Military privatization, however, is not simply an abstract process that unfolds
in the same way across space and time. Crucial to understanding the rise of
TCN labor in particular was the post-Cold War military’s shift to a new center of
gravity: the Persian Gulf. The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait marked a major
shift in the global U.S. military posture, with the deployment of large ground
forces to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as a counterbalance to both Iraq and Iran.
Since then, U.S. bases in the Gulf have been key staging areas for operations in
Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Unlike the major overseas hubs of the Cold
War military in Western Europe and East Asia, the Gulf economies were built in
large part on foreign migrant labor. Large numbers of noncitizens reside in Qatar
(86.5 percent of the population), the U.A.E. (70 percent), Kuwait (68.8 percent),
Bahrain (39.1 percent), and Saudi Arabia (27.8 percent).40 Indeed, the military
and police services of the Arab Gulf states themselves also make extensive use of
foreign labor, at both the rank-and-file and officer levels. The U.A.E. and Qatari
militaries employ large numbers of contractors from Pakistan, Egypt, and other
countries.41 Bahrain’s extensive reliance on Pakistanis and other foreigners has
attracted considerable attention since the 2011 uprising.42
The Gulf states’ migrant-driven economy converged with the changes in
U.S. military logistics: Companies specializing in recruiting migrant labor for
construction, logistics, and security in the petroleum and related industries were
well-poised to lend their services to the U.S. military. Over preceding decades,
Gulf regimes crushed budding labor movements that emerged around the oil industry43
and replaced them with large numbers of migrants, all while extending
state largesse to pacify and co-opt the citizenry. In contrast, contractors at the
major U.S. airbase at İncirlik, Turkey, were forced into arbitration with local unions
after major strikes in the late 1980s and early 1990s. One U.S. military contractor
complained of the Turkish workers having a “home-field advantage”;44 in
countries such as Kuwait, such concerns did not exist. As a result, large U.S. military
contractors such as KBR, DynCorp, and Fluor can draw from a variety of
smaller multinational companies to recruit and transfer workers through the
Gulf. One Dubai-based company operating on bases in Afghanistan, Ecolog,
was founded by an ethnic Albanian entrepreneur providing services to NATO
peacekeepers in Kosovo.45 One of the leading recruiters of Ugandan security
guards for the U.S. military, Dreshak Group, is also based in Dubai but was
founded in Pakistan.46
C. Exploitation and Abuse
Human rights activists and journalists have done considerable work in exposing
the abuses faced by TCNs from poor countries, whose situation has been likened to indentured servitude or slavery.47 While service members and
TCNs may work side by side on U.S. bases, a complex web of entities often
shields the U.S. government from responsibility for TCN workers. Prime contractors
hire subcontractors (often foreign companies) to fulfill specific task orders.
Subcontractors in turn use recruiting agencies to find and bring workers
from other locations. In practice, there may be even more subcontractors and
other intermediaries involved. Between the links in the contracting chain, responsibility
is often obscured or displaced, facilitating abuse and exploitation.
These problems are, of course, endemic to many situations of labor migration
around the world; for TCNs, however, the employer is ultimately the U.S. government.
The plaintiffs’ allegations in Adhikari v. Daoud, a lawsuit that has been
pending in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Texas since 2008,
illustrate some of the most egregious practices concerning TCNs. The plaintiffs
in Adhikari, mostly deceased and proceeding through kin, were Nepalis allegedly
promised jobs in luxury hotels in Jordan that paid $500 per month.48 They were
hired by a Nepali labor recruiter working on contract with a Jordanian job brokerage
company and transported by another Jordanian company to Amman, all at
the behest of Daoud and Partners, a Jordanian firm that was in turn subcontracted
by KBR.49 After each paying up to $3,500 in recruitment fees—paid for by
loans charging exorbitant interest—the plaintiffs arrived in Jordan only to have
their passports taken away.50 They were then put in an unprotected convoy
bound for Al Asad Air Force base in Ramadi, northern Iraq.51 Along the way,
Iraqi rebels seized a dozen of the Nepalis; they beheaded one and executed the
others with gunshots to the head.52
http://www.uclalawreview.org/?p=6348
Those 2-1 idiots don't realize this is what they're supporting or don't care that they're supporting this. And besides a political solution is the only way to solve IS.
The allegations in Adhikari echo
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