OPINION

"THAT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING RUSSIAN"

Please, please tell me now is there something the British public should know?

By Sir Charlattam

It became very familiar to me that scene in which on a beautiful afternoon in the years we used those thick bags and caps several for the cold and go unnoticed, someone who walked quietly and without the slightest suspicion that the danger was haunting him suddenly gunman on foot or from a car, shot accurately about his humanity. Ah, those dangerous days of the days of the cold war.

I speak of hot times of the seventies and mid-eighties when the silent war between spies was very hot in Europe and where uncertainty surrounded us.

When I read in London newspapers about the attack on a former Russian agent, allegedly a dissident on a street sidewalk in Salisbury when he was with his 33-year-old daughter in a crowded place, monitored by cameras and all that As an anti-terrorist security assembly that controls us today, I felt that adrenaline that I had not felt for years when I retired from the service tired of the garbage that had to be swallowed so that the government could justify its dirty policies. I'm tired of being the dung pawn of his damn games.

The objective of this attack was a very particular subject. This is Sergei Skripal a former Colonel of Russian Military Intelligence known as GRU, a section of the armed forces that are fearsome and highly effective in the commission of operations in open wars, counterinsurgency and anti-terrorism. The guy is not a "nobody`s" precisely and is not clean, as I could check with my sources. He is a double agent who worked for the Russian government at times when he was in the army and more precisely in 1995 during the times of the inept Boris Yeltsin, was recruited by the British MI-6 and used his position to spy in favor of London and Washington that after being detected was arrested in 2004 by the FSB and after being sentenced in 2006 to 13 years in jail, only spent a few years in prison to be benefited by an amnesty decreed in 2010 by the government of Dimitri Medveved that freed him after an exchange of prisoners between Moscow and London.

Skripal captured by FSB in 2004

Skripal was a bird of accounts unimportant to Moscow. When the Russian army was sold, it was going through a time of economic calamity and corruption ravaged its cadres. It was the best time for the CIA and the MI-6 for a few envelopes of money to be bought to several wills and especially to a valuable resource within one of the most sensitive sections of the Russian Armed Forces. Skripal was tempted and perhaps thought that all that talent he had, was not useful for a Soviet Union that no longer existed. At that time, a source like Skripal was highly important in order to give a hand to the Chechen rebels who made life impossible for the Russians.

But his luck was short and the money paid for his betrayal did not succeed in escaping. When he was captured, he lost the courage to the West and let the judicial process and his imprisonment continue. By the time they exchanged their employers in London, they did not value it as they used to, but you had to be sure to know what you could have told.

It did not pose any potential threat to Russia's security since the possible contacts it still had with comrades within the Federation and sources of British intelligence operating inside Moscow are well contracted. Then I got to thinking why the Kremlin would order an attack like this, against a guy who is not worth what louts like Boris Johnson and the informants of MI-6 boss Alex Younger suggest and in broad daylight? The answer is impossible. Something dirty is hidden behind and there is much more involved related to the same sectors of the intelligence of house that boys with stereotypes of the old "KGB".

There have been speculations to try to connect several previous episodes (death of Boris Berezovsky and his associates, Alexander Litvinenko and others) to blame Vladimir Putin himself for these murders by order of state. Without having determined what was the motive and the chemical or biological agent that could have been used against Skripal and her daughter and even less to the alleged attackers, the accusations are snatched. The urgency of the same Prime Minister May seen on Monday before the Parliament is worrisome.

It is very suggestive that this attack occurred a few days after Vladimir Putin announced to the world that Russia with its potential military revelations occupies an important place in international geopolitics and that clearly has not been at all liked by the British political and financial Establishment. What to say about the commotion inside Downing Street 10 and the plotters of the Foreign Office who are clearly limited in their power of action, much more than their American partners who harder hit the news than go one step further against Moscow It would have catastrophic consequences. The possibility of rapid and devastating retaliation is now a reality against them that they cannot ignore.

To this, the threatening threats of Teresa May and her cabinet to Moscow can only lead to a loud laugh as London does not have to make a lesson as it tries to suggest and playing dirty can also cost you dearly.

