Opportunity Costs for Deploying PMCs Robert Greenwald’s documentary film, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteer, highlights how the private military contractors (PMCs) make the profit out of the Iraq War, and visualizes how the motive of profit-oriented PMCs has a negative impact on U.S. image. The film shows interviews of former PMCs employees and their families, Iraqi civilians, U.S. military staff, and more. The question has raised that how the U.S. government solve such tragedy and at the same time to fulfill its needy of manpower in Iraq. Accountability is not the only significant opportunity cost of U.S. government deploying PMCs to Iraq, but also losing oligopoly leverage of traditional military in the labor market of the business of …show more content…
The offer of PMCs is irresistible that U.S. government could save time and money from producing skilled military personnel by simply hiring professionals in the market. The film has spotlighted how U.S. government’s investment on PMCs turn into irony in terms of accountability. Greenwald made the case by informing the evidence of unskilled interpreters of Titan Corporation jeopardizing the military missions; and Halliburton proving unclean water for the U.S. soldiers. The most significant indication is the outbreak of Abu Ghraib prison scandal, which demolishes the image of U.S in the international community. In addition, the Pentagon had found evidence that Halliburton overcharged 1 billion dollars to the taxpayers. The question is how responsible PMCs are in handling such crisis? Don Mayer stated that employees of PMCs are not under direct supervision of U.S. military, and the crime that employees commit is a matter of his or her employer (5). And, Mayer also pointed out that there is no clear jurisdiction in U.S. court, Iraq court, and International tribunal to serve justice for the victims (5). The United States government could have a higher level of transparency and accountability with its own traditional military because the military is subject to U.S. government and international law. Indeed, accountability is the U.S. opportunity
The case study The Blast in Centralia no. 5: A mine Disaster No One Stopped is a useful lens through which to identify potential pitfalls for national security organizations. The most powerful lessons that ought to be learned by the case study are twofold. First, political interference in the work of governmental organizations can lead to dysfunction and mission failure. Second, the failure to conduct independent oversight over a governmental organization—especially when its performance has been openly questioned—permits that dysfunction to continue unabated.
When political leaders frame an unjust war as a morally just war, though, these same soldiers might have second thoughts about their decision to become part of a military machine that is prosecuting an unjust war because their leaders lacked the authority to absolve them from their personal accountability. In this regard, McMahan makes the interesting point that, “What unjust combatants are commanded to do as agents of the state – fight, in an unjust war – is not something that their state, or its leaders, have a claim right to do, or to delegate to others”
The “pentagon papers”, officially titled: Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force, was a U.S. government study commissioned, by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, in 1967. [Robert McNamara served under both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.] The study traced the United States involvement in Vietnam from World War II to the present. The papers were highly confidential and compiled by many sources. Groups, such as the military, universities, and private organizations, worked on portions of the study. The joint efforts created a 47-volume study; only 38 of the 47 volumes were physically produced. One of the groups which had worked on the study was RAND Corporation. An employee of Rand Corporation, Daniel Ellsberg, used his clearance to gain access to a printed copy of the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg then began secretly removing and copying volumes o...
“The Price of Military Folly.” U.S. News Online. 1996. 10 April 2000 . Robinson, Linda.
Denise Grady’s (2006) article sound a strong wake up call for the American government and for the American public to re-evaluate their guiding principles towards war in Iraq and the continued presence of the American soldiers in the Iraqi soil. Grady delineated the enormous damages the war had costs in not only monetary terms but also the future of thousands of promising young and talented men and women sent in the Iraq War; that had no clear benefits to them or the American people.
As a Wall Street Journal Pentagon correspondent, Thomas E. Ricks is one of America’s elite military journalists. He has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and awarded a Society of Professional Journalists Award for his writings based on the Marines. Thomas E. Ricks lectures to military officers and was a member of Harvard University’s Senior Advisory Council on the project on U.S. Civil-Military Relations. As a Pentagon correspondent, he can access information where no other civilian can step foot—traveling with soldiers abroad, his eyes tell the tale of the life of a Marine.
