Private military contractors Essay

Introduction Private soldiery contractors, handlewise known as buck unavowed credential department contractors provide a trope of unalike work for the UN armed powers in Iraq. assorted services include the preparation of meals, navigating ground forces supply vehicles, armed forces training and gage for US clear upicials. Some toffee-nosed armed services contractors also provide query and translating services for the US phalanx.Contractors providing this service in particualr scram been suspected of a number of tender-hearted rights evils at the Abu Ghraid Prison. Other activities by private force contractors subscribe raised issues close humanitarian c anerns and the offense of womrens rights. at that place ar shortly at least(prenominal) 100 private armed services contractors in Iraq.1 This discussion looks at the unique authority of private armed services companies in Iraq and examines their affect on the rights of women.Private Military Companies in Iraq The US military and the State division spends billions of dollars on private security contractors in Iraq.2 These contractors fit in to the uppercase Post beOut of public public opinion, consume been pursue in a par solelyel surge, boosting manpower, adding pricey armor and stepping up evasive bring through as attacks increase.3 The primary goal is to detonate chronic troop shortage and the number of invidual contractors ar between 20,000 and 30,000.4 David Isenberg in a stop by the British American gage In doation Council published on September 4, 2004 maintains that it is impossible to accurately study for the number of private military companies currently in Iraq. This is because only PMCs whose contracts hand $50 million argon requisite to be reported to Congress.5 Isenberg complains that the legal post of private military companies is especi bothy elusive since in that respect is no real supply in International law to scotch for their spot and de finition.6 While m some(prenominal) view the private military personnel as mercenaries, they do non fit the definition of mercenry within the meaning of the geneva practice.7 bind 47 describes a mercenary as an idividual who takes part in military fighting and is not a national andis make to take part in the hostilities essenti aloney by the desire for private solve and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material pay substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the fortify forces of that Party.8 James Conachy however, refers to these private military personnel as modern-day mercenaries.9 Conachy aligns their bodily front line with their abstract presence. While they be by and biggish not subjected to enhancer and legal compositionability in the traditional sense they operate out of unvarying and from unmarked vehicles.10 They go close to their bloodline in this manner cadence mann ing roadblocks, or stalking outstide building, with machine guns.11 As a result, the private militaray presence in Iraq has flex an ubiquitous and offensive symbol of the US occupation.12 Conachy maintains that the need for private military presence in Iraq is obviated by the bredth of US military deployment overseas following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Without the use of private military companies the US would be compelled to send more soldiers to Iraq from an already depleted armed force or would throw to seriously cogitate reviving the military draft.13 It is obvious from this estimate of the single purpose of the private military that distinguishes them from the Article 47 definition of mercenary. Mercenaries ar not aligned to a paritcular company and obviously the private military contractors be aligned to the US and argon use to facilitate the US militarys shortfall. The following description of private military duties takes them well outside of Article 47s d efinition of mercenary further more than in any opposite conflict in United States history, the Pentagon is relying on private security companies to perform decisive jobs once entrusted to the military.14It is clear that private military companies are not in true(a) combat. Mercernaries, according to the Geneva Convetions are actively fighting . adult male Rights Concern and Women In an article published in the Guardian, Luke Harding explains that the profuse extent of debase toward women by all sectors of the military in Iraq will not be fully known. This is earlier because Islamic women rarely discuss violations of a knowledgeable nature. impair, Harding maintains is a symbol of shame in the muslim world and victims can be killed to salvage family honour.15 The most shocking incidents of black treatment of women originate from the Abu Ghraib lag which was primarily manned by private military personnel.16 Accroding to Patrap Chatterjee the private militarys role at the A bu Ghraib lock was one of interrogation which brought them into more frequent contact with the captives than new(prenominal) jail personnel.17 The International Committee of the sanguine Cross reported that in October 2003 there were approximately thirty fe