Friday, October 08, 2004

Outsourced to Iraq: Prescient Cynicism?

Back in April, shortly after starting this blog, I wrote about the Salvadoran troops in Iraq, noting
"who's to say that these guys can't join the outsourced forces of Blackwater and company after their stint in Iraq."
Well, what seemed logically possible back then has now become reality. For the last several days, El Diario de Hoy has run several stories each day about how hundreds for ex-military and elite cops are being recruited for security duty in Iraq, at a salary of $2500 to $4000 a month. In other words, these guys (and women!) can make more in a month than what it would normally take them a year to bring home.

I'm on the cusp of a few days offline, so I won't go into much detail now, but journalists would do well to take a look at these stories, which are full of details and human interest angles. I could only be amused by President Saca's warning to these potential recruits that things are really, really dangerous over there, and if they choose to go, they're on their own. Dicho de otra forma, if Salvadoran security guards start getting killed, it's not on him!

Click here to read Wednesday, Thursday and Friday's stories, but also take a look around the site for these days because other stories might not be linked directly.

A couple of other relevant blog entries on this subject are here and here.

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