We all fight a daily battle within ourselves as we negotiate a
complex moral and ethical world in which conflicting values,
practices and beliefs might otherwise send us stir crazy. Do we
attempt to buy Australian only to find that our budget doesn’t
stretch that far? Do we allow our teenage children to go to
‘that’ party even though we trust them? Do we vote for a party
that will look after our individual interests or do we vote for
one that advocates collective responsibility?
Each of these small dilemmas is a privatised war zone that sees
us do the most incredible ethical and moral gymnastics in order
to survive each day. It’s nothing new. It’s part of the human
condition. But what happens when the public realm is taken over
and privatised? What are the potential consequences when moral
and ethical considerations are handed over to unaccountable
corporations who can hide behind “commercial in confidence”
agreements?
Blackwater USA is one of about 60 private companies operating in
Iraq as part of the ‘war’ effort. These companies operate
alongside the military and often engage in open warfare. Some
companies provide more mundane services like running the
McDonald’s, Domino’s or KFC franchises in the Green Zone. Some
provide secretarial or logistic support that are ‘essential’ in
supporting the military. Many of these companies, Blackwater USA
included, are exempt from prosecution if they should commit ‘war
crimes’. They are, in other words, powers unto themselves who
operate outside the boundaries of moral and ethical behaviour
the rest of us are compelled to adhere to.
Like the largely privatised US military, the Australian military
is being reshaped by the faceless, nameless individuals who
represent the military industrial complex. While, to many, this
term sounds old fashioned and ‘quaint’, one only has to look at
the way our governments have been spending our money to see the
links. For what other reason would our government buy
‘pre-loved’ Abrams tanks that don’t fit on our transporters and
are useless in our northern deserts? Why else would they commit
to buy a fleet of broken down helicopters that have never flown
a mission and sit, largely, unused? Why else would our
government buy second hand scrap in multibillion dollar deals?
In 2003 the House of Representatives conducted an “Inquiry into
the Privatisation of Regional Infrastructure and Government
Business Enterprises in Regional and Rural Australia”. In a
background paper prepared for this inquiry, the section titled
“Industrial Manufacturing” notes that our defence development
and supply industries were “… created as an endeavour to ensure
self-sufficiency in the event of a new world-encompassing war…”
They note that since the heady days of the Hawke government –
when Kim Beasley was the Defence Minister – the manufacturing,
testing and procurement facilities of the military were
gradually privatised. The report notes that our military
manufacturing capability is now, “…fully privatised and …
jointly owned by Transfield Holdings and the European defence
conglomerate, Thales”.
The paper notes the major disadvantage with privatisation as
being, “… the loss of organic manufacturing capacity within
Australia”, which, when translated into plain English means loss
of jobs, loss of the ability to tailor our equipment to our own
defence needs and the ability to control costs. In short, the
privatisation of the military means we become beholden to those
who see themselves as the real masters of war: the private, for
profit companies and mercenary armies managed, like Blackwater,
not to bring peace, but to perpetuate war.
A 2005 report published by the Australian Strategic Policy
Institute, a Defence Department funded think tank, concluded
that our military should be privatised even more than it now is.
Robert Hill, the then Defence Minister, revealed the true intent
of his government’s moral and ethical code for war when he said,
of the report’s recommendations, “The two tests we apply are
operational effectiveness and cost effectiveness …” In other
words, rather than ask the serious moral or ethical questions
about whether a war is ‘just’ or ‘right’, Hill suggests
governments should consider the cost before the consequences. We
see this moral code in action if we reflect on the latest
civilian deaths in Baghdad.
Blackwater USA was involved in the killing of eleven and
wounding of over a dozen innocent Iraqi civilians. Robert Young
Pelton, an apologist for Blackwater, attempted to defend the
killings by saying, “The Blackwater guys are not fools. If they
were gunning down people it was because they felt it was the
beginning of an ambush.” Pelton has said that Blackwater’s top
consideration in all operations was keeping their ‘high value
clients’ alive. This brings to the front of the argument why the
privatisation of war is morally and ethically wrong.
The argument against the privatisation of war rests on the fact
that all people are of ‘high value’ regardless of their ability
to pay. So whether it’s a civilian bystander in Iraq or a
soldier in the enemy’s army, the ethical and moral duty of the
soldier is to always follow the highest moral and ethical
standards. Unlike the private, for profit mercenary armies,
those ethics and moral obligations can never be sold to the
highest bidder.
Blackwater USA operates outside the moral and ethical codes
that, agree with them or not, have been developed over millennia
to guide so called ‘ethical’ warfare. These codes are enshrined
in the various ‘rules of engagement’ that politicians are so
keen to defend when a soldier commits an atrocity. Yet,
companies like Blackwater USA are allowed to operate with
complete impunity. When four of their men were killed in 2005
while crossing a bridge over the Tigris river in Fallujah we
were supposed to feel pity for them. The resulting holocaust
that was unleashed on that city saw up to 2,000 innocent men,
women and children killed. Who wept their heart out for them?
Who questioned the moral and ethical standards that allowed this
atrocity to occur? I suggest only the so called ‘bleeding
hearts” among us.
Our moral and ethical compasses are not infallible. Each of us
can recall times at which we have done something or not done
something in the full knowledge that there would or might be an
adverse outcome. Yet the vast majority of us do not live our
lives as sociopaths, who have no ability to self correct when
our compasses are off course. Yet, collectively, we allow the
rise of governments who, in collusion with business, establish
corporate sociopathic behaviour as a norm to which all should
aspire. The inevitable outcome of this type of collective,
unchallenged consent to be bullied leads to companies like
Blackwater USA being able to commit unspeakable acts and not
being held accountable for them.
The private moral and ethical battles we face each day not only
affect us and those closest to us, they also affect the lives of
those on the other side of the world. Ultimately any war will be
judged by history to be ‘just’ and ‘right’ or nothing more than
a display of brute force. What I find confronting about the
increased privatisation of war, in the absence of moral and
ethical responsibility, is that its consequences must, over
time, reach down into our social fabric and begin to stress it.
The question is, “how long will it be before the fabric is
irreparably torn?”