To the worst and disgust of the representatives of the government of Teresa May, the sanctions against Russia only tickle and the attempts to muddy Putin's image as the evil and all powerful of a dictatorial government cause at least many laughter since the history of the kingdom leaves much to be desired in respect to the sovereignty of other countries and let's not talk about human rights. In this last sense, the charade fraud of the "White Helmets" sponsored by the MI-6 inside Syria country, is a sample of the dirty and criminal games of the British government that in spite of the propaganda, cannot elude.

Another misleading point presented by the government of May is to connect it with the previous Litvinenko, another double agent of Russian origin poisoned without realizing in 2006 with radioactive element "Plutonium 210" in a cafe crammed with occasional customers.

That's the way things are. With what we saw we can ask ourselves: Can you believe that the Russians need to perform such a reckless action and also so clumsy after what was announced on March 1? If you only use logic, you will conclude that this does not make sense.

EN DEBATE

"TWO STEPS ... TO THE ABYSS"

The road that Argentina is taking in its alliances can compromise its security and that of the entire Southern Hemisphere. A New policy of carnal relations?

By Sir Charlattam & Dany Smith

After the inauguration of the new legislative year in charge of the Argentine president Mauricio Macri and his speech before the legislative body of both houses of Congress, a political year began that will bring several novelties of which the president himself refrained from mentioning, clearly conditioned by strong external and internal pressure. It can be said that these developments are linked to the unexplained event of the submarine "ARA San Juan" that can lead to disastrous implications.

Although Macri dedicated a passage to the 44 crew members of the unexplained submarine, he did not contemplate an action plan or any policy to determine what had really happened; only a symbolic mention, as a way to shape the relatives who remain unconscionable in the face of so many incongruities and silences that have revealed that a part of their government tries to prevent the submarine from being found.

What can be behind all this? Dany asked me when we met at a café in Belfast, Ireland to check what would be the article of the month for geopolitical affairs of Great Britain in the South Atlantic. The first thing that occurred to me to say was, "everything that ordinary Argentines may never know". When the incident took place there was a lot of activity in the area and not only were the Navy of its Graceful Majesty operating with its Chilean allies (incidentally carrying out anti-submarine operations), there were also Americans, Chinese and intelligence ships with flags of others countries That was like a "field day".

Remember that the British had hired an Israeli company to install in the Falklands Islands, its famous and ineffective anti-missile system "Iron Dome" created by Tel Aviv to counteract the threat of the Palestinian homemade "missiles" Kassam, which Despite their rudimentary technology, they are not so easy to intercept. But the vendors of these systems are as good businessmen as suppliers of military technology. Maybe they are better businessmen than the second.

Think that the idea of ​​this system so sold by propaganda is to stop missiles and the Palestinian rockets are just that, rockets with very good shapes and design but nothing more. But taking advantage of the stage fright that the rich Israeli settlers from areas bordering the Gaza Strip such as Sderot, it was usufruct by the private security industry entrepreneurs who with the complicity of the military leaders and the corrupt right-wing politicians who control Israel, they make this a round business. Just calculate the following: If a homemade rocket costs "Hamas" 100 dollars the finished unit and you notice that each projectile interceptor of this reformed "Patriot" costs the Israeli state 50,000 dollars a unit, it is a clean gain of 1000 percent. Something not close in the logical equation of cost and risks to face, but of guaranteed profits for private manufacturers in did.

In the case of Great Britain and using the silly excuses that Argentina acquired mid-last year an endowment of a dozen old French planes "Super Etendard", London reached an agreement with the Israeli company "Rafael Advanced Defense Systems" which works with the firm "Mprest" for the assembly of its "Iron Dome" batteries on the islands as part of an NSCR modernization policy of its obsolete anti-aircraft systems. We know that Argentines not only do not have strategic missiles as they knew they had in the past (Condor II), but they do not even have rockets like the Palestinians, much less the will to fight them. Despite long discussions about military spending at the National Security Council (NSC), the Cabinet authorized the signing of this millionaire contract with the satisfaction of Chief of Staff Sir Nick Carter and Secretary of Defense Gavin Williamson.

But the business was not absent from clashes between private defense companies. According to sources within the Ministry and the secretary of Fallon, American firms such as "General Dynamics Land Systems" their offers were placed under the pile of paper to benefit Israeli companies, probably because of the incentives they advanced.

argentine security commitive in Tel Avic

The contract signed between London and the Israeli company is around 79 million British Pounds, demonstrating in addition to excessive spending, an unusual interest in "defending the islands." The irony of the case is that while the Israelis install this system for the British, Tel Aviv trains and is advising Argentine military and police forces with their advisors from the IDF and the Shin Bet in the occupied territories.

