{"id":28123,"date":"2011-12-29T16:14:25","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T20:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=28123"},"modified":"2011-12-29T16:19:21","modified_gmt":"2011-12-29T20:19:21","slug":"as-the-situation-on-the-ground-dictates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=28123","title":{"rendered":"As the situation on the ground dictates…"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite games played by the Pentagon is to replace uniformed personnel with contractors and pretend the mission of the “eliminated” billet has gone away. As the Obama administration continues to pretend that the situation on the ground permits the natural withdrawal of military personnel comes the news that Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan will be taking on private military contractors to provide physical security for the base. According to the Marine Corps Times<\/a>:<\/p>\n

U.S. commanders want civilian contractors to provide military security at the Marine Corps\u2019 largest base in Afghanistan as a planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from the war-torn country expands.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we prepare for fewer Marine boots on the ground, the requirement to maintain a certain level of security aboard Camp Leatherneck must be maintained,\u201d Player said. \u201cThat\u2019s where contractor support will provide Camp Leatherneck security where Marines have in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Army Contracting Command announced a competition for the job in November. At least 166 civilian guards will be needed at all times, meaning the company that wins the contract will almost certainly need more to account for vacations and other leave time. Companies who seek the job must hire guards who are citizens of the U.S. or some of its closest allies: the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, of course, the stationing of PMCs on base, even foreign nationals is nothing new to those of use who served in Iraq. I’ve worked with Marine Corps provisional security companies a few times from 3\/2, 8th Tanks and, during work up, 2nd LAAD. As long as the mission is performed by a reputable company and the base QRF is still Marine Corps there’s nothing about the job that requires it be done by uniformed service members.<\/p>\n

Still, this begs the question, why replace Marines with contractors? The demand hasn’t gone away, Afghanistan will be as dangerous on the PMCs first day as the Corps’ last. The mission is already mainly performed by Reservists and the shortage of fresh troops isn’t nearly as critical as in the heart of the surge in Iraq. I doubt the DoD is saving any significant money, PMCs are not cheap and it doesn’t reduce the end force reduction goals with the looming cuts. They certainly aren’t going to do a better job.<\/p>\n

The answer is simple: reducing the number of American troops in Afghanistan creates the phony impression the war is “winding down” and the Obama administration is reducing our commitment there. Of course neither of these things are true but, as already displayed by the sabotaging of the negotiations in Iraq to keep the desperately needed US troops there another year, this administration doesn’t actually care about winning our nation’s military campaigns, only their party’s political ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite games played by the Pentagon is to replace uniformed personnel with contractors … As the situation on the ground dictates…<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":619,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,184,84,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-policy","category-marine-corps","category-military-issues","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/619"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}