bumbles. He says he doesn’t mean to dodge but, f*ck yeah, it’s convenient that respect for the office that he holds constrains the questioner from calling him on his goofy, insulting non-answer. Hell, nobody in the room had any expectation that he would give a meaningful, truthful answer anyway. He makes the audience laugh nervously, and the laughter will play well with his loyal fans who find this “regular guy” stupidity charming or reassuring in some inexplicable way. Finally, he just trails off into his “I delegate these ugly details” meme. Translation: Deal / Live with it.
    I’m with Hark. It’s going to be a long, hard march to Jan 2009 unless the checks and balances somehow kick in between now and then.

  • Somebody who knows how to use iMovie and/or Premiere PLEASE PLEASE intercut all this gleeful yukking and guffawing with video of atrocities committed by these fucking mercenaries! Where’s the next Michael Moore when you need him? Footage of babies burned, Abu Graib tortures, murder in cold blood, wailing relatives, I’m sure this footage has been all over Al Jazeera for 3 years now… go find it, intercut it with all this idiotic “Gee, I don’t know! Ha Ha!” crap.

    Then put it out on BitTorrent, ’cause I’m gonna send it to everyone I know– especially the Republicans.

  • I was wondering if anyone out there would have any idea where, or the best place to start would be, that I could find out information I could use to compile a list of the specific military jobs that the private companies are filling in Iraq. Like- sniper, bombadier, grenadist, castle stormingeneer, etc.? We need to compile it for our national release movie on private contractors on Iraq being evil. The movie will put it more eloquently and two-housier than that. barely.

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