manful prisoners in the Abu Ghraib jail.18 fit to prison personnel, that number was trim back to louver by May of 2004.19 The Internation coalition for Peace and Freedom had documented any(prenominal) eye witness accounts of abuse at the Abu Ghraid jail. One such account was abandoned to Iman Khamas who heads the International Occupation Watch Center, a private organization that collects anti-human rights data. The account came from a former prisoner who told Khamas of a botch up incident at the jail. Khamas reports that the prisoner recalls that the prisoner said her cellmate had been rendered unconscious for 48 hours. She claimed she had been plundered 17 times in one day by Iraki practice of law in the presence of American soldiers.20 other report originated from Mohammed Daham al-Mohammed who heads an Iraqi group, the Union of Detainees and Prisoners. harmonise to a-Mohammed he was informed of a bugger off of quadruple who had been arrested in December of 2003 and killed herself laterwards macrocosm fumbled by US guards who squeeze her save to watch while incarcerated at the Abu Ghraib jail.21 According to the chars child the rape victim attached suicide.22 The victim had told her sister of incidents of physical abuse outside of the rape. In one account she recalled a American male wrench her by the hair and forcing her to look at her husband while the American took off her clothing. After this incident the rape took place. formerly released, the charr was afraid to face her husband since he had witnessed the rape and asked her sister to cooperate her commit suicide.23 A former male prisoner reported incidents where women were constantly distant from their cells to priva te rooms. The prisoner explainsThey had to pass in front of our tent and cried out, Find a way to kill us.24Human Rights groups explain that rape for a Islamic woman shames the entire family which is why these women would or else die having suffered a rape.25 Khamas recalls an incident in which she visited a woman at the Abu Ghraid jail and a womanish prisoner told her most a rape, but whispered in her ear despite the fact that no one else was present.26 Khamas, Mohommed and Hoda Nuaimi, a professor in politics at Baghdad University report that deuce-ace young rural women from the Sunni Muslim region of Al-Anbar, west of Baghdad, had been killed by their families after coming out of Abu Ghraib pregnant.Nuaimi said that in the case of some other such woman, who was four months pregnant, her brother had been reluctant to kill his sister because he considered her a victim.27 Luke Harding reports that the first information about abuse of distaff victims at the Abu Ghraib jail, a US facility first came to firing by a tone disgraceful out of the prison by a female person prisoner.28 In the credit line the woman claimed that women were being dishonor by US personnel and many of them had shape pregnant. The note also begged the Iraqis to bomb the jail to spare the women further shame.29 Swadi, a female lawyer among seven representing the female detainees indicated that the abuse was not limited to the Abu Ghraib jail and was contingency all over Iraq.30 The shame associated with rape and the consequence for family disgrace were evident in the following account from a female prisoner at al-Kharkh, a US military baseShe was the only woman who would talk about her case. She was crying. She told us she had been ravagedSeveral American soldiers had raped her. She had seek to fight them off and they had hurt her arm. She showed us the stitches. She told us, We induce daughters and husbands. For Gods interestingness dont tell anyone about this.31 Luke Hardi ng also reports that an investigation conducted by the US Military which was headed by Major cosmopolitan Antonio Taguba confirmed the contents of the note smuggled out of the Abu Ghraib facility. moreover, digital photographs, according to Tajubas findings also depitcted US personnel amiable in sexual contact with and Iraqi woman.32 Tajubas investigation also lay out videotapes of nude female prisoners.33 There are additional photographs of Iraqi women being forced at gun point to publicise their breasts.34 While these photographs have been relased to Congress they have not been released to the public.35 In May of 2004an Iraqi woman in her 70s had been harnessed and ridden like a donkey at Abu Ghraib and another coalition detention centre after being arrested last July.36UK Labor instalment of Parliament Ann Clwyd investigated the incident and confirmed that it was in fact true. The Iraqi elderly woman had been held without charge for at least three weeks during which time sh e was told that she was a donkey.37 Luke Harding explains the devastating consequences for female rape victims which only accentuates the abuse involved. According to HardingHonour killings are not fantastic in Islamic society, where rape is practically equated with shame and where the stigma of being raped by an American soldier would, according to one Islamic cleric, be bitter. The prospects for rape victims in Iraq are impenetrable it is hardly affect that no women have so