The US should discontinue its use of private military contractors

== Rebuttal (cont'd from Round 1) == R1) group his C and D 1. Remember, the CRS said that most PMC personnel are locals so they blend in, and thus (turn), they cause less anti-American sentiment than US soldiers, who stand out. 2. Our troops are worse and have less oversight. According to the Wikileaks War Logs, our military has already killed 109,000 civilians in Iraq, 15,000 of which the military had tried to cover-up. [1] 3. Remember, turn, fewer contractors means fewer boots on the ground, which Senlis Afghanistan tells us means an over-reliance on air support, vastly increasing civilian casualties. 4. Turn, many of our translators are contractors (according to the CRS). Without translators, we will lose hearts and minds because we won't be able to communicate effectively with locals. R2) No allegiance 1. My opponent is correct: contractors pay off local warlords in Afghanistan so they don't attack convoys. But with corruption endemic in Afghanistan, our diplomatic corps and military tolerate massive corruption, making this non-unique to contractors. We even tolerate Karzai's stolen election and his drug dealing brother, Ahmed Wali. Paying the warlords off is safer and better for everyone than having more fighting and instability along the nation's highways. 2. According to my opponent's own source, the allegations of contractors paying the Taliban to attack them are completely unsubstantiated and this makes little logical sense anyways. 3. The contractors in Sierra Leone were not U.S. PMC's. We have arrangements with our private military contractors that prevent them from working with nations hostile to the United States. If they did so, they would not be rehired, and U.S. contracts are worth more than the contracts of our opponents (the Taliban?). 4. Contractors used for more sensitive missions are usually former Navy SEALS, who would be extremely loyal to the U.S. R3) Other disadvantages A. Operate solely within contact 1. This is one unfortunate incident, but the Army generally does a better job at writing the contracts to be as broad and general as possible. 2. The DOD Inspector General report found that the Army was equally at fault and could have easily had the electrical problems repaired itself or pushed KBR to repair them; once notified properly of the problems, "KBR initiated the inspection of over 75,000 structures throughout Iraq and was making life, health, and safety repairs". [2] B. Waste Money My opponent says "The Defense Contract Audit Agency found that contractors…" The fact that there is now a Defense Contract Audit Agency means there is a thousand times more accountability for expenses for PMC's than exists within our own DOD military budget. Christopher Preble documents far more than $10 billion that have been wasted through military procurement programs, like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Virginia class submarine, and V22-Osprey. [3] He laments that there is no oversight for these procurement programs, which routinely come in billions of dollars over-budget and often fail to deliver at all. The DOD refuses to even publish its expenditures for inspection. Oversight for contractors is, in fact, better than oversight for our regular military. == Rebuttal to Round 2 == C1) Force multiplier Original argument: currently, only 20% of US forces can be on combat duty at any given time. Without PMC's to perform base support functions, this ratio would be even lower, making our fighting forces extremely ineffective. My opponent claims that the problem would be solved if there were no "brain drain" from the military. A brain drain exists among Navy SEALS and specialized personnel, but only because certain contractors are willing to pay them MORE than the military is willing to pay them. But this is not true for the typical base support or logistical support personnel, who costs, on average, $15,000 less than a US government-employed counterpart (according to the GAO). Having 90,000 more troops from Iraq won't solve the problem either, since according to the same CRS report, PMC's account for 50% of our military personnel. We'd need at least an additional 500,000 personnel to replace PMC's everywhere our military currently operates. Extend C3 under this argument as the impact. Without PMC's, we would either need to implement a draft or forgo most of our military operations, such as deterring North Korean aggression against South Korea. My opponent says conscription would never work because of strong domestic opposition, but Vietnam clearly disproves this argument. Many neo-cons within the Bush administration were pushing for conscription; only PMC's prevented such an outcome. C2) Oversight The Armed Contractor Oversight Division along with the Defense Contract Audit Agency have been successful in reigning in abuses other than shooting incidents as well. My opponents other objections just nitpick the study methodology, but any study would be prudent to point out that causation is difficult to prove when there are so many factors. That doesn't negate the fact that there are two new oversight divisions and preliminary evidence shows them to be very effective. In addition, the new Status of Force agreements in Iraq and Afghanistan no longer give contractors immunity to domestic laws, but still grant such immunity to our troops. Contractors are now being prosecuted by Afghanistan and Iraq for the crimes they commit there. [4] C4) Cost My opponent drops the evidence that according to a 20 year CBO study, logistical support is 90% cheaper from PMC's. The other study looks at peacetime savings, which applies to PMC personnel in South Korea, Germany, etc. But given that troops in active combat earn hazard pay and lifetime health insurance, it's likely that we achieve even greater cost savings in Iraq and Afghanistan. C5) Humanitarian interventions This is a big winner for Con. My opponent agrees that without PMC's, political leaders would not have the political cover to intervene in genocides around the world and that PMC's are extremely effective at stopping genocides, as they were in Serbia/Bosnia. His only argument is that they work both sides, but this is not true in Afghanistan (they are not hiring themselves out to the Taliban) or whenever the US is involved. I challenge my opponent to show examples of US PMC's working with the opposition in Serbia or Somalia, when they were used. Clinton had to stand by and watch millions slaughtered in Rwanda because he could not put US boots on the ground due to Somalia. Luckily, by the time the Croatian/Serbian disasters rolled around, Clinton figured out that he could use PMC's to save lives without angering the public. C6) Security Guards Extend the Wikileaks evidence; our military killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. Blackwater has done an amazing job in comparison. And Blackwater has never let someone they were guarding die, something that cannot be said for our own military. The Iraqi police force is so corrupt that a report to Congress recommended they be scrapped. [5] Trusting the State Department in Iraq to their care would be a cruel fate for many American citizens. If you're worried about people trusting us, relying on the local police is the worst possible idea. A 2010 Army report found that people in Afghanistan rank the local police as more dangerous than roadside bombs and criminals. [6] C7) Air support The Senlis Afghanistan report was written prior to the surge in Afghanistan, saying we need more troops to prevent civilian casualties. Obama's additional 30,000 troops brought us up to sufficient levels. Getting rid of PMC's would get rid of 50% of our forces in Afghanistan, which would undoubtedly make us rely more on air support, resulting in many times more civilian casualties. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] The Power Problem, p. 43-52 [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5]