We know that the installed system did not respond to any Argentine threat. You can talk to any admiral or retired general to give you his opinion about it and I assure you that none of them endorses the Foreign Office's argument of a real threat from the continent. The reports of the Ministry of Defense of Fallon are pure garbage. It is a mountain of imbecilities, which are not believed even by kindergarten children; Maybe not`s, ours but if the Argentines, do not you think?

Maybe the Argentines if they were aware and with their poor resources tried to rummage beyond what they could and died in the attempt.

The mission of the "ARA San Juan" ran into an inconvenience and that was "saw what should not see" Do you think it is linked to the anti-missile system that would be mounted on the islands? Dany asked me, to which I replied in a clear voice "in part yes." At that time the Israeli specialists were already working on the islands and having confirmed this was something diplomatically embarrassing, you know, calls to the ambassador in Buenos Aires for explanations etcetcetc.

We know that the islands have a military base but behind that, there is one of the most important electronic intelligence and satellite tracking facilities in the hemisphere; if there is a threat to regional peace, it comes from the islands and not from the continent, although the Chinese in the province of Neuquén have a strategic role in all this.

Among the mills in Mount Pleasant is a high power antenna that, in addition to receiving communications from the NATO`s geostationary satellites that sweep the region, emit infrasound waves that produce alterations in living organisms, among them the Argentine unsuspecting and also in the Kelpers.

To the worse taste of the gentlemen in the Ministry of Defense and their lobbyists in the House of Commons, the arrival of the Russians in the waters of the South Atlantic with the ship "Yantar" can complicate everything.

It seems that to cover the mouths (very few indeed) of the most annoying claimants of the military institution of the Argentine Navy, the government of Buenos Aires accepted a proposal from Tel Aviv and commissioned a naval attaché to none other than Israel for allegedly, prepare a group of officers in naval intelligence doctrine and technical knowledge of naval engines to deliver soon. 

This coincides with the continued arrival in Israel of American contingents that is overheating the spirits of the Arabs and the Islamic world. But this smells like shit and some sources in Buenos Aires have confirmed that this is something more important and this would involve linking the country to the global geostrategy of Tel Aviv and Patagonia is its primary objective. For others this would only be to silence the search queries of the submarine. What do you think?

VETERANOS DE AYER

“VOLVER AL GOLFO ¿LA HISTORIA SE REPITE?

Mientras Argentina sigue en una situación defensiva calamitosa, habría posibilidades de volver a colgarse del furgón del intervencionismo foráneo

Por Charles H. Slim

Con el actual gobierno muchas cosas que parecían imposibles de reeditar parecieran en realidad que son muy posibles de hacer. Para quienes no lo recuerden, en Septiembre de 1990 el gobierno de Carlos Saúl Menem se embarco junto a la Coalición Aliada dirigida por EEUU en la que se conoció como la “guerra del Golfo Pérsico”, un conflicto que (además de vigente) aún sigue siendo objeto de estudio en las Academias y Universidades militares del mundo.

La agenda del gobierno de Menem que por esta intervención pretendía una supuesta “redemocratización” del país, la inserción dentro del concierto mundial y una supuesta articulación de las políticas domésticas para que se conjugaran con políticas externas (de realismo y pragmatismo) en conexión con las que impulsaba Washington, llevaría a la Argentina al “primer mundo” esto según lo charlado en varias ocasiones entre los presidentes Carlos Menem,  George H. Bush y su sucesor Bill Clinton[1].

Incluso aquella participación les dio a varios funcionarios menemistas la libertad de hablar de “alianza” más que de una cooperación para la “seguridad internacional” en el marco de Naciones Unidas, uno de los argumentos por los cuales la Casa Rosada envió al contingente naval. No olvidemos pues las palabras del ministro de Defensa Erman González cuando, embelesado tras la llegada exitosa de las dotaciones de la Armada  dijo “Somos el aliado del país de norte en el Cono sur”[2], cuando en realidad este tipo de relaciones se da entre iguales.