The three films that I chose for this final project are; Fahrenheit 9/11, CSI season 1 episode 22, and West Wing Season 3 episode 1. These films are connected because they focus on different aspects associated with the attacks on September 11, 2001. Fahrenheit 9/11 is connected to the current topic because its main plot point follows Michael Moore’s narrative of blaming George W. Bush, our president on September 11 2001, for the acts of terrorism. Moreover, the film examines step by step the failures of President Bush before, during, and after the falling of the Twin Towers. The CSI episode took a somber and realistic tone airing an episode that featured Taylor expaining that his wife died when the towers fell. Furthermore, The West Wing,
Poladian shows us the real-life situation. The things American has changed in 14 years. Poladian is only an American citizen and one of the reporters in IBTimes. Although he has no authority to say the army in American has been enhanced, he has the authority to say how safe he is and all American citizens are. Comparing to the authors Holder, Janet, and James, although they have authority to say how well they did to improve everything in military, they may have their way, which is bias, to see their “improvement.
As the operational environment changed, the operation showed that the United States was not looking at the problem objectively. General Petraeus came in, redefined the problem, and reframed the operational approach. Joint Publication 5.0 captures many of the lessons learned during this time. However, the United States needs to be mindful that it does not fight the last war, as it is prone to do.
Private military companies, security contractors and private military firms do provide so very useful functions and not all of them are paramilitary. Many private military companies such as DynCorp and Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, provide more services than just protection. Many functions performed by private military companies include logistical support, transportation, engineering, construction, skilled and unskilled laborers, maintenance, technical expertise and other paramilitary operations. (Kidwell, 2005) The government typically hires private security contractors to provide services that formally belonged to military forces such as the protection of high profile dignitaries and the guarding of military installations overseas. The proliferation of private military companies jumped significantly after the events of 9/11. The Bush Administration enacted a three-phase plan to increase the number of private contractors hired. The first phase in the hiring process was to try to release the military to fight the war on terrorism; the second phase was to allow commanders to focus their efforts on winning the war by outsourcing supplementary functions; third, it would support the President’s Management Agenda. As a result, private military companies are a necessary and important contingency plan for operations that would occur in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Dogru, p.13, 2010)
Full Metal Jacket is written and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The film was released in 1987 and it is starring Matthew Modine (Joker), Vincent D’Onofrio (Pyle), Adam Baldwin (Animal), and R. Lee Ermey ( Guy.Segr. Hartman).
In the modern day era, we find in society a ubiquitous usage of technology that seems to be never ending and forever growing. Included with this notion, the broad subject of surveillance is of course included. Contemporary surveillance, or more specifically technological surveillance, has been described as ambiguous; meaning that it is often misunderstood or open to different interpretations. The representation of surveillance within popular culture has played an impacting role on how we as a society perceive it and this raises certain questions that may reflect back on to society. The 1998 film Enemy Of The State directed by Tony Scott, Starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman and Jon Voight is considered to be a ‘spy-thriller’ blockbuster. Its central themes explore a range of surveillance techniques and equipment and also provides some insights, no matter how realistic or unrealistic they may be, into the real life security organisation; The National Security Agency (NSA). Using this film as an example and analysing how these themes are represented will hopefully allow us to key these ideas back to modern surveillance theories and practices.
The amount of corruption within the United States’ violent involvement in the Middle East is almost unreal. Unfortunately, the wars have been too real—half a million deaths in the first year of Iraqi Freedom alone (Rogers). These wars have been labeled--the violence, filtered-- to fit a specific agenda. Whether the deaths are deemed an acceptable loss in the name of national security, or as a devastating injustice, the reality doesn’t change. Lives have been lost. Lives that will never be brought back. The intention of wars is in part due to attacks on the twins towers on September 11th 2001. When the buildings fell, almost three thousand people died, according
Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic movies are a sub-genre of science fiction, horror fiction, or fantasy that focus on the end of the world, or the world just after "the end." But, where do the influences of these movies come from? Every good apocalyptic film that we know and love stems off of the fear and concerns that revolved around the time it was made. Steven Glawson provides a strong quote that parallels to my research in the article, “Post-Apocalyptic Cinema: What The Future Tells Us About Today” saying that, “[s]ince the 1950s, post- apocalyptic films can be seen as gateways into the crises of the decade they were
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is a Steven Spielberg science fiction drama film, which conveys the story of a younger generation robot, David, who yearns for his human mother’s love. David’s character stimulates the mind-body question. What is the connection between our “minds” and our bodies?