"Ante la ausencia del Estado-nación y sus ejércitos, alguien tiene que proteger los recursos naturales y los nuevos medios de producción para las élites", dice el informe que sigue. Así es, chicos, romper países está buenísimo pero tiene su costo, no vayan a creer. Ahí es donde entran esos muchachos solidarios e idealistas: los mercenarios. Al respecto, posteamos a continuación dos interesantes artículos publicados recientemente en el sitio web The unbalanced Evolution of Homo sapiens (http://failedevolution.blogspot.com.ar/). Los subrayados son nuestros:
Título: The neo-colonial booming industry of private mercenaries
Subtítulo: Those who profit from human misery
Texto: In the 15 years since the declaration of a ‘war on terror’ and the invasions of first Afghanistan and then Iraq, the world has witnessed an enormous proliferation of private military and security companies (PMSCs) seeking to profit from instability and conflict. Hundreds of companies have been established in the past few years alone, and there now exists a vast private industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Sadly, rather than introducing binding regulation of the industry, the British government has decided to allow the mercenaries to regulate themselves.
Key Points:
* The UK is an important hub for the PMSC industry. At the height of the occupation, around 60 British companies operated in Iraq. Now there are hundreds of British PMSCs operating in areas of conflict around the globe, working to secure government and corporate presence against a range of ‘threats’.
* At the heart of the industry is a revolving door between PMSCs, military, intelligence and corporate worlds, with the interests of these sectors closely intertwined.
* The British PMSC industry took off with the occupation of Iraq and the resulting unrest. The Director General of the British Association of Private Security Companies, Andy Bearpark, has made clear: “In Iraq in 2003 and 2004 money was basically free. That meant contracts were being let for ridiculous amounts of money – millions and millions of dollars of contracts being pumped into the industry. The industry exploded in terms of the volume of business on the back of Iraq.”
* The US and Iraqi governments are not the only players that continue to pay for the services of UK PMSCs in Iraq. The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has awarded contracts to PMSCs in conflict zones with a combined value of around £50 million each year. This includes nearly £150 million in the five years between 2007 and 2012 awarded for operations in Iraq.
* Perhaps the biggest market for British PMSCs in Iraq is the provision of security for private corporations seeking to invest in the country. Such contracts have become critical to the private security sector now that the Pentagon’s war chest in the country has emptied.
* The oil and gas sector is the central focus of multinational corporations in Iraq. Royal Dutch Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and other multinationals have signed deals to produce, refine and export oil and gas from the country, and are willing to pay PMSCs to help secure their operations.
* While Iraq and Afghanistan remain longstanding markets for British PMSCs, instability in other resource-rich regions of the world, such as northern and western Africa, is leading to increased opportunities for these companies. All major UK PMSCs now operate across the continent.
* The toppling of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya in 2011 led to a rapid influx of PMSCs into the country, spearheading the arrival of multinationals keen to restore their involvement in Libya’s oil and gas sector. As one PMSC executive put it: “We’re there to facilitate the re-entry of clients in Libya.” Security companies have also seen an opportunity for training post-Gaddafi security forces and, compared to the former regime, Intelligence Online noted that “Libya’s new leadership is showing greater openness toward foreign private security companies.”
* PMSCs from several countries are now being contracted to take up active combat roles in ongoing wars within African and Middle Eastern states. The Nigerian army has secured the services of South African mercenary troops from the apartheid era to fight the militant Islamist group Boko Haram in the north of the country, while hundreds of Colombian mercenaries recruited by the infamous US PMSC Blackwater (now renamed Academi) have been fighting alongside Saudi Arabian forces in Yemen.
* The militarisation of the oceans is having significant consequences. PMSCs have shot indiscriminately at approaching vessels, sometimes resulting in the deaths of innocent fishermen. In one videotaped incident, leaked after it was played by the US PMSC Trident Group Inc. at a shipping conference, armed personnel were seen firing without warning on two skiffs which had approached the vessel. Company President Thomas Rothrauff acknowledged that those on board were probably killed, although the exact extent of injuries and the real intent of those in the skiff remains unknown: “We’re not in the business of counting injuries,” he said. According to one captain working in the Indian Ocean, “It’s the Wild Wild West out there. There are no regulations or vetting process for these teams. The company doesn’t know who it’s getting on board.”
* The presence of private armies on board ships can contravene local and international law, and security companies have been known to buy arms illegally in war-torn countries such as Yemen, and then dump them overboard before reaching their destination.
* The US government subsequently funded international security trade association ASIS to develop an auditable standard for PMSCs operating around the world. The standard, named PSC.1, is based on principles drawn up with the involvement of the military establishment and the PMSC industry itself, relying on self-regulation and voluntary reporting rather than binding regulations with redress mechanisms and sanctions.
* As the number of boots on the ground of occupying forces has fallen, public attention has turned away from Iraq and Afghanistan and the private armies which gained notoriety there. Away from the public gaze, the business of PMSCs has boomed. From dependency on Pentagon contracts, they have found a wealth of new and eager clients amongst the private sector, especially in the extractive industries. They have sought out and exploited political instability in the wake of the Arab uprisings. And they have spread floating armouries across the world’s oceans to protect commercial shipping interests. In all of this, UK companies are playing a leading role, reaping enormous profits.