Pero como lo hemos comentado durante mucho tiempo, en la Argentina éste conflicto paso invisible y se guardo en lo más profundo de un cajón de los archivos del Ministerio de Defensa. Lo mejor que se podía hacer con aquella experiencia era, olvidarla. Mucho menos, fue tratada por la misma fuerza (Armada) que había participado; son cuestiones de la subordinación castrense me comento alguien. Y así pasaron los años, lejos de analizar la experiencia particular de semejante situación a la que muchos catalogan como la primera guerra de alta intensidad antes de finales del siglo XX[3], los políticos de turno temerosos por las consecuencias de abordar la participación de la Argentina en tan luctuoso escenario y que reabrirían debates sobre la actuación de sus colegas de aquel entonces, prefirieron el silencio eterno.

Pero los giros de la historia llevan a que como suele decir el dicho “la historia se repita”, aunque en realidad lo hace atendiendo a las circunstancias del momento en que ello ocurre. Las actuales condiciones de las FFAA argentinas, la posición política de su gobierno y el volátil escenario del Medio Oriente, hacen que, como se están perfilando las cosas pueda llegar a existir una nueva “requisitoria”  de la Coalición Internacional anti ISIL para que Argentina preste colaboración en las operaciones navales que se despliegan actualmente desde la Península arábiga hasta el Golfo Pérsico.

Hoy no es “Saddam” el objetivo de la campaña o de operaciones aprobadas por resoluciones de Naciones Unidas para extender la “democracia y la libertad” en Iraq, hoy el objetivo es mucho más peligroso, difuminado e inestable lo cual debería hacer entrar en razones a los responsables del área de la defensa argentina antes de inmiscuirse en una guerra que además de no ser propia, no tiene nada de convencional. Incluso no es Iraq o el denominado “ISIL” el verdadero objetivo de los planes que de cuecen a fuego lento en la región. La variedad de cuestiones hacen precisamente demasiado complejo el asunto para meterse sin estudio previo.

Las cosas han cambiado mucho desde aquellos calurosos y húmedos días en los que la agrupación “ALFIL1” compuesta por el destructor “ARA Almirante Brown” y la corbeta “ARA Spiro” participo de las operaciones de cobertura logística y custodia de los convoyes de provisiones destinados a abastecer el desarrollo de la “Tormenta del Desierto”. Por estos días hace 27 años atrás, ambas unidades salían del teatro de operaciones y tras hacer combustible con el buque de reabastecimiento “USS- Seatle” pasaban por el Canal de Suez en Egipto para ya tomar rumbo a casa.

Los peligros actuales se han magnificado a niveles impensados para aquella época, que recordemos, fue para la flota de guerra argentina, una absoluta novedad en lo que refería a los despliegues tecnológicos de una guerra altamente tecnificada. Si en aquellos momentos necesitaron de adaptaciones a los sistemas de comunicaciones (claramente viejos y desfasados) para poder operar coordinadamente con las unidades de la OTAN, hoy esto se volvería ciertamente muy dificultoso. Solo piense usted en las nuevas armas antibuque y los sistemas de anulación electrónica que además de dañinamente eficaces son invisibles ¿Cómo podría lidiar un buque argentino con estos problemas?

Otro aspecto es el geopolítico ya que EEUU ha dejado de ser la potencia hegemónica del momento y hoy se ve arrinconada por la creciente influencia rusa en el mundo y en especial por los anuncios realizados hace apenas una semana por el presidente Vladimir Putin[4], que dejan al poderío de la OTAN en un segundo o incluso tercer plano.

Ciertamente es un alivio ver que algunos sectores han comenzado no hace mucho y después de nuestras publicaciones a estudiar e incluso revisar –aunque de una manera bastante leve y limitada- cuáles fueron las implicancias de la misión naval[5] en aquella oportunidad. No debe olvidarse que los supuestos beneficios  para la institución y el país que surgirían de esta participación, fueron reducidos a prácticamente a la nada no solo por la pérdida de interés por parte de los gobiernos en la Casa Blanca y del Pentágono en la inserción de Argentina en algún nivel inferior de la OTAN sino más bien, por las propias inconsecuencias del gobierno de aquel entonces que demostraron la falta de continuidad, compromiso político y estabilidad de planificación necesaria para participar dentro de la estructura de la Alianza Atlántica.

