Let’s be clear here. In reference to your article printed Oct 10, 2007 by Paul Gessing about “An Anti-War Defense of Blackwater”, I agree that the United States military is stuck in the middle of a religious war in Iraq and should be pulled out immediately. Innocent, brave troops are losing their lives every day for a cause that has apparently been lost. That is not in question. What I do question is your reasoning behind “outsourcing” privately contracted security groups to essentially replace troops in American wars. It saddens and disgusts me that people are beginning to feel this way. What happened to a country full of patriotic citizens with enough pride to stand up and fight for its beliefs and back a leader that WE elected as President? Now we want to hand over the “work” part of maintaining a country that stands by its beliefs.

It says in your article that our fore-fathers wrote a constitution that is pro private military-style efforts citing Article I, section 8 of that same constitution. In a time of civic turmoil it is highly unlikely that they meant it to this proportion making that argument extraneous. They did not want to hand over responsibilities of a fleeing union of patriots, fighting for a freer country, to people only fighting for money and not for liberation. It would be detrimental for this country to hire mercenaries to do its negotiations on the battlefield; mercenaries who are fighting for a paycheck and not for honor. It is scary if you think about it…sending people that essentially hold sensitive US information overseas to fight-backed by money. I wonder what would happen if Bin-Doe offered him a little bit more to commit the act of treason. Nothing I suppose? Tell that to Johnny Damon, who accepted a deal which paid him a bit more to “fight” for a different team.

One of History’s most respected military leaders, Dwight D. Eisenhower, said in his Farewell Address to the Nation that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” He basically distrusted government expansion. People should take his advice. In article 5 of the US constitution it says the senate should call periodic conventions to propose amendments and articles. In these times of change, article 1, section 8 should be one of those reconsidered.

Outsourcing a military is a contradiction of war as the US defines it. Call me “old fashioned”, but I am going to continue serving my fore-fathers and fallen comrades honorably by serving in the military for as you put it “cheap labor”. I would rather fight and die next to a person fueled by courage, honoring the dreams of fallen soldiers, and making next to nothing, then to a person concerned only by the size of their wallet.

Respectfully,

George Leonard
Winchendon, MA