Dyncorp and Friends: Securing Private Politics Part III

In an article by Journalist Uri Dowbenko he includes an explication of the financial mechanics behind Dyncorp’s free reign in the “War on Drugs” propaganda ploy. Catherine Austin Fitts, former FHA Commissioner in the Bush Sr. Administration and former CEO of Hamilton Securities outlines how they do it where she refers to the creation of Stock Value or Capital Gains as “Pop” in Wall Street jargon:

If DynCorp has a $60 million per year contract supporting knowledge management for asset seizures in the United States," she says. "The current proxy shows that they value their stock, which they buy and sell internally, at approximately 30 times earnings. So, if a contract has a 5-10% profit, then per $100 million of contracts, DynCorp makes about $5-$10 million, which translates into $150 million to $300 million of stock value. That means that for a $200 million contract, with average earnings of 5-10% ($10 million to $20 million), DynCorp is generating $300 million to $600 million of stock value.

Pug Winokur of Capricorn Holdings appears to have about 5% ownership, which means that his partnerships' stock value increase $15-$30 million from the War in Colombia. If the DynCorp team kills 100 people, as an example, then that means they make $1.5 - $3 million per death. That way the Pop per Dead Colombian can be estimated, or, how much capital gains can be made from killing one Colombian. Since DynCorp was also in the Gulf and in Kosovo, we should be able to calculate the relative value of killing people in various cultures and nationalities. Pug Winokur’s partnership, under these assumptions, makes $75,000 to $250,000 of Pop per Dead Colombian. ¹⁶

Of course, Bush’s anti-terror bill injected more financial aid to President Alvare Uribe’s hard right-wing government and managed to destroy much of the progress on human rights of the last few decades. It also smoothed the way for a doubling of the number of US troops and US contractors allowed in Colombia such as Dyncorp and Textron (the military helicopter firm) which is to proceed from 2005 to 2009. The displacement of an already acutely oppressed people has reached 3 million and is worsening as a direct result of U.S. policy and the outsourcing of its global agenda. 
 

What we are witnessing in Colombia and Ecuador is also what we are witnessing in Iraq: an exported pathology of politics without conscience and with an agenda of complete control under the geo-political mandate of “Union” - Pan American style. Yet Dyncorp and Computer Sciences are not the only U.S. flagship corporations famous for exporting the real American values abroad. Private armies are proving to be a rapidly growing business.

The U.N. General Assembly adopted the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries in 1989 where around nineteen states ratified the Convention and nine states have signed but have yet to ratify the Convention as of 2004. At least three of the countries are officially known to have flouted the Convention.¹ This followed in 1992 with a further amendment to the convention which was similarly ignored.¹⁷ It was also declared that “the use of mercenaries is a threat to international peace and security” and that all were “Deeply concerned about the menace that the activities of mercenaries represent for all States, particularly African and other developing States” as well as “Profoundly alarmed at the continued international criminal activities of mercenaries in collusion with drug traffickers…”  
 

All well and good but this made little difference to the business of war. The extent of this indignation and concern was shown in the 1997 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on mercenaries regarding the growth market in mercenary activity:

‘In what appears to be a new international trend, legally registered companies are providing security, advisory and military training to the armed forces and police of legitimate Governments. There have been complaints that some of these companies recruit mercenaries and go beyond advisory and instruction work to become involved in military combat and taking over political, economic and financial matters in the country served.’ ¹⁸

While Dyncorp’s associations with the UN already reek of hypocrisy, these naïve protestations are further laid bare when we realize that Lifeguard Security, a company linked to Executive Outcomes, a U.K. mercenary company, was responsible for guarding U.N. offices and residences in Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown in 2004. The refusal of the U.K. a major manufacturer of weapons and source of mercenaries to sign the Convention was given an embarrassing exercise in exposition with the Equatorial Guinea Mercenaries Coup affair. Sir Mark Thatcher and Simon Mann’s foray in arms deals were highlighted in spectacular fashion, revealing the business that rarely gets a mention yet is so instrumental in the destinies of government coups everywhere.  
 

