Change is coming

I was fascinated today listening to Hillary speak of contractor's at today's confirmation hearing:

"And, you know, Senator, on contractors, this is going to be a big issue for this committee. We have seen the abuses by contractors, but even when there are not headline-grabbing abuses, there has been a steady transfer of authority and resources from government employees and a chain of accountability to contractors, and we have reaped the very difficult consequences of that. We -- we know, obviously, of the security contractors and some of the difficulties that they have presented, but it's been contractors across the board.

We have used so many of them, particularly in Iraq, but not exclusively, and I think we have to take a hard look at whether we want the U.S. government to turn into a contracting agency or whether we're going to be smart about using our resources because, in most instances, contracting out a job costs more than keeping it in-house and building up expertise and experience and imposing accountability. So I look forward to working with you and your subcommittee to try to determine what we can do about contractors." (NYT excerpt: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/politics/13text-clinton.html?pagewanted=31)

Wow! I never thought I'd hear these words coming from her. I hope she's serious about pursuing this issue; it's very upsetting to think that these private security firms, the Blackwaters, etc., are cashing in on war, on our occupation of a sovereign nation. I guess you could say they are war profiteers, like so many in this conflict (and probably every conflict we get involved in). Perhaps the difference is that the individual contactors are risking life and limb for the money, whereas BW management, the Halliburtons and other war profiteers are reaping windfalls behind corporate bullet-proof shields. It's all disgusting to me; while our soldiers are accountable to the chain of command, who are these guys accountable to?