Big Boy Rules: America’s Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq by Steve Fainaru
Da Capo Press, £15.99
THIS moving book reveals the human cost of Bush and Blair’s illegal war in Iraq. Written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Steve Fainaru of the Washington Post, it follows a group of mercenaries, mainly American, as they roam across a war-torn country immune to any laws of decency, fighting a war by proxy and for profit.
As well as defining the “fight, survive, get paid” rules under which they operate, he describes the corruption and moral bankruptcy of the American-led, British-supported policies of so-called “reconstruction”. So-called because it is palpably clear the outcome is to line the pockets of the mercenaries – and the American corporations which employ them – at the expense of the Iraqis.
Yet in the descriptions of the suffering of the mercenaries’ families – it’s hard to use the “private security contractor” euphemism – the human cost of the war is brilliantly exposed. Interwoven through Fainaru’s narrative is the story of five Americans working for a shady outfit called Crescent Security. Kidnapped by an Iraqi group which remained unidentified but was, in all probability, a disparate mix of opportunists, criminals and insurgents, their mutilated bodies were found a year or so after they vanished. The impact of them going missing, and the indifference of the American authorities to do anything to find them, are described in detail by a reporter who lived the story, became emotionally entangled with it yet retained the objectivity to tell it as it was. It is a masterpiece of journalism.
In telling the story through the missions the mercenaries undertook on behalf of the American and Iraqi governments we learn much about anarchy and de facto civil war in Iraq. The real story of how much the American and other military forces rely on mercenaries is also told. The arm’s length outsourcing hides not only profiteering but also the real military death toll in a war where no one wins.
Fainaru’s writing is littered with the macho, testosterone-fuelled language of the characters involved. Iraq has proved a magnet for those war-like men from around the world, including Americans, Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Fijians, South Africans, Peruvians, Chileans and many more, who find fulfilment at the end of a loaded weapon aimed at a fellow human being. Cover-ups are the norm in the shoot first and, if you can be bothered, ask questions later culture of this murky yet officially sanctioned world.
How can people sink to such levels of barbarity? And what does this say for the governments who condone their actions by employing them? There’s sadness, too, that Iraq, anxious for change after Saddam Hussein, was condemned to the chaos and pillage of these licensed bandits.
Fainaru has lifted the lid on the moral bankruptcy of Bush and Blair, and his excellent book makes a major contribution to understanding why the peace movement exists and why, if it didn’t, it would need to be invented.
Andrew Dodgshon
