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The Corporate Army and Sex Slaves

  
 
Ethan Hawke
13:11 / 26.06.02
Sickening article in Salon.com today that centers around employees of private contracters employed by the U.S. military in Bosnia purchasing adolescent girls as sex slaves. Unfortunately, this article is the "Premium" section, meaning you have to be a subscriber.

Ben Johnston was a helicopter mechanic empoyed by a private contracter called DynCorp, Inc., stationed in Bosnia with part of the US peacekeeping forces. While working there, he discovered that many of his fellow employees were patronizing prostitutes, and in some cases outright "buying" women (as young as 12) as sex slaves. When he brought this matter to the attention of the Army Criminal Investigation Command and cooperated with their investigation, he was fired from his job. Although a few empoyees of DynCorp were fired because of their prostitution related activities, none were brought up on criminal charges.

Aside from the obvious issues raised by the persistence and flourishing of sex-slavery in this day and age, the article also brings to light the incredible dependence of the U.S. military on private companies. DynCorp, just one of the many companies in what is reputed to be a $100 business of military contracts, also employs "crop eradication pilots" (read:the war on drugs) to the State Department for use in South America, and police officers to the U.N. (!)

A quote from the article that shows the extent of corporate involvement in the military:

DynCorp has a lot of company in this booming field. Kellogg Brown and Root, a subsidiary
of Halliburton -- of which Vice President Dick Cheney is a former CEO -- is another major
player. The company has run or currently runs U.S. military bases in such far-flung locations
as Georgia, Uzbekistan, Haiti, Rwanda, Somalia and the Balkans. Some companies actually
train foreign forces. The firm MPRI, which boasted to the Los Angeles Times that it has
"more generals per square foot than the Pentagon," is in line for the contract to train the new
Afghan army. As America continues its broad war against terror, these and other similar
companies will be deployed to the Philippines, Afghanistan and anywhere else American,
U.N. or NATO troops are sent.

(isn't Kellog Brown and Root the company being sued for having segregated bathrooms for Americans in Bosnia?)
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:59 / 26.06.02
Erm...if that's a recent article, I don't think that's really 'fair use'...
 
 
betty woo
21:01 / 26.06.02
It's a premium article, meaning it's one of the pieces that Salon uses to reward folks who subscribe -and since it was posted today, it's surely not fair use to quote so much.

However, I was able to pull up a bunch of other sources:

Statement to the International operations and Human rights sub committee of US Congress (scroll down to April 24)

article about Ben Johnston's case

Article about Kathryn Bolkovac's case

Article from AIM Sarajevo

Article from Muslim News
 
 
rizla mission
10:10 / 27.06.02
You know what's most infuriating? the way lots of people almost see this sort of thing as fair game for military people stationed in poor/ far-off countries.. one similar accusation in America or Western Europe would bring down an almighty shitstorm.. more double standards and subconscious racism..
 
 
Ethan Hawke
11:50 / 27.06.02
Well, actually, part of the point of the article is that as opposed to the military, these private contracters have no accountability. The military has a chain of command, a disciplinary structure that is an important part of its constitution, and soldiers, because of conditioning, are more likely to follow that structure. Plus, the commanders of the military have a huge stake in maintaining the professional reputation of the rank and file. Soldiers do bad things, but they're likely to get caught and punished (see the recent prosecution of the soldier accused of raping a girl in Okinawa).
 
 
w1rebaby
18:24 / 27.06.02
I'm not a Salon subscriber so I haven't read the whole article - but either the author is very naive, or s/he holds some immensely romantic ideas about the military. The idea of the "poor old military, at the mercy of corporate forces" is no longer realistic. The military is corporate. It's a tool of the government, and the government sees its job as maximising the interests of the corporations in its domain.

Besides, military spending is the Swiss bank account of the neo-liberal world (along with a lot of aid, too, and "public-private partnerships"). Politicians vote to give money to the military to spend with companies who, surprise surprise, turn out to be connected to them and their friends. Part of the point of doing this is that the companies are not accountable - why have your spending open to any citizen to look at and criticise, when you can hide it under commercial confidentiality?
 
  
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