Barely a day after The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill put out an article about Barack Obama’s position on private military contractors, Hillary Clinton has signed onto a bill banning their use:
“Washington, DC – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announced today that she has cosponsored legislation to ban the use of Blackwater and other private mercenary firms in Iraq.
Presumably she thinks she sees an exploitable opening in the Obama position. From The Nation:
“If Barack Obama comes into office next January and our diplomatic security service is in the state it’s in and the situation on the ground in Iraq is in the state it’s in, I think we will be forced to rely on a host of security measures,” said the senior adviser. “I can’t rule out, I won’t rule out, private security contractors.” He added, “I will rule out private security contractors that are not accountable to US law.”
I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a single person who likes the way the US has used private firms, and we’ve had a number of disastrous, controversial incidents involving them. That said — I believe Obama’s stance is correct. These contractors are fully integrated into every aspect of the operations in Iraq, and at this juncture, we cannot simply “ban” them. The most important immediate step we can take is to get them accountable (and evidently Obama already has legislation in motion for this).
Clinton’s move here looks to be both politically expedient and astoundingly naive.
I think she’s misplayed this badly, and I’ve written more about it here.