CorpWatch
Susan Burke, a lawyer for Iraqi prisoners who say they were tortured at Abu Ghraib, challenges the legality of using private contractors for interrogation. "Interrogation has always been considered an inherently governmental function for obvious reasons. It is irresponsible and dangerous to use contractors in such settings given that there is a long history of repeated human rights abuses by contractors." The Philadelphia attorney charges that the use of private contractors is illegal. "The United States Congress has passed laws (the Federal Acquisition Regulations) that prevent the executive branch from delegating "inherently governmental functions" to private parties."
Some might argue this is a weak argument. What the heck is an "inherently" government function. However, the real scary issue is that we are using tax payer dollars to train and enable corporations with no public accountability to enter into an arena of government responsibility that has been exclusive: intelligence, foreign policy, even manipulating media reports in the US by actually or just appearing to change world events. Now it's interrogation. Next will it be rendition? Or is this already happening?
Anyone watching the multinationals world-wide have seen them manipulating events and public opinion to further their interests. Natural gas interests talked of seceding their gas rich deposits and land from Bolivia. I'm sure this has been played out many times over the past couple of centuries.
What terrifies me is multinationals secretly conducting their own corporate foreign policy in a coordinated way using the tools, technology and ruthlessness of the CIA. Where do you suppose the Bush foreign policy team will go after 2008? I'm sure there will be jobs waiting.
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