Although they are supposed to protect the public, these contractors, spoiled by Washington’s backing, tend to treat the public as potential terrorists and indulge in unlawful practices. While this news may surprise many people around the world, we do not have such a luxury. This is because we have already implemented this model, as we inherited it from the Ottoman Empire, and have called it the village guards system. When the clashes with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) peaked, another class was added to the village guards: former PKK members who started to side with the state. The outcome: 17,000 people murdered mysteriously and apparently with some political motives and whose murders remain unresolved.
Like contractors, village guards act on behalf of the state, but do not consider themselves bound by its laws. Like contractors, village guards were involved in a number of illegal actions, particularly drug smuggling, rape and murder. However, the state chose and still chooses to ignore these offenses in the name of counterterrorism. Although it has paved the way for the discussion of many controversial matters, such as the role of the military, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) refrains from touching the village guard system. It does not take steps to purge them, let alone investigate their illegal actions. Currently, there are thousands of people who were armed by the state and they are paid monthly salaries by the state. They don’t want to be disarmed because they are afraid of a backlash from the local people whom they have tyrannized for many years now. Also, they are not eager to be stripped of the privileged status they acquired by having guns. However, people and groups that seek peace, particularly including the government, must question the village guard system and admit that it has to be abolished as soon as possible.
In the final analysis, any armed force that is outside the traditional legal system is the greatest enemy of the people whom the legal system is supposed to protect. This is because by resorting to extrajudicial methods, they cause the public to be against the system.
Such forces, be they contractors or village guards, find augmented tolerance from the state that is not eager for any scandal to play into the hands of its enemies. The Pentagon documents that were leaked to the media show that this fact applies to the US as well. Washington witnessed the illegal actions of its contractors, such as the killing of innocent people, but chose to cover them up in order not to weaken its overall purpose in the war. The armed forces of a country that brags about being democratic cannot be bound by different laws inside or outside the country. Otherwise, the human rights reports issued every year by the US administration should be thrown into the trash.
A country that does not see itself bound by the law in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot claim to teach lessons in the rule of law to other countries. This applies to Ankara, which attempts to teach a moral lesson to Israel about Palestine. An administration that does not question and purge a force that violates the most fundamental human rights and freedoms of its own citizens is not entitled to preach about human rights.
We are living in a time when the power of the state has unabashedly increased. We are being deprived of the sanctity of our private lives and freedom of communication. Individuals are constantly being supervised by Big Brother. To equip such an extremely strong power with elements that are prone to violate the law is the greatest betrayal of democracy. The US administration is enraged about those who leaked the Pentagon documents. If it had exhibited only a fraction of this rage against those who conducted those illegalities, its prestige would have been quite different in the Muslim world and all around the world now. The leaked Pentagon documents show that when US interests are at stake, the Obama administration is no different from the Bush administration, at least in this part of the world. A mentality that affords extensive protection to Israel and ignores the crimes committed against the Iraqi and Afghan people cannot earn respectability in this region. This picture will not empower Obama with the ability to use American soft power. What its armed forces are capable of is obvious.
The truth no longer comes out 20 or 30 years later, as was the case in the past. Now the whole world has access to it while the memories are still fresh. And it should be noted that truth comes with a price.
