Mercenaries & U.S. Foreign Policy

"[T]he [estimated] revenues of the private military companies [i.e., mercenaries like Blackwater], which were at $55.6 billion in 1990, will rise to $202 billion by 2010. The companies even have their own industry trade group, the International Peace Operations Association--a name George Orwell would have cherished . . . . Much of this privatization of our armed forces is actually deeply disliked by uniformed professionals. As Colonel Bruce Grant notes, 'Privatization is a way of going around Congress [i.e., avoiding Congressional oversight] and not telling the public [about the nature of military operations being conducted by these firms]. Foreign policy is made by default by private military consultants motivated by bottom-line profits.' "

C. Johnson, Sorrows of Empire, pp. 141-42.