WHEN DOES IT MAKE SENSE FOR GOVERNMENT TO SEEK PRIVATE CONTRACTORS?

Some things can be done by government more efficiently and others can’t

Just like there are natural monopolies like the water and sewer, electricity and fire protection…because it would not be practical to have 20 electric companies in private hands all running wires from 20 different poles in your back alley…or 20 different water and sewer private companies tearing up your street to find which one is their pipe to fix it.

And so it goes with the business of our government contracting services and products. It is obvious that government does not manufacture airplane engines so that it has to rely on private engine manufacturers like Boeing or Rolls Royce to provide these engines. Or how about computers? Our government is not in the business of manufacturing these either.

But when it comes to services and filling those boots in the military those are areas best left to those branches of the military. The same goes for administrative duties, providing veteran benefits, hospitals and health care, police and fire protection, and a myriad of other things that obviously government can do better and a lot cheaper.

So why is all this fuzz about dishing out contracts ranging from security protection of our embassies to having somebody come and wipe your ass? I think it may have a lot to do with greed and because we think collectively that the free enterprise system should replace government in order to provide yet another source of skimming profits from goods and services that would otherwise be in government control.

Of course, this Reagan ideology that government can’t do anything right and that government is the problem has not helped in this area much. To those at the top of the pecking order it is very clear that government can do a better job for a lower cost but they are so obsessed with greed that it doesn’t matter to them and in the end, they are not the ones paying for it since their taxes are lower than those in the middle and poor classes…they just simply don’t care as long as there is a buck in it for them.

Halliburton Takes the Money & Runs - To Dubai
by CONSPIRACY PLANET

Under investigation by multiple government agencies for fraud and overbilling, the notorious Halliburton Company has announced that it will move its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Through its no-bid no-compete government contracts and because of insider connections (Vice President Dick Cheney was a former CEO from 1995 to 2000), Halliburton has become the largest private military contractor in US-occupied Iraq with billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts.

Analysts say that Halliburton will save hundreds of milions of dollars by escaping US taxes on its fraud-driven Department of Defense contracts.

As part of Dick Cheney's secret program to conduct political assassinations, the CIA hired Blackwater, the shady group of Christian vigilantes for hire whose founder was recently implicated in a murder, to assist in the operation. [New York Times]

All of this outsourcing leaves me a bit uneasy and actually asking the question: “why are we still contracting the likes of Halliburton and Blackwater’s offspring three years into the Obama Presidency?

Our country spends more on defense than all the other countries in the world combined. A great chunk of that money is totally wasted in superfluous bases that we keep open throughout the world, we defend countries that don’t have any threats or need defending and if they did, they are big boys now and could very well afford it. We also just give away a good chunk of our defense budget to contractors who just waste it.

I don’t care what all these war hawks tell you…the reality is that if you build a bomb and explode it what the effects would be is death and destruction and the cost of building it and deploying it, while if you invested that same money on education you would gain as a country 500 times over on your investment. Here that old adage of “give a man a fish and he will eat for a day but teach him how to fish and he will feed himself for a lifetime.” Is very appropriate.

U.S. MILITARY PRESENCE AROUND THE WORLD – CLARIFICATION AND SOURCES

U.S. Military Troops and Bases around the World. The Cost of «Permanent War» and Some Comparative Data

I have had quite a lot of response from followers and casual readers about the veracity of some of these numbers and charts. I thought that in order to clarify the issue I should list the sources of these and it might bring a little more transparency to the issues. My article appeared in the January 6, 2011 post titled “Three King’s Day –Government is too big…”

Sources: Department of Defense, “Base Structure Report, FY 2002 and “Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional area and by Country, Dec. 31, 2001”, Zoltan Grossman, “New U.S. Military Bases. “Feb 2, 2002, Monthly Review, 2002”

I did some double checking and although the map in question is a bit outdated, the sources are reliable and respectable. The U.S. military presence in the world remains very high albeit it may have had some changes…either increases or decreases since 2001. We have to take into consideration also that this was around the 9/11 attacks and before the Iraq invasion. The deployment of military personnel to some countries has increased tremendously.

SOURCES: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/img/original/military.jpg

http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/index.htm

http://www.visionesalternativas.com/militarizacion/mapas/mapahegem.htm

AND IF YOU CARE TO RESEARCH ANY FURTHER; HERE ARE SOME OF THE SOURCES I CONSULTED:

Références

COMITÉ DE SURVEILLANCE OTAN. 2005. Las bases militares : un aspecto de la estrategia global de la OTAN. Intervencion del Comité Surveillance Otan en la Conferencia Internacional realizada en La Habana 7-11.11.2005. 9 pages.

DELGADO JARA, Diego. 2006. Bases de Manta, Plan Colombia y dominio de la Amazonia. Militarizacion de la Hegemonia de EE. UU. En América latina. 17 pages.

