Fascist contractors
Aside from the US Armed Forces, US imperialism also extensively employs some 20,000 military contractors in its �counter-terrorist� operations in Iraq. Usually former generals and soldiers hired by the US government, they are paid up to $200,000 to perform functions formally prohibited within the military, such as the torture and killing of captives.
One such contractor, former Special Forces operative Jonathan Keith Idema, avers that everything he did was coordinated with the CIA and supported by the US military�s top brass. On July 5, 2004, Afghani police entered a private prison that he ran and found three men hanging from the ceiling. Five others were badly beaten and bound inside a small and dark room.
David A. Passaro, also a former Special Forces operative was ordered by the US government to extract information from Abdul Wali, an accused terrorist, in Afghanistan. When Wali insisted that he knew nothing, Passaro beat him to death with a metal flashlight.
In recent years, contractors have been involved in various cases of brutality, ranging from racist abuses in Croatia to sex trafficking in Bosnia. Although Idema and Passaro are now facing criminal charges, nothing stops the imperialist government from contracting thousands of others to replace them.
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