The Vinnell Corp., a Fairfax, Va., company part of the Northrop-Grumman merger in 2000, employs ex-military and CIA personnel as well as having close connections with concurrent U.S. administrations. It has had a contractual relationship to train the Saudi Arabian National Guard since 1975. This led to Bush condemning an attack in Riyadh in May 2003 that killed at least 30 people blamed, of course, on Al-Qaeda. True to the infantile propaganda that is circulating so effectively via the U.S. media every violent event and grouping becomes part of Osama’s tentacles representing a highly organized network. Where sufficient terrorism activity is absent, then why not create it?  
 

This is very often the role of security companies such as Vinnell that act as foreign policy enforcers. They are there to prop up the regime and to keep dissidents at bay, hence they become targets. This is not dissimilar to the “insurgents” in Iraq who attack those intent on planting bombs and creating the seeds of a civil war. Under cover of chaos it is far easier to go about your business of exploiting the countries resources and laying plans for future geo-political monopolies. The terror wars are fuelling the security business growth and in turn, it is ensuring that terrorism remains a global menace much to the delight of arms dealers everywhere. Such is the Anglo-American tradition.

Companies such as Vance International specialize in American corporate executives travelling overseas, wealthy foreigners visiting the United States and the extravagance of Hollywood stars. It is renowned for using mostly ex-military men for “asset protection.” Then there is Global Options which provides high-end security, intelligence and investigative services, billing itself as a “private CIA, FBI, State Department and Justice Department wrapped up into one.” Not forgetting its emphasis on “defending corporate America” which should fill us all with confidence.¹⁹

Control Risk, Sandline International, Executive Outcomes and MPRI specialize in providing training mercenaries for armies worldwide. Or more plainly, they are hired by governments to fight for them. Security corporations all provide services of “risk mitigation” and “executive or asset protection” for governments, intelligence agencies and the Elite to ply their trade above and beyond the law, though many corporations would feign incredulity at such heinous accusations.

Ethics are not going to be top of the list in any of these businesses that would clearly kill the local nursery teacher if it helped the fortunes of the beloved U.S. What is more, the nature of the US Army and Navy means that they are chock full of psychopaths, jackals and Skirtoids ¹which are then used as the pool from which Private security firms draw their personnel. Former FBI agents, intelligence directors, Delta-Force, Air-Force, SWAT, Army Intelligence operatives, Secret Service agents, CIA veterans, Navel Seals and ex-Marines – you name it, the demand is there for such men (and in some cases women). Security services and mercenaries for hire act as funnels stuck into the back ends of the US military and secret service arms to save money, resources and to actualise foreign policy moves beyond the - albeit pitiful - radar of the media and public. Remember of course, there is no such thing as a former FBI or CIA agent or any government intelligence operative. 

As controversy about rendition and torture continues to bubble, private security firms are merging with propaganda and the free-market to produce a boom in private finance deals both in Europe as well as the U.S. Private-sector firms are even sponsoring academics and researchers and helping to formulate government penal and criminal justice policy, no doubt tailored towards an increasing reliance on profit over public interest.  

Stephen Nathan, editor of Prison Privatisation Report International said, regarding Demark-based security firm Group 4 Falck/Wackenhut and its services: “The increasing influence of the private sector in the criminal justice system means shareholders' interests come first. Who shapes criminal justice policy? Is it professionals, politicians and the public? Or is it Group 4 shareholders?”Though the tired suggestion that it is simply market forces and intense competition that has led to the prison services adopting more aggressively commercial approaches, this does not address the issue of rising crime rates of young offenders, yet it makes a substantial profit for those ready to provide the means to sweep problems out of sight and out of mind.  

Profits from the private are notoriously lax in sharing dividends with the public sector - private security is no different. The health service and the dismantling of the welfare state in the U.K. signals the rise of Blair’s corporatism and the terminal erosion for civic and social influence.

  

Notes

16 Catherine Austin Fitts quoted in ‘Dirty Tricks, Inc.:The DynCorp-Government Connection’ 2002, by Uri Dowbenko. 

International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, Resolution 44/34,72nd plenary meeting 4 December 1989. United Nations General Assembly, www.un.org/

17 United Nations Resolution A/RES/47/84, 89th plenary meeting, 16 December 1992. Use of mercenaries as a means to violate human rights and to impede the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination. http://www.un.org/

18 The Debate on Private Military companies 1997 report by the UN Special Rapporteur.

19 www.globaloptions.com

20 ‘Crime pays handsomely for Britain's private jails’ Running a prison is lucrative business - as long as offenders keep rol ling in. by Nick Mathiason, The Observer, March 11, 2001.