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“The moral vacuum of Iraq [where legitimized mercenaries] can kill 10 or 20 Iraqis on a whim and never be prosecuted for it, did not happen by accident,”

Following recent events in Iraq – where legitimized mercenaries have been accused of killing innocent civilians – Michael Hirsh of Newsweek explained that President Bush had created a “moral vaccum” in Iraq that gave “Americans” license to “kill for free.”

“The moral vacuum of Iraq [where legitimized mercenaries] can kill 10 or 20 Iraqis on a whim and never be prosecuted for it, did not happen by accident,” Hirsh explained.

One reference in Hirsh’s report was the case of one such mercenary who “got drunk” at a Christmas party last year “and boasted to his friends that he was going to kill someone… [he then] stumbled out and headed provocatively” to an area where Iraqi officials lived. The mercenary had an argument with an Iraqi official, “then shot him once in the chest and three times in the back.” Hirsh (correctly) blamed the lack of morality which is often evident in times of war, in general, and in Occupied Iraq, in particular.

While Hirsh’s report is powerful, there is another aspect of the occupation that is consistent with a more global phenomenon: the increased deregulation and privatization that is part of a wider neoliberal project imposed on the weak by powerful actors in the world. Neoliberalism, in short, is the belief that amorphous market forces ought to be the final arbiter in all the affairs of all of humanity. The standard mantra among mainstream Economists is: “Deregulate, privatize and let ‘the market’ take over.” With respect to private corporate affairs, neoliberalism urges “self-regulation” to get around government regulations aimed at protecting the environment, human rights etc.

With respect to occupied Iraq the imposition of neoliberalism by fiat was one of the first projects completed by Paul Bremer, the U.S. presidential envoy to Iraq in 2003. On September 19, 2003 Bremer signed a number of decrees among which were: Complete full privatization of public enterprises; full ownership rights of Iraqi companies by foreign firms; full repatriation of foreign profits; the opening of Iraq’s banks to foreign control; national treatment for foreign companies; a flat tax, and almost complete elimination of all trade barriers. This decree extended to most all arenas of the economy (oil was excluded), including the public services, media, transportation, manufacturing, finance, construction and agriculture.

Bremer’s decree amounted to what Ibrahim Warde of Tufts University described as U.S. corporations being granted “a licence to loot the land.” One decree, “Order 81,” would, according to researchers, destroy food crop production that has sustained people in the region for 10,000 years. This, according to Jeremy Smith, was “the ultimate war crime.”

“The U.S. … has decided that, despite 10,000 years practice, Iraqis don’t know what wheat works best in their own conditions, and would be better off with some new, imported American varieties. Under the guise, therefore, of helping get Iraq back on its feet, the U.S. is setting out to totally reengineer the country’s traditional farming systems into a U.S.-style corporate agribusiness,” wrote Smith.

So, while Hirsh’s claim of a moral vacuum is certainly valid, the legitimization of mercenary activity in occupied Iraq may be said to have been enabled by decree as part of a larger neoliberal project. What is key, in this respect, is that these mercenaries, cowering behind the figleaf of private security companies (PSCs) are precisely that – private corporations. Like the ways in which private corporations have been urged to “self-regulate” legitimized mercenaries, too, have started making their case for self-regulation.

One of the most high-profile advocates for “self-regulation” of legitimized mercenaries is the British Association of Private Security Companies (BAPSC), which describes itself as “the self-regulatory body of the private security industry in the UK, one of the biggest export markets for private security worldwide.”

Indeed, BAPSC boasts that its membership have a presence in more than 100 countries; many of these mercenaries claim “distinguished military or law-enforcement” experience. Among other, these mercenaries, or PSCs, provide “premium” security services, which may include “the static armed guarding of embassies, facilities of international corporations, oil fields and pipelines, mines and critical infrastructure… politicians and foreign dignitaries and offer convoy protection services.”

Whereas mercenaries have historically been considered as odious characters; people who purposely profiteered from systematic killing, they are, with the help of BAPSC increasingly becoming as “natural” or as “unexceptional,” at least in legal terms, as private corporations. The difference, of course, is that legitimate mercenaries, as (PSCs), may earn their money from killing for profit.

It is perhaps no co-incidence that BAPSC’s Director General, Andy Bearpark served as one of Bremer’s lieutenants in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) – the polite euphemism for the Western occupiers of Iraq. This brings us back to Iraq.

It is certainly cause for concern that, as Hirsh noted, a moral vacuum had been established in Iraq, but this claim itself cannot be dissociated from the general tradition which suggests that the moral obligation or social responsibility of corporations is to make profit. Legalized mercenaries as private corporations have no moral obligation other than to make profit. There ought to be no surprise that a moral vacuum exists in capitalist societies; they are organized around “market” principles, practices and preferences. These are the principles, practices and preferences that the proconsuls of the occupying forces decreed in Iraq after the invasion of that country in 2003.

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