EQUIPO DE COMUNICACIÓN CONFERENCIA NO BASES. 2007. La gente del mundo no quiere bases militares extranjeras. http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id-47353

Ghana to host US Military Base? February 26, 2006.

JOHNSON, C., America's Empire of Bases. January 2004.

JOHNSON, C. America’s Empire of Bases. Janvier 2004 .

JOHNSON, C. 2005. The Sorrows of Empire. Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic. Henry Holt, April 2005, Paperback. 389 pages.

JOHNSON, C., 2007.. 737 U.S. Military Bases = Global Empire. February 19, 2007

JUCCA, L., 2007. Italians protest over U.S. base expansion. Sat Feb 17, 2007.

MANFREDI, E. 2007. Djibouti : Hôtel Corne d’Afrique, grande base américaine. Le GRAND SOIR.info. Édition du 23 mars 2007.

NEW INTERNATIONALIST. 2004. The Bases of Resistance, December 2004, Issue 374.

NICHOLSON, B. 2007. Secret New Us Spy base to Get Green Light. February 15, 2 007.

TRAYNOR, I. 2007. US EXPANDS, Builds New Military Bases in Europe. The Guardian, anuary 22, 2007.

TSAVDARIDIS, I., 2005. Military Bases around the world and in Europe – the role of the USA and NATO. Novembre 2005. Stop USA / STOP United States of Agression.

VAREA, C., Las bases Militares de EEUU en Iraq. 4 mai 2006. Nodo50.

Web Sites

An Internet Guide to United States Military Bases Around the World :

http://www.libsci.sc.edu/bob/class/clis734/webguides/milbase.htm

APPEL A UN RASSEMBLEMENT INTERNATIONAL en Mars 2007, Équateur, Pour l’abolition de toutes les bases militaires

Bases y Ejercicios Militares de EE.UU. El Comando Sur.

BUILDING A GLOBAL ANTI-MILITARY BASES MOVEMENT
Campana. Un mundo sin bases militares . Asemblea de Organizaciones y Movimientos contra la guerra, la OTAN y el Neoliberalismo (Madrid), Nodo50.

Challenges to the US Empire, http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/challenges/challengesindex.htm.

Washington veut installer une base militaire en Algérie. Le Quotidien d'Oran, 20 juillet 2003.

Empire? http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/index.htm International Conference against Foreign Military Bases. Final Declaration.

[Fsmed-general] for all that are against foreign military bases:
http://www.grups.pangea.org/pipermail/fsmed-general/Week-of-Mon-20060206/001002.html

FUENTES DE AGUA EN AMÉRICA LATINA :
http://www.visionesalternativas.com/militarizacion/mapas/mapahegem.htm

Abdulhafeth Khrisat, Impérialisme américain et politique militaire, , Université Mu’tah
Interview with Chalmers Johnson, Part 1. An Empire of More Than 725 Military Bases.

Liste des bases militaires américaines dans le monde.

Major Military Bases World-Wide,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/sites.htm

Military Bases Around The World, http://www.fsmitha.com/com/bases.htm

Military Bases around the world and in Europe - the role of the USA and NATO , Iraklis Tsavdaridis, Secretary of the World Peace Council (WPC) 8th November 2005, From the Greek Committee for International Detente and Peace (EEDYE), Presented on November 8, 2005 at the International Conference on Foreign Military Bases in Havana/Cuba organized by MOVPAZ :

http://stopusa.be/campaigns/texte.php?section=FABN&langue=3&id=24157

Military of the United States : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_armed_forces

MOVIMIENTOS SOCIALES DE RESISTENCIA EN AMÉRICA LATINA

No a la instalacion de una base de la OTAN en Zaragoza :
http://www.ecologistasenaccion.org/article.php3?id_article=6261

OTAN – Le grand jeu des bases militaires en terre européenne :

http://www.mondialisation.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=DIN20060509&articleId=2414

Protestas contra bases militares de EEUU en Espana :
http://spanish.peopledaily.com.cn/spanish/200104/02/sp20010402_46341.html

RIQUEZA DE LA BIODIVERSIDAD EN AMÉRICA LATINA

US Military Troops and Bases Around the World :
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/2003/0710imperialmap.htm

U.S. Military Troops and Bases Around the World /united for peace & justice:
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=884

US Military Expansion and Intervention :
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/index.htm

YACIMIENTOS PETROLEROS EN AMÉRICA LATINA :
http://www.visionesalternativas.com/militarizacion/mapas/mapapetrol.htm

SOURCES: http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=46&contentid=4263&page=1

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/3176-blackwater-related-firm-to-provide-protective-security-in-west-bank-

http://gawker.com/5341479/cia-outsourced-death-squad-work-to-blackwater