Pero las políticas de defensa del actual gobierno parecen estar tomando por caminos sinuosos y lejanos a los intereses de la nación.

El luctuoso y no aclarado hecho del submarino argentino estaría acelerando las tratativas para que Argentina tenga un papel en los asuntos militares de dicha coalición en la zona del Medio Oriente, para desviar las sospechas que hay sobre la autoría del siniestro. Ello a su vez revelaría los intentos por cerrar definitivamente el tema y alejar las posibilidades de que, además de hallar al “ARA San Juan”  el gobierno argentino se vuelque a tratar con Rusia para reestructurar el sector. Lo que no queda aún bien claro, cuales son los reales objetivos para los que serían enviados algunos elementos de la Armada (que sirva la aclaración), se halla en una situación material extrema.

En el actual panorama que se vive en la región, las posibilidades oscilarían entre el Golfo de Adén en Yemen o el Golfo Pérsico para operaciones de apoyo a la “Coalición Internacional anti ISIL” que en realidad enmascaran las operaciones de contención dirigidas por el CENTCOM sobre Irán y Siria.

Para muchos marinos la posibilidad de realizar una aventura semejante es prácticamente imposible, no solo por la carencia material para concretar una participación como la que se especula sino también, porque no se han aprovechado las experiencias recopiladas en 1990 y 1991 cuando el grupo de tareas T.88.0 trabajo con las Armadas más experimentadas del mundo, entre ellas la británica.  Existe cierto temor en que estas experiencias sean explotadas en el marco de nuevos objetivos y en beneficio de actores que además de ser parte de las hostilidades, están teniendo demasiado protagonismo en la defensa y seguridad actual del país.

---

[1] Daros recogidos por Anabella Busso, de los seis encuentros que tuvieron a lo largo de la presidencia de Menem. La primera en la visita de George H. Bush el 5 de diciembre de 1990; el 29 de junio de 1993 con la visita de Menem a Clinton; 24 de junio de 1994 encuentro extraoficial entre Menem y Clinton; 26 de septiembre de 1994 encuentro entre ambos en Naciones Unidas; 25 de octubre de 1995 tras un fugaz encuentro en la sede la ONU.

[2] LA NACIÓN, Buenos Aires, 2 de julio de 1991, pág. 4

[3] PLAZAS, Paola, “Guerra del Golfo”, publicado en SlideShare: https://es.slideshare.net/paoplazas11/guerra-del-golfo-17108961

[4] RT.com. “¿Para qué necesitamos un mundo sin Rusia?: Putin habla sobre una eventual guerra nuclear”. Publicado el 7 de marzo de 2018.  https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/264865-rusia-usar-armas-nucleares-respuesta-ataque

[5] DEFENSA NACIONALY DEL MUNDO. “La Armada Argentina en el Golfo Pérsico”. http://defensanacional.argentinaforo.net/t10144-la-armada-argentina-en-el-golfo-persico

ILM-MIDDLE EAST

"BUSINESS AND PARADOXES OF LIBERATION”

How much does the democratic liberation of the United States cost?

By Ali Al Najafy

M1-A1 smashed in Baghdad

When the US decided to invade Iraq in 2003, it had not only planned to overthrow Saddam Hussein and seize the most important oil fields of the fertile crescent to deliver them to the corporate oil giants, but also to install a collaborationist government that granted it within the corresponding legal forms, all contracts to rebuild the Armed Forces of a "new Iraq," which would only be stocked with exclusively US-made weapons.

When it was agreed that the military industry companies like "General Dynamics" among a dozen more, were the exclusive ones for the assortment of weapons and systems for the new army after sweeping the Iraqi and that the 

Pentagon had already designed in its papers, there the invasion was launched. They were catastrophic years for the safety and life of Iraqis common but glorious for arms deals. The "Dawa" mafia that was placed as a government signed each and every defense contract for an unarmed Iraq. The American businessmen gloated and just sat and watched the demand for arms, ammunition and weapons systems that were compatible with the new rules imposed by the "liberators".

It is true that the task of completely destroying the Iraqi armed forces was not an achievement of the Anglo-Saxon Coalition alone; with them there were a few very low-level Iraqi generals and politicians who were committed to destroying or selling what was left of Saddam's "Great Army." There were liberated routes for hundreds of the Soviet-made "T-55" and "T-72B" tanks that made the bulk of the "Republican Guard" to be moved at night and in view of US air surveillance to be shipped and passed to the black market. Or dismantled for spare parts and the sale of parts and their weapons separately, it was big business for the arms dealers.

