Monthly Archives: November 2014

#Ferguson: How Civil Unrest Threatens Perception of American Security Abroad

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America is a nation founded and built on racism, and continues to be so, as is demonstrated by the riots and protests in Ferguson, Missouri after Darren Wilson was denied indictment for the death of Michael Brown. On August 9th of this year, Wilson, a white policeman, killed Brown, an 18 year-old unarmed black man after asking Brown and his friend to move from the street to the sidewalk. There was a struggle, Brown ran, and Wilson followed, shooting Brown six times and fatally wounding him. This shooting caused racial tensions in Ferguson to build up past the point of containment, resulting in protests and actions of civil unrest. This controversy exposed the racial imbalances within the community, as it came to light that the Ferguson police department arrests three times more black people than they do other races. 1,581 other police departments across the US have even more unbalanced arrest rates, indicating the racial tensions that guide jurisdictional and police-based actions.
Thousands of people all across America have joined together to protest the recent exposure of racist police brutality as well as the lack of legal consequences the police community face for committing such crimes. After the latest ruling on Wilson, the protests became violent, as bottles were thrown at police, cars were burned, stores were looted, and hundreds were arrested. The illusion that American citizens are living in a post-racial society is actively being shattered, resulting in civil conflict and social disharmony, both of which threaten national security.
Since Obama began to phase out the Iraq War, tens of thousands of machine guns, police departments have acquired hundreds of silencers, armored cars, 200,000 ammunition magazines, aircrafts, and tanks. Mine-resistant armored vehicles, rapid-round machine guns, and military-grade tactical gear do not belong in the hands of non-military trained policemen. The over eagerness of these highly-armed policemen coupled with the rise of gang warfare in lower-income neighborhoods with majority black populations, as well as an under-funded education system, creates an atmosphere of expected violence and justification. Unfortunate consequences have emerged, as according to independent trackers, police shoot and kill upwards of 1,000 people each year; the Justice Department does not in fact document police shootings, and instead allow law enforcement agencies to self-report police shootings, thus there is limited reliable data available.
While these riots and protests are a justified means of being heard in a government and country that continues to repress African American voices in the media, political arena, legal sphere, etc., any sort of social violence is highly coercive to a nation’s security. Violent social protests expresses a decline in national political trust, which, according to Political Scientist Marc J. Hetherington, undermines domestic policy actions. The provision of social services, necessary legislative updates to keep up with changing global and local trends, as well as economic management policies are just a few aspects of domestic policy, but these aspects foster trust abroad in American legitimacy. Violent rips in the social fabric of society threaten America’s place in the global economy, as well as show security weaknesses that can be exploited by America’s enemies. Thus, it is crucial from a security standpoint, that the American government makes peace with the Ferguson protestors and begins to reform its racist and militarized police structure.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2014/11/riots-ferguson-after-no-indictment-ruling-20141125456576161.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/11/23/how-ferguson-became-ferguson-the-real-story/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/18/ferguson-black-arrest-rates/19043207/

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00548.x/full

Review of “A Shadow Company”

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This documentary is important because it provides solid documentation and multiple perspectives on a central aspect of modern warfare: the privatization of military activity for capital gains transnationally. The film illustrated the rise of this type of warfare through interviews with the owners of private military and security companies (PMSC) and their employees, members of the Canadian military, academics, a PMSC lobbyist, and journalists, among others, to capture the moral and ethical issues of these private military solutions to intra and inter-state conflicts, and for the protection of multinational corporation (MNC) assets. While I learned more than I’d known before about the role of contemporary mercenaries in global conflicts and about the high revenue of the private military industry ($100 billion annually), I felt that the movie allowed the PMSC interviewees too much time to justify their professions, and did not spend enough time explaining the issue from a international human rights perspective.

The most interesting aspect of the film for me was the systemic reasons it provided for the rise of the private military industry and the strong international demand for its services. Such factors include: the rise of failed states during the decolonization era post-World War II and the power imbalances and extreme wealth divides it provided;  the rise of Cold War containment policies and proxy wars flooding developing nations with weaponry and inconsistent military training; the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War flooding the market with trained soldiers looking for work;  the neo-liberal market conditions during the rise of globalization (deregulating the global economy and creating MNCs seeking profit maximization in failed and developing states) creating conditions of high economic gain through the expansion of the private military industry; and the downsizing of the American military after the Vietnam War. This last factor, as well as America’s numerous geo-political military engagements around the world, have necessitated the hiring of PMSCs during the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Numerous senators and politicians also stood to earn significant amounts of money through holding stocks in various PMSC and reconstruction companies. Currently, this has resulted in the use of over 200 PMSCs in Iraq alone. Both the film and the skype interview with Allen Bell highlighted these underlying causes of the contemporary rise of the private military industry.

Even though the film provided a solid basis of why and when the privatization of war as we know it has occurred, I do not think it included enough about the ethics of such warfare. The lack of regulation in who is qualified and hired by private military companies, as well as in which groups the PMSCs agree to work with, is highly problematic. There are no public bodies holding PMSCs accountable for their actions, especially because they are often hired by governments in lieu of the states’ respective militaries. There are not bodies able to persecute the atrocities and rights’ violations PMSC cause, as most of them happen within failed states without functional judicial systems. The definition given by the UN:

1.   A mercenary is any person who:

(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;

(b) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar rank and functions in the armed forces of that party;

(c) Is neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a party to the conflict;

(d) Is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict;

and (e) Has not been sent by a State which is not a party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

2. A mercenary is also any person who, in any other situation:

(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad for the purpose of participating in a concerted act of violence aimed at: (i) Overthrowing a Government or otherwise undermining the constitutional order of a State; or (ii) Undermining the territorial integrity of a State;

(b) Is motivated to take part therein essentially by the desire for significant private gain and is prompted by the promise or payment of material compensation;

(c) Is neither a national nor a resident of the State against which such an act is directed;

(d) Has not been sent by a State on official duty;

and (e) Is not a member of the armed forces of the State on whose territory the act is undertaken.  

This definition is  vague and provides ample space for loopholes to be found and exploited. No checks and balances are in place by an international body to ensure that big businesses are not utilizing PMSCs to ensure their self-interests at the expensive of local,national, or even global needs. I wish the film, and the talk with Allen Bell, provided more information about these complex issues of regulation of the use and administration of PMSCs. Personally, I do not believe war is ever ethical. I am a pacifist and believe in the potential for creative problem solving and structuralist paradigm shifts for issues of global, national, and local conflict. Thus, I cannot see the justifications members of the private military industry and members of national governments provide for the use of private militaries. There are not ethical frameworks for war, and the only benefit to state-controlled militaries over PMSCs is that checks and balances exist that can punish the crimes of armed groups and/or prevent them from extreme exploitation. I would be interested in further exploring the issue of PMSCs from a international human rights standpoint, and I wish Allen Bell and provided more explanation for the various cultural barriers in foreign countries that PMSCs meet while attempting to protect their “nouns.”

http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/44/a44r034.htm http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/44/a44r034.htm