In response, many in the United States – at both ends of the political spectrum – have suggested that the, already stretched-too-thin, U.S. military should be used to force the humanitarian aid in. Some have even argued that, perhaps, this would be a good time to overthrow Myanmar’s military regime.

Of course neither idea is in line with the purpose that the U.S. military serves under the Constitution, but a solution for those who want to force good upon the world might ironically come from of one of the political left’s recent punching bags: private military companies.

Though any private military company would probably cringe at the label, a private military company is basically a mercenary (“soldier-of-fortune”/”soldier for hire”) organization in a corporate structure. Some U.S. private military companies include Braddock, Dunn, and MacDonald (BDM); Northrop Grumman; Global Solutions; Dyncorp; KBR; and perhaps most famously – or, possibly, notoriously – Blackwater Worldwide (formerly Blackwater U.S.A.). These companies employ ex-military and law enforcement personnel who serve alongside “rank and file” soldiers while earning sometimes five to ten times more than the average “grunt.” Most of those employed with these companies are Americans, but not necessarily so – as is the case with Blackwater, which, according to Jeremy Scahill, employs at least 60 former members of the Chilean military, some of whom served under the brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Private military companies are nothing new. Machiavelli warned against the use of “mercenary arms” in his famous treatise The Prince, back in the 15th century. Unfortunately, that is exactly what is being done right now – not only in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but at military bases around the globe, providing security for diplomatic personnel, destroying coca crops in Columbia, as well as a myriad of other activities too numerous to name. Private military companies even handle communications and intelligence at the United States Northern Command, which is responsible for repelling any attack on the continental United States.

There are many who – understandably – have a moral objection to the U.S. government’s use of mercenaries. With the Pentagon’s bloated budget already passing half a trillion dollars, it might cause one to wonder why the taxpayers should pay companies that often are hired through “no bid” contracts – the ultimate example of crony capitalism. They are said to be exploiting human misery. Companies such as these thrive off the “Broken Window” theory of capitalism – a perverse form of military “Keynesianism” that sees destruction as a way of opening up new opportunities – where a broken window opens up a job for someone to fix it. Companies such as this need the U.S. government, and by-proxy the American people, to be involved in perpetual crises in order to remain profitable.

These critics are right. The actual defense of the American people falls under the sole discretion of the federal government and should not be turned into a for-profit industry by that same government. The Constitution gives the federal government the responsibility to “…. provide for the common defense.”

Private companies are ill-suited for carrying out acts of war for a nation; they have less accountability than normal government. Private military companies – not being under the Pentagon’s umbrella – are not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and in Iraq, in particular, the mercenaries were granted immunity by U.S. Envoy Paul Bremer of the Coalition Provisional Authority before sovereignty was handed back to the Iraqis – thus removing all military contractors from Iraqi jurisdiction.

While our military has the responsibility for our defense, it is also true that solders are not effective peacekeepers. To quote R. Lee Ermey’s drill sergeant character from Full Metal Jacket, “The Corps wants killers!” The military is there to do an awful job that it hopefully won’t have to do. The regular military’s specific purpose, as it’s said in the oath every member of the military takes, is to “…defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” In other words, defend the liberty of the American people – not install new governments, mediate civil wars, or deliver foreign aid (no matter how large the catastrophe or sympathetic Americans may be to its victims).

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan sent U.S. marines to Lebanon to referee that country’s bloody civil war that had raged for years. Working as “peacekeepers,” and bound by rules of engagement that were intended to keep civilians from being caught in the crossfire, the mission was an abject failure culminating in a Hezbollah suicide bomber blowing up the marine barracks and killing 283 marines. Reagan realized that soldiers bound by international rules of war are ineffective in keeping the peace in a war zone and subsequently withdrew the troops.

With the disastrous situation in Myanmar there is an obvious and understandable desire to help the Burmese people there. If the United States military was to force its way into the country it would be considered, under international law, a violation of Myanmar’s sovereignty – an invasion.

Private military companies, however, are not technically lawful combatants. They could, possibly, be contracted by aid groups such as the Red Cross to provide armed escorts for relief workers being denied access, perform airdrops of food and supplies, and help rescue victims and escort them to safety in refugee camps.

A similar situation could hypothetically work in Darfur where private military companies could be contracted to securely bring clean water – the lack of which is the main cause of that barbaric conflict – to the people in that area so devastated by war.

This would not be without risk, of course. The military junta would probably still attempt to prevent this incursion into their country, but that is precisely why a “military” escort would be needed – even a private military. However, it would be far better to use specialized private forces in these circumstances than to risk the lives of American soldiers.

Private military companies do make their profits from human misery. Unfortunately, there has been human misery throughout history and will be into the future; but our Constitution does not command our military to universally eliminate it.

Despite this, the Right and Left continually utilize our armed forces for politically convenient interventions abroad for exactly those purposes. It is not often mentioned that during the so-called “peace and prosperity” of the 1990s, the administration of Bill Clinton ordered more military action than at any period of the twentieth century excluding World War II and the Vietnam War. Humanitarian interventionism was used as the excuse for the bombing of Serbia during the 1990s, and it is rarely mentioned that more bombs were dropped on Baghdad during Operation Desert Fox in 1998, in an attempt to force Saddam Hussein out of power, than in the entirety of Operation Desert Storm.

In 1999 President Clinton ordered the bombing of Serbia to prevent the Serbian government, which had been embroiled in a bloody three-way civil war throughout the decade, from taking action to stop another province from breaking away – in this case Kosovo. Kosovo, populated by mainly ethnic Albanian Muslims, began taking action to separate itself from Serbia, and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) – a terrorist organization – was killing ethnic Serbian Kosovars. Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, in response, sent in the Serbian army to subdue the KLA. As a result of the Serbian army’s killing of ethnic Albanian civilians, it was claimed genocide was being committed and the bombing ensued. In the aftermath, there were as many “mass graves” found as WMDs in Iraq. The U.N. would later rule that there had been many killings of civilians, on both sides, but no genocide had been committed. In fact, it was later found that after the bombings began the KLA began to “ethnically cleanse” the ethnic Serbs of Kosovo by either forcing them from their homes or killing them. And, of course, humanitarian aid was unable to reach civilians on both sides because of the dangers caused by the bombings.

Doug Bandow, a former special assistant for policy to Ronald Reagan, in a recent article discussing the consequences of war not only becoming policy but also a policy of choice, stated:

“…[E] ven some analysts whom might have expected to be sympathetic to proposals to invade Burma (Myanmar) to forcibly aid the Burmese people after the recent cyclone held back. They pointed to the many political and ethnic fractures in that nation and asked: then what? The U.S. would have acquired yet another failed state to reconstitute and divided society to remake. How long would that occupation have to last?”

This statement gets right to the heart of Colin Powell’s “Pottery Barn Rule”, where he told President Bush in the lead-up to the Iraq War that “You break, you buy it.” If an invasion were to take place, what would its mission be? Would U.S. troops simply bring humanitarian aid to the Burmese people and leave the brutal military junta in place? Or would it be felt that the regime needed to be deposed? If that were the case, another occupation would be undertaken and, as Bandow said, who’s to say how long it would last.

The thing about taking military action that those advocating it seem to ignore is that its consequences are rarely ever those that were intended. By repudiating the Bush and Clinton doctrines of military intervention and limiting our military to its Constitutional duty of defending the American people and our precious liberties, we can avoid such disasters.

If private and international aid groups were to contract companies like these, in Burma and elsewhere, a profit could be maintained, people in need could be helped, and the U.S. military can avoid slipping into more interminable quagmires.

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