Thus, with scrap only stacked and parked in large parks and open-air cemeteries outside Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, it became necessary for the new Iraqi army to have its new armored vehicles and tanks for combat service. Of course, a ridiculous number of tanks that do not reach 1% of what the army had in the pre-invasion era. This must be accompanied by the need to maintain technical advisors for driving and knowledge of the controls of an M1 A-1 "Abrahams". Obviously, they could only be led by those troops who, besides being Shiite loyal to the "Dawa" party, well studied by the secret police controlled by the CIA, were a guarantee of collaboration with Washington. In this way, the dangers of tank theft by resistance or sabotage by infiltrators were solved.

M1-A1 capture by ISIL 

That is until, surprisingly, in 2014 the "ISIL" appeared to cross with impunity the Iraqi borders while supposedly the American Drones tried to stop them with guided attacks. At that time the Iraqi army had a limited fleet of M1 A-1 tanks and had received a few months earlier, a shipment of more than 2,500 Humvee vehicles that were stationed in the base of mechanized troops of the city of Mosul, everything falls in the hands of "ISIL" as a great birthday gift that cost the US treasury 579 million dollars. And although it caused consternation that was revealed in the faces of the Republican congressmen and those responsible for the Pentagon's General Staff, no one ever explained how such a clumsy collection was allowed when the intelligence reports should have warned of the imminent danger.

For 2008 the government of Baghdad closed a contract for the acquisition of 140 units of tank M1 A-1 "Abrams" at a cost of 2 billion units with all its armaments and engines running. For this the Pentagon established a contract with "General Dynamics" that amounted to 320 million dollars to provide the order and train a select cadre of Iraqi mechanics for maintenance. In between, many of these specimens were captured by the "ISIL" and the most unlikely of it was that they were able to start and drive as expert tank drivers. Were there instructors of the "General Dynamics" in the camps of the "ISIL" teaching how to turn on, manage and maintain your own M1 A-1?

But that does not seem to have caused much impression among the Pentagon's high command and even less among those responsible for the defense of the moment, who at some point came to describe the "Daesh" as a group of monkeys running around and nothing else. Time showed that they were more than that and much more intimate than what could be confessed.

M1-A1 of Kataib Hesbollah Brigades of Iraq

In spite of this, it was much more scandalous for Washington that the M1 fell into the hands of the popular Shiite units (which belonged to the resistance against the occupation) that were being used by the "Daesh". Thus, when at the beginning of 2015 some "Abrams" were seen with the flag of the Kataib Hesbollah Brigades of Iraq and the "Al Shaabi" Popular militias advancing in the northwest of Iraq, it made the blood of the officers in the Pentagon as General Dempsey and Chuck Hagel that without hesitation authorized the planes of the "Coalition against ISIL" to destroy them. It was intolerable for "pro-Iranian" militias to take over one of the strongholds of American industry; before it burns. But in reality that's just an excuse to scare Baghdad from his intension to buy Russian weapons systems.

All being too abstract and difficult to understand in view of the evidence and that`s events. It was more unbearable for Washington that the M1 fell into the hands of the Shiite militias who were fighting to liberate Iraq from being used with wide freedom by the "Daesh". Illogical, do not you think? But as the "ISIL" is now ancient history (merit in part important to Russia) and does not exist within the map of operations, the contractors of the company "General Dynamics" have called on the puppet regime of Baghdad to take care of recovering the M1 "Abrams" units that are in the hands of the Shiite popular forces, if not all of their technicians and advisers withdraw from Iraq threatening to leave them helpless in the face of a reality that few media are reflecting and she is that, despite that the farce of the "Daesh" was disrupted, the operations of an autochthonous armed resistance that is active in the northern center still persist.

For the time being, Baghdad has been in contact with Russia in order to acquire a varied package of weapons systems and equipment to replace the existing ones, unleashing a cataract of insults and arguments between the Iraqi collaborationist sectors and those trying to shake off the blackmail of Washington.

