Do not forget the Missing Five

29 May 2008 marks one year since five British hostages have been held in captivity in Iraq, possibly Iran.

At noon on 29 May 2007, five British security guards employed by GardaWorld, a Canadian-owned security company, and a computer specialist working for BearingPoint, the US-based management consultancy firm, were kidnapped at gunpoint in Iraq. The kidnap occurred in broad daylight in central Baghdad. Dozens of men in police uniform seized them from a Finance Ministry building off Palestine Street. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair then said, “We will do everything we possibly can to help.” A month later, there were still signs of activity aimed at recovering the hostages. Subsequently news went cold. Early in September the story resurfaced, when on the eve of their 100th day in captivity Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of Multi-National Corps - Iraq, was quoted saying, “We track every day where we think they might be. We have reason to think they are still alive.” This was more of a reply to a join-plea by the families of the victims than a periodic update on their faith. ‘They are sons, fathers and brothers who were working to support us’, the families’ plea stated. The Foreign Office went on to remind the media ‘not to publish the names or personal details of those who have been kidnapped. The situation remains that all information can potentially be of use to their abductors and endanger the captives.’ The opposite, i.e. the lack of information, has also worked to the kidnapers’ advantage. Upon the release of a video of the men late in November, the Foreign Office was reported noting that “although there is much going on behind the scenes, it is extremely sensitive and we can’t go into details about it.” A year on, Canon Andrew White, the Anglican vicar of Baghdad, Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, and the hostages’ families continue to work frantically to secure the Missing Five’s freedom.

Where there is a political will, often there is a way

Their safe release will not turn around the approval ratings of Prime Minister Gordon Brown or President George W. Bush. It would neither be a story sexy enough to spin as yet another set of freshly released humanitarian tourists. However, it would give their life back to families paralyzed by the crisis. Please do not forget the Missing Five.

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If you live in the UK, contact your MP and express your concern about the faith of the Missing Five British contractors: click here

If you live in Canada, contact your MP and express your concern about missing British workers employed by a Canadian-owned firm: click here

If you live in the US, contact your Congressperson and express your concern about five missing British contractors who were working on the reconstruction of Iraq: click here

Write to Senator John McCain: click here

Write to Senator Barack Obama: click here

Write to Senator Hillary Cinton: click here

Britain’s phoney debate about security contractors and terrorism

Early in the decade Great Britain was at the forefront of the debate about the role and regulation of security contractors. The green paper exploring avenues for their regulation was entitled Private Military Companies: Options for Regulation, because Private Military Companies (PMCs) is an adequate term differentiating this type of firms from those offering soft services such as the guarding of banks, shopping malls, and private estates. A constructive debate about alternative futures for an industry needed yet in need of clearer parameters of operation followed the release of the green paper. For a country in which the writing of memoirs by former servicemen and intelligence officers is nearly customary, less was not expected. Towards the close of the decade, however, the serious debate about the role and regulation of PMCs now takes place in Washington DC. Moreover, the UK government appears uncomfortably ambivalent towards the need of an open and continuous debate about fundamentalist terrorism, either penetrating or originating within the UK. This week the attempt of a young man to carry out a terrorist suicide bombing at an Exeter restaurant was not deemed worthy of extensive media coverage and in fact was not known to many people. Evidently, PMCs and terrorism are two different topics, although sometimes they converge. Yet the current ambivalence towards both is symptomatic of the worrisome and surreal attitude that has come to characterize the premiership of Gordon Brown. It is indeed perplexing because the UK is a leading supplier of PMCs and like the US faces an ongoing terror threat.

Perhaps the unnatural preoccupation of the UK government and its client state with social engineering has got in the way of the serious debate about PMCs and contemporary terror. Nowadays one needs to be worried about openly debating the active role of marginal segments of the British population in domestic and international terrorist activities. Other than in the comfort of your own home, preferably thinking about it while taking a shower, do not dare linking terrorism with M or I if you do not want to get arrested. Simultaneously, it is offensive to the ever growing ranks of the client state to hear anything about private military personnel other than a blanket call for their termination. Do you remember the stereotypical and sexist old view of the beauty pageant contestant expressing her desire for world peace? Do you remember wanting to tell her that the world is a little more complex than how she saw it? Ironically, the beauty-pageant view is now shared by the noveau bureaucrats populating the British client state. It is therefore no surprising that in the UK the real debate about PMCs and terrorism now takes place behind closed doors. The general public can only entertain the idea of appropriating the US debate. It is risk free. One does not need to worry about spending at day at the local police station, increasingly under the wrap of the client state, for debating genuine public concerns.

Deeply concerned about growing extremism, HMG sought through the “Prevent” portion of its Counterterrorism Strategy to prevent the radicalization of vulnerable populations by exerting influence on both extremists and their audiences, addressing structural problems that cause radicalization, and disrupting extremists’ ability to gain access that means of communications such as websites, blogsites, and other forms of new media. HMG also made efforts to stimulate self-regulation from the mosques and imams. Taken from the DOS Country Reports on Terrorism.