* There have also been positive moves at the national level. With effect from September 2015, the Swiss government has banned all PMSCs based in Switzerland from operating in conflict zones, and has introduced strict regulation of all PMSC activity outside its borders.The UK government, by contrast, argues that PMSCs are best left to police themselves through voluntary codes.
Full Report: http://media.waronwant.org/sites/default/files/Mercenaries%20Unleashed%2C%202016.pdf?_ga=1.224786138.1570260927.1456502611
Many of these private soldiers are not what we would call "fortune hunters". They are simply people who have been left out of the production process. As this new industry of private armies is booming, it's one of the few options to work. As mentioned already in several previous analyses, one of the main reasons that people are left out of the production process, especially in the developed countries, is the rapid hyper-automation of production. Robots are increasingly penetrating even in sectors which are not related with industry or construction.
This is another sign of a saturated system which struggles to find new fields in order to fuel its obsolete machine. While millions of jobs being lost, companies continue to function on the logic of maximizing profits. The result: business on the corpses of devastated countries with thousands killed or displaced. Well, it won't last too long because hyper-automation will penetrate in this brutal industry too. As mentioned in previous article:
We see a rise of private armies that act in various battlefields, like in Ukraine, exactly because in the absence of the nation-states and the national armies, someone has to protect the natural resources and the new means of production for the dominant elite. But when the arms industry will fully automate the new weapons, private armies will only serve as assistance to fully automated war machines. We already see the test fields of the weapons of future? the drones in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. It's not accidental that the arms industries demonstrate new weapons designed to be used inside urban areas for suppression of potential riots. There will be no "outside enemy" in the future. The threat for the dominant system will come from the interior, the big urban centers. Soldier-robots will protect worker-robots and resources. [fa.ev/the-dominant-elite-ready-to-break]
The machine already works beyond its limits. Hyper-automation is simply incompatible with this obsolete profit-chasing model which must change yesterday. And let's hope that it's not too late.
***
Título: Globalized wars: Anyone can fight against anyone
Epígrafe: The plan evolves according to the willing of the elites as nation-states approach their permanent dissolution
Texto: From Ukraine to Middle East, we see all kinds of fighters of various nationalities fighting on both sides. Private armies, mercenaries and fortune hunters are present in various battlefields, many of them aiming only to earn more money. Globalized wars are here and doing the job of those who dream the dissolution of nation-states.
The picture of the ISIS fighters praising the dissolving of the Iraqi-Syrian borders is characteristic. The powers behind the artificial construction of many nation-states, in the Middle-East and elsewhere, have now decided that these are not useful anymore as they cannot serve their plans for total, global domination.
ISIS fighters' threats concerning potential attacks in Western countries serve perfectly the plan, which is to transfer the wars from borders to urban centers. Indeed, since a citizen of any Western country, attached to the ISIS or other extremist groups, is determined to die in a bloodbath at the heart of this country, the protection of borders has no meaning, and citizens start to wonder about the ability of the nation-state to protect them.
Moreover, the systemic establishment finds another excuse to justify further suppression measures by an increasingly militarized police, thus increasing the hostility of the citizens against the state. The Western urban state not only fails to protect its citizens but on the contrary, is turning against them.
But it's not only that. As the economic crisis hit heavily many Western countries, threatening the most developed countries of the eurozone too, as the welfare state rapidly dissolved and the majority suffers from heavy taxes and austerity measures, while the governments-puppets vote more tax reliefs for the economic elites and banksters who have been bailed-out by the taxpayers, more and more people start to wonder about the necessity of the nation-state.
What we see here is actually a vicious cycle: The more the poverty and inequality grow, the more extremism finds new material, especially among the youngest people who suffer from unemployment. The more the extremism grows, the more the suppression imposed by the state to the citizens increases, and so on. And this gives the suitable justification for an increasingly militarized police ready to operate at the heart of urban centers.
There will be no need for distinction between the army and the police in future: “It's not accidental that the arms industries demonstrate new weapons designed to be used inside urban areas for suppression of potential riots. There will be no 'outside enemy' in the future. The threat for the dominant system will come from the interior, the big urban centers. Soldier-robots will protect worker-robots and resources.” (http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/08/the-dominant-elite-ready-to-break.html)
Thus ruling class is blocking all the ways and prepares the future adjusted to its interests not only through the police militarization, but also through the police privatization (http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/09/its-fact-police-privatizationmilitariza.html), under the tolerance of the majority who already sees the state as a hostile force.
Scottish-type referendums show the desperation of people to escape from such a situation, but the puzzlement of the Scottish people was obvious. No one knew actually how the next day would be in case of independence. On the other hand, the propaganda of fear was launched in this case by the system which showed signs of panic, like many times in Greece the latest years of crisis. Why? Maybe the answer can be found in the new Sino-Russian block alternative: http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/08/an-alternative-to-neoliberal.html
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