praetorian550

WASHINGTON, July 7 (UPI) -- While many commentators acknowledge that private military and security contractors are not mercenaries, some of them still contend that their use, both qualitatively and quantitatively, is a new phenomenon, something that emerged full blown from free market apostles like Ronald Reagan, George Bush (senior and junior) and Bill Clinton.

But any fair-minded reading of history should quickly expose such a view for what it is: namely nonsense.

Private contractors are as American as apple pie. In fact, without private contractors there would not have been an America. Or, to paraphrase Genesis: In the beginning, God created private contractors.

Private contractors helped set the stage for what would become America. Consider that Capt. John Smith was hired by the Virginia Co. to provide security and conduct military operations for the English settlers at Jamestown. He led the 1606 expedition to Virginia and was elected head of Jamestown colony.

Massachusetts is another state whose existence is inextricably liked to a private contractor. Its state seal bears the image of the arm of a private contractor brandishing a sword. The arm and sword, according to an official National Guard history, are those of Capt. Myles Standish, guardian of the Pilgrims. Standish was an English soldier hired by Merchant Adventurers to accompany the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and lead the military defense of Plymouth Colony in 1620.

The private militia of the Massachusetts Bay Co. in 1636 is the ancestor of the Massachusetts Minutemen, who became the first units of the U.S. Army in 1775. Nowadays its descendants are such units as the 181st and 182nd Infantry, 101st Field Artillery, and 101st Engineer Battalion of the Massachusetts National Guard.

As an article in Serviam magazine, an industry trade publication, noted, privately capitalized companies ran the early American colonies and usually financed their self-defense forces on their own, though legal authority still came from the British government. Essentially, the crown outsourced the defense of the colonies to the colonists themselves.

Indeed, going back over a century before that, a Genoese Italian by the name of Christophorus (Christopher) Columbus was essentially working as a private contractor for the king and queen of Spain when he made his famous voyage in 1492 and subsequent ones that started the process of Spanish colonization, which foreshadowed general European settlement of the "New World."

Last year Professor Alexander Tabarrok, at George Mason University, traced the history of private contractors in a study published by the Independent Institute. He showed that public navies and armies only began to displace private contractors in the 19th century, as governments became more powerful and better funded. And a just published book, "Patriot Pirates" by Robert Patton, grandson of Gen. George Patton, details how more than 2,000 privately owned warships were commissioned by Congress to attack the enemy and seize transports and sell their cargoes for money during the American Revolution. Sailors made more in a month than they might otherwise earn in a year. Does that sound familiar?