corrente

I bet you can guess... Anyhow, Bush is hiring South American mercenaries to guard the Iraqi pipelines:

Last month Blackwater USA flew a first group of about 60 former commandos, many of who had trained under the military government of Augusto Pinochet, from Santiago to a 2,400-acre (970-hectare) training camp in North Carolina.

From there they will be taken to Iraq, where they are expected to stay between six months and a year, the president of Blackwater USA, Gary Jackson, told the Guardian by telephone.

"We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals - the Chilean commandos are very, very professional and they fit within the Blackwater system," he said.

The privatisation of security in Iraq is growing as the US seeks to reduce its commitment of troops.

Many soldiers are said to be leaving the army to join the private companies.

Their salaries can be as high as $1,000 a day, the news agency AFP recently reported. Erwin, a 28-year-old former US army sergeant working in Iraq, told AFP: "This place is a goldmine. All you need is five years in the military and you come here and make a good bundle."
--The Guardian, via Corporate Watch.

So let me get this straight.

My tax dollars pay for these guys to be trained.

Then they leave the service, get hired by a contractor, and then my tax dollars pay again, this time an inflated price to the contractor!

Man, that's the ol' Pentagon "self-sucking ice cream cone" in action, isn't it?