VETERANOS DE AYER

"DISCHARGEABLE"

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the first privatized war of the century in which companies took astronomical revenues at the expense of their employees

By Dany Smith

Many times we have dealt with the issue of veterans and their continuous struggles to obtain recognition of their rights for services rendered or even their own existence. Unfortunately, the issue cannot be abstracted from the state policy of countries that involve their men in important campaigns of war such as the first Gulf War in 1991 and the second war in 2003. Despite the appalling conditions in the that´s thousands of veterans of that first conflagration were (and still are), very few could realize that the government only wants to use them for their purposes, the goal has been fulfilled, Goodbye and good luck!

Of course a lot of you wondering were you not aware of the risks or are you also unwilling to endure the risks out of patriotism? Whatever the answer, you cannot help but contemplate that within all this tragedy that war involves, there is a long list of categories of personnel involved who are not just regular fighters. Believe it or not, all those involved in those campaigns, were with contracts under legal forms in which the government was a party and could not (in theory) become the unknown as if nothing had happened.

The civilian staff hired by the US government is as much a victim of the aftermath of the war as the military combatants. Many of those civilians were enlisted in companies like "KBR" of "HalliBurton" belonging to Vice President Dick Cheney, where among many tasks of "reconstruction", thousands of drivers were hired for trucks that transported from stores and food for troops to trucks cistern to carry the oil from the captured oil fields. 

They were also employed for security, services and classified service tasks that linked them to CIA counterinsurgency operations. Many of those employees never returned and many others made crippled by the attacks of the Iraqi resistance. "Things were not at all as they had told us," commented a driver of "KBR" who after arriving with serious consequences for the injuries in an ambush in Iraq, was discriminated by the company itself and away from access to any medical treatment.

The great business of the private war was, without a doubt, one of the best collection bags for private companies that Washington contracted to support military tasks to "rebuild" Iraq, a farce that never happened. Companies like "DynCorp", "Halliburton", "KBR", "SOC" and "Blackwater" among many others, hired thousands of employees under their payroll for the construction of military camps in the desert, providing logistics and security that Do not distract the regular military forces.

His employees were supposedly insured and with rights to medical coverage in case of contingencies. To all this, insurance providers would earn billions of dollars at the expense of those employees who often could not claim compliance with their policies for the simple fact that they had died and by the time relatives were informed of the event , the claim period was so long that the validity date had expired. This, which for anyone was a cross-country scam, was the subject of strong criticism in the Congress itself for some commissions, but it was always hidden by the strong and influential pressure groups of the war that were linked, like the Israeli lobbies.

In the moral discussion about the participation of many of these "mercenaries" who were involved in many massive crimes against the Iraqi civilian population, it is inescapable that it could be considered something like "poetic justice" but, in the strictly legal and in what is It refers to the relationship between the federal government and its employees, whom the Bush-Cheney administration manipulated with feelings of patriotism and service to the nation in the face of a threat they argued real, is another issue. If that was bad, the government scam to its own citizens is horrible in the eyes of good Americans who today continue to endure the injustices of a deceptive and desperate government bureaucracy.

The struggle of these unrecognized vets goes through such basic issues as medical care for diseases that were aroused after their stay in Iraq, even prescribing glasses to those who were left with damage to their vision due to war wounds, were and still are some of the injustices suffered. Neither attentions nor medical reviews to corroborate the damages suffered. In some cases the insistence of the claimants made the doctors rude who did not want problems with the federal government. At the same time, for those who managed to present all the forms that insurers claimed, they only paid 50% of the cases claimed. Simply, humiliating and disconsolate situations.

The contracts they signed were mostly never fulfilled. Many of those hired by these companies, ended up trapped in the reality of an Iraq that was far pacified or democratized as they were deceived by the spokesmen of those companies before they left. Foolishness that cost his arms, legs, eyes or simply the life of many of these (for some) hunting fortunes, for others, patriots, so that in the end, the same government that used them, would turn their faces when they demanded basic health coverage or treatment for serious injuries. Some cases are so arbitrary that they arouse the indignation of many within the national and international public opinion. There are documented cases in which several of these former employees, claiming for their rights have seen the door close in their faces as it would happen in any totalitarian government that you may have ever read. Today they coexist in an apathetic society, with images of aesthetic perfection and snobbishness that segregates them and separates them from the benefits that were made by signing those contracts that without discussion classify them as disposable.