by Frances Taylor

Created on: July 22, 2008   Last Updated: September 09, 2008

It's true that military contractors have supported the U.S. military for quite sometime. They do many 'civilian' type jobs from mechanic to mess hall, that would otherwise have to be performed by an active duty soldier. In the volunteer army, with US bases all over the world, a military structure such as ours probably could not be maintained and/or indefinitely sustained without military contractors.

But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have given rise to the $100,000 a year military contractor who recieves almost double the pay as the average active duty soldier for the same work. And that work is engaging the enemy in warfare. In fact, the number of military contractors equals the number of active soldiers in both of the those conflicts. In the case of Iraq, the prescence of these contractors has allowed the U.S to fight an unpopular war that could not be sustained through the normal rmilitary ecruitment process.

Contractors, or mercenaries fight for whoever pays them. It would be technically possible for the U.S. to field an all mercenary army in some future conflict, which would mean that the war would not have to be supported by citizens or possibly even the Congress.

At a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, mercenaries can fight in secret undeclared wars around the world, and Americans would have no recourse other than to pay the bill. No arguing over issues like whether or not the war is justified, or any need for Americans to become informed on what is being done in their name. It's professional permament warfare, with no questions asked, and no answers given. Once relieved of the controversy over sending someone's 19 year old son to die in war of choice with a murky goal, war becomes a classified matter that Americans are obligated to pay for, but know nothing about.

Empires have operated in this fashion for perhaps thousands of years. The problem is, most of those empires no longer exist today. After finally being broken by perpetual warfare in the name of colonization, or controlling natural resources, the cost of war strangled the empire itself.

Americans have pride as a nation, not as an empire. And we are definitely standing at a cross-road where we can decide if we can continue to wage war for oil under the guise of spreading democracy. Manyy of America's sons and daughters are willing to fight in our countyr's defense, fewer and fewer are willing to sacifice their lives or the lives of their children ot protect an oil pipeline, or a cause that has never even been publically discussed or debated. And since most empires are not deomocracies, mercenary warfare presents us with the choice of remaining a democracy or not.

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