Rev. John W. Whitehead: Privatizing the War on Terror!

America's troops may be returning home from Iraq, but contrary to President Obama's assertion that "the tide of war is receding," we're far from paying the costs of war. In fact, at the same time that Obama is reducing the number of troops in Iraq, he's replacing them with "military contractors" at far greater expense to the taxpayer, and redeploying American troops to other parts of the globe, including Africa, Australia and Israel. In this way, the "war on terror" is privatized, the American economy is bled dry, and the military-security industrial complex makes a killing - literally and figuratively speaking. The war effort in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan has already cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion and could go as high as $4.4 trillion before it's all over. At least $31 billion of that $2 trillion was lost to waste and fraud by military contractors, who do everything from janitorial and food service work to construction, security and intelligence, jobs that used to be handled by the military. That translates to a loss of $12 million a day since the US first invaded Afghanistan. To put it another way, over the past two decades, America has become increasingly dependent on military contractors in order to carry out military operations abroad. According to the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States can no longer conduct large or sustained military operations or respond to major disasters without heavy support from contractors, As a result, the US employs at a minimum one contractor to support every soldier deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. For those signing on for contractor work, many of whom are hired by private contracting firms after serving stints in the military, it is a lucrative, albeit dangerous career path. While base pay for an American soldier hovers somewhere around $19,000 per year, contractors are reportedly pulling in between $150,000 to $250,000 per year.