far come in front to talk about their experiences in US-run jails where abuse was rife until early January.38 At the time of writing, Harding describes another incident of physical and intellectual abuse agianst female detainees in Iraq in which the private military personnel are activiely involved. Five women, according to Harding were being held in solitary confinement in cells standard just 2.5 meters in length and 1.5 meters in width at Abu Ghraib.39 Captain Dave Quantock who was thus in charge of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib told journalists that all female prisoners at Abu Ghraib are unploughed in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.40 The only entertainment the women are allowed is access to the Koran.41 Mystery surrounds the grounds upon which the five females in solitary confinement are held. The general term used is that they are held as security detainees.42 Swabi maintains that these women are being held for who they were married to and their potential intelligence value.43 Be that as it may, the degree of abusse cannot be justified. below both US and International laws the roughshod and inhuman treatement of prisoners at anytime is unlawful. International humanitarian laws contained in the Geneva Conventions 1949 of which the United States canonical since 1955 requires that during times of war and peace all prisoners are to be treated humanly.44 More over the Geneva Convention IV specifically prohibits rape and indecent lash out on women. Article 27 provides as followsWomen shall be especially protected against any attack on their honour, in grumpy against rape, enforced prostitutiOn, or any form of indecent assault.45 Judicth Gail Gardam and Hillary Charlesworth argue that women have eternally been at risk of violence in armed conflict. Although the emphasis has always been on sexual violence there have been other forms of violence against women. Gardam and Charlesworth note that the 1995 capital of Red China Platform for Action called for governments worldwide to map out out plans for combattingthe effects of armed or other kind of conflict on women, including those living under unknown occupation.46The Iraqi conflict and occupation and the violence against women is thus nothing new. What is perhaps more surprising is the fact that it could happen in light of international laws and attention to violence against women in the past.Conclusion An irony arises out of these reports. The US invasion has been called operation Iraqi free dom which presupposes a vastly humanitarian effort. that in the course of fighting for Iraqi freedom, those sent to fight for the cause have added to the problem. Roger Normand alleges that the US personnel in Iraq areviolating almost every law think to protect civilians living under foreign military occupation.47While many of these crimes are being committed by private military companies, the world at large and the Iraqi populace draw no distinction between the US soldiers and the security companies employed by them to help the cause.The private military and security personnel are agents of the US government and as such the US government is vicariosuly liable for the louse up of the private miliatary contractors. As long as they are permitted to continue working with and for the military and as long as they continue to violate international law specially article 27 of the fourth Geneva Convention, the US must take function for the ills committed by them. They cannot take the get without the burden.BibliographyCenter for Economic and Social Rights.(n.d.) unseasoned Report Documents Extensive U.S. War Crimes In Iraq. ready(prenominal) online at http//www.ccmep.org/2004_articles/iraq/061104_CESR.htm Retrieved December 11 2007Chatterjee, Pratap. (May 12, 2004) Private Contractors and Torture at Abu Ghraib, Iraq. democracy Now. Available online at http//www.democracynow.org/2004/5/12/private_contractors_and_torture_at_abu Retrieved December 11, 2007Conachy, Jamers. (May 3, 2004) Private Military Companies in Iraq Profiting from Colonialism.International committee of the Fourth Amendment. Available online at http//www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/pmcs-m03.shtml Retrienved December 11, 2007Fainaru, Steve. (June 16, 2007) Iraq Contractors Face ontogenesis Parallel War As Security Work Increase, So do Casualties. Washington PostGardam, Judith, Gail and Charlesworth, Hillary. (Feb. 2000) Protection of Women in build up Conflict. Human Rights Quarterly Vol. 22 No. 1 pp 148-166Geneva ConventionHarding, Luke. (May 12, 2004) Focus Shifts to Jail Abuse of Women. The Guardian.Harding, Luke. (May 20, 2004) Rape in Iraq The other prisoners. The Guardian.Isenberg, David. (Sept. 4, 2004) A fistful of Contractors A Case For a matter-of-fact Assessment of Private Military Companies in Iraq. British American Security study Council, Research Report.Kabbara, Rouba. (May, 29, 2004) Human Rights Groups Iraqi Women Raoed at Abu Ghraib Jail. Peace Women Available online at http//www.peacewomen.org/ intelligence activity/Iraq/May04/Women%20in%20Prison.html Retrieved Deember 10 2007