Did these mercenaries really expect to be treated as liberators in Fallujah?
Seems awfully naive........
Their deaths did provide a conveniently timed distraction from the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal and a nice pretext for the continuing escalation of violence against Iraqi civilians.
If the mutilation of corpses of invading US mercenaries is considered barbaric, what about the mutilation of living Iraqi civilians bombed in their homes by the US military?
The Center for Public Integrity has a series of reports on the corruption of domestic politics caused by the growing use of mercenaries to conduct foreign wars.
Making a Killing, The Business of War.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/Amid the military downsizing and increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end of the Cold War, governments turned increasingly to private military companies – a recently coined euphemism for mercenaries – to intervene on their behalf in war zones around the globe. Often, these companies work as proxies for national or corporate interests, whose involvement is buried under layers of secrecy. Entrepreneurs selling arms and companies drilling and mining in unstable regions have prolonged the conflicts.
Windfalls of War
http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/Winning Contractors – An Update
As the number of contracts rises, problems continue to plague the contracting process
WASHINGTON, July 7, 2004 — More than 150 American companies have received contracts worth up to $48.7 billion for work in postwar Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the latest update of the Center for Public Integrity's Windfalls of War project. This figure represents an increase of 82 companies and more than $40 billion since the Center first released its study of contracts awarded to U.S. companies for postwar work in Afghanistan and Iraq on Oct. 30, 2003.