{"id":527,"date":"2007-07-15T01:48:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-15T07:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=527"},"modified":"2007-07-15T01:48:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-15T07:48:00","slug":"another-iraq-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/07\/another-iraq-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Iraq blog…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span> keep an eye<\/a> out for interesting blogs<\/a> (authenticity unguaranteed) from Iraq<\/span>. This one is zen-traveler<\/span><\/span> from \u201cEric,\u201d a security type guarding what I\u2019m guessing is the Fox News<\/span> villa in Baghdad. A lot of boredom, the ever-present threat of violence, live-shots – and some Zen Buddhism. Some interesting observations, but if I was Eric, I\u2019d read more history and less Buddhism. Still, welcome to his world… <\/p>\n

Question: What is going to happen when the U.S. military eventually pulls out and Congress turns off or limits funding for reconstruction? The \u201cbubble bursts\u201d, \u201cthe music stops\u201d stops\u201d whatever metaphor you want to use, most of those 20-50,000 security contractors are going to be scrambling for a job. <\/p>\n

After running around in Iraq for a year are they going to happily go back to working the gun counter at Wal-mart? Sure there\u2019s there\u2019s security work in the United States, but the U.S. domestic security industry is a finite beast and has much different rules and regulations than Iraq. Ex-contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan will not be easily absorbed into the U.S. or international security market, so what will become of them?<\/p>\n

Some things to keep in mind if you\u2019re you\u2019re a security contractor:<\/p>\n

The security for Iraq, one way or another, will be turned over to the Iraqis. Someone has to manage and train that industry. There\u2019s opportunity there.<\/p>\n

Sure there will be other conflicts around the world that will require security contractors, but the United States won\u2019t won\u2019t be involved for a long time to come. That\u2019s the coming political reality. That means no large U.S. Government contracts to pay your salary…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Don\u2019t worry, Eric – there\u2019s always education!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I keep an eye out for interesting blogs (authenticity unguaranteed) from Iraq. This one is zen-traveler from \u201cEric,\u201d a security type guarding what I\u2019m guessing is the Fox News villa in Baghdad. A lot of boredom, the ever-present threat of violence, live-shots – and some Zen Buddhism. Some interesting observations, but if I was Eric, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","tag-fox-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}