PMC in COIN (general theme)

[goesh]

"1. Many of these organisations work best (that is, are effective) in what could only be regarded as very benign security situations"

There has been a tendency in some agencies to adopt a quasi anti-American mentality through which to better identify with elements of the host nation. I saw some of this with the Peace Corps and USAID in W. Africa though by no means was this official doctrine/policy. The polite term would be to say some of the people were not professionally objective. The reluctance of many Humanitarian missions to partner with the military should not be surprising because their principal success is based on relative security and that alone IMO, yet elements within said agencies regard the military as the sole problem. That's hard to overcome and I can't imagine the nightmare involved in trying to provide security for such divergent and numerous civilian groups and I wonder how tense it gets at times between the military and private security contractors? ...been any throw-downs with Halliburton??

With 100K contractors in Iraq, no wonder war funding gets passed. I had no idea there were that many there yet the Public certainly isn't getting this message. It contradicts the picture of total chaos and bloodshed.

[tequila]

I think you are confusing the vast majority of private contractors in Iraq with NGOs. Most are personnel doing things that would have been done by soldiers in the past - i.e. driving supply trucks, clerking at the PX, serving food, etc. The contractor population, if they counted as a member of the coalition, have suffered far more casualties than any other member of our coalition of the willing.

As for throwdowns, not many but one or two examples have surfaced.