Matt « Feral Jundi

Monday, March 23, 2009

Legal News: Translators File Class Action Suit Against GLS

Filed under: Iraq,Legal News — Tags: GLS, Iraq, translators, US Army — Matt @ 8:48 PM

This pisses me off. Translators are such a vital element of this war, and with out them, we would all be lost. Our lives depend on these folks, and all translators in Iraq have taken huge risks to perform their services. So why are we playing games like this? I hope their class action lawsuit tears GLS a new one, because you don’t mess with these folks.

On the flip side, all aspects of the contracting community has seen a downward trend in pay scale, but obviously this drop in pay was way over the top. We’ll see how it turns out. –Matt

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Mother Jones

Military Translators at War

By Bruce Falconer | Mon March 23, 2009 7:48 AM PST

The more than 2,000 Arab Americans currently working for the US military as contract linguists in Iraq are marked for death. Insurgents view them as traitors and, since 2003, at least 300 have been killed on the job. On the streets of Iraq, many don masks to shield their faces from hostile eyes. Their work is difficult and exhausting, but pays well—more than $200,000 a year for the most skilled positions. Or at least it did. Now some of these translators, who have seen their pay abruptly slashed by as much as 40 percent, are at war with Global Linguist Solutions (GLS), the government contractor that manages a $4.6 billion contract to provide interpreters for the US Army on behalf of an array of smaller subcontractors. The outcome of this fight could affect the US mission in Iraq.

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Mexico: Los Zetas, A PMC/Cartel That Truly Deserves Negative Media Attention

Filed under: Law Enforcement,Mexico — Tags: cartels, evil, los zetas, Mexico, PMC — Matt @ 8:23 PM

Thanks to Eeben for pointing these guys out to me. You learn something new all the time, and these guys have been going off the hook since 2003. This is a group, founded by Mexican Special Forces, that executed it’s operations like the military complete with an intelligence apparatus, all for the sake of the drug trade. That to me is evil, and that deserves an onslaught of negative media attention. Yet the media continues to focus on groups like Xe, because it’s easy and safe. Pffft.

The really bad guys are just south of the US border, and have been murderous heathens when it comes to crimes against humanity, yet where is the media pressure? I mean there is no comparison, when you put these guys up against Blackwater, but by all means keep demonizing BW. How about it Jeremy Scahill, why not write about a truly evil PMC and put your efforts into a Los Zetas book……that’s if your man enough? smirk

I also like the idea that Eeben came up with in that same post in the comments section. PMC versus PMC! I would love to see Executive Outcomes come out of retirement and take on these fools. That would be money well spent in my humble opinion. Although from the sounds of it, Los Zetas has kind of taken on an Al Qaeda type of emergence, where the original group is really not in control and the idea of the group lives on in spirit. Missed opportunities. Either way, the myth of the Los Zetas would be a good one to crumble if we could. –Matt

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Los Zetas: Evolution of a Criminal Organization

11 Mar 2009

By Samuel Logan for ISN Security Watch

From the original 31 members, the Mexican organized criminal faction Los Zetas has grown into an organization in its own right, operating separate from the Gulf Cartel and just as violent, Sam Logan writes for ISN Security Watch.

Between the first of the year and mid-March, 2009 the Mexican criminal organization most commonly known as “Los Zetas” has been busy. Members of this group have been linked to a death threat delivered to the president of Guatemala, a grenade thrown into a bar in Pharr, Texas, the death of a high-ranking military general in Cancun, and a fair share of the organized crime-related deaths registered this year in Mexico.

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Sunday, March 22, 2009

Pakistan: A Conversation With David Kilcullen

Filed under: Afghanistan,Pakistan — Tags: counter-insurgency, interview, Kilcullen, Pakistan — Matt @ 10:38 PM

Dr. Kilcullen’s statement on Pakistan is just eery to read. We all know those are the stakes in Pakistan, but it just doesn’t seem to sink in with most of the west. There is so much else going on out there, but this kind of dwarfs everything in terms of threats when you really think about it. A Pakistan that collapses, would not be good, and would be a huge loss in this war.

The other thing that is interesting is that he has given numerous interviews about his thoughts on the way forward, and it seems each interview keeps presenting a more refined viewpoint. So that is why I keep posting them, and trying to get in the right mindset for what is required for this war. I know he lives this stuff daily, and it really helps to hear his thoughts on the matter.

Now on to the one area that continues to get ignored when ever he talks, and that is the role of the contracting industry in his vision of the war effort. I mean there are more of us than US troops, yet still we get no mention as to what we need to be doing in this war to help? Doesn’t anyone else see a problem with this? We are very much a part of the population interaction out there, and our actions do have an impact on the war. So why we continue to be treated like the elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge is beyond me.

Further more, we are a resource, that if used correctly, can certainly add to the effort. What is all this talk of diplomatic efforts, or taking care of the people? Is a soldier with a gun, the best tool for that job, or is a civilian helping a civilian the best tool? I tend to think that both are important to the equation out there, but we tend to fall back on using the soldier with a gun for all problem solving.

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