The "invisible army" of foreign workers on US military bases

A student, "T," joked the other day in class that he was planning to write a letter to the major newspapers in Oregon, suggesting that they not publish any of my opinion essays because of their depressing themes and analyses. 

I suppose it is a professional hazard.

The reality is that I am way too much an optimist compared to many of the essays I read.  Maybe that is why another student, "W," wrote in her email:

Thanks for teaching this class; I really enjoyed it and was challenged to learn surprisingly more than I do in most other classes. And it's true, I still have no idea where you stand on all of these issues.

"W" and most other students are always left wondering where I stand on most pressing issues of the day because for the most part all I end up doing in class is to ask as many probing questions as I can, perhaps even as the metaphorical devil's advocate.  And I tell them not to worry about what my own bottom-line is.

However, here in my blog, it is another story--it is here, not even in the opinion pieces--that I write what I feel about ... for instance, about the US military expeditions and the use of contracted foreign labor, which is what this post is about.

It is way past time we wrapped up our military adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and, for that matter, in NATO too.

In this grand scheme of things lies Sarah Stilman's truly depressing piece in the New Yorker on how we use and abuse foreign workers on our bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.  If "T" were to read it, he would be surprised at how much an optimist I am!

For business reasons, the New Yorker has Stilman's essay behind its paywall.  Which does great disservice--people need to read these kind of essays in order to get an idea of how our wars end up screwing up lives of people as far away as in Fiji and India.

Stilamn's essay begins with the story of three Fijian beauticians leaving their island with dreams of earning lots and lots of money in Dubai, only to find that the recruiting company had duped them about the job, which wouldn't pay all that much and was going to be in the notorious Green Zone in Baghdad.  They are merely three of the thousands of foreign labor used in camps, thanks to all the defense outsourcing. 

The vast majority—more than sixty per cent of the total in Iraq—aren’t hired guns but hired hands. These workers, primarily from South Asia and Africa, often live in barbed-wire compounds on U.S. bases. A large number are employed by fly-by-night subcontractors who are financed by the American taxpayer but who often operate outside the law. The wars’ foreign workers are known, in military parlance, as “third-country nationals,” or T.C.N.s. Many of them recount having been robbed of wages, injured without compensation, subjected to sexual assault, and held in conditions resembling indentured servitude by their subcontractor bosses.

These foreign labor are treated practically as slaves.  How bad is the situation? Sometimes they are not even fed!:

... thousands of third-country nationals have tried to make their grievances known, sometimes spectacularly.  Previously unreported worker riots have erupted on U.S. bases over issues such as lack of food and unpaid wages. On May 1, 2010, in a labor camp run by Prime Projects International (PPI) on the largest military base in Baghdad, more than a thousand subcontractors--primarily Indians and Nepalis--rampaged, using as weapons fists, stones, wooden bats, and, as one US military policeman put it, "anything they could find." ...
At one point, as many as fourteen hundred men were smashing windows, hurling stones, destroying computers raiding company files, and battering the entrance to the camp where a large blue-and-white sign reads "Treat others how you want to be treated ... No damaging PPI property that has been built for your comfort." ...

And, to top all these off:

Three military policemen under sergeant Trvett's supervision that night later received Army Achievement Medals for their role in quelling the rampage.

We do all these and more in the name of fighting a war! 

With war-mongering presidents, which include Obama, and a jingoistic Congress that is afraid to challenge the executive despite what the Constitution says, I suppose we have no time to worry about the enormous destruction to life, property, and ideals.

But, apparently we have all the resources and energy to waste on Weinergate!