NOVEMBER 26TH, 2007 | Polis for Congress
Jared Polis wraps up week-long trip to Iraq, Jordan
By John Aguilar
With the war in Iraq likely to continue occupying center stage in the race for Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District seat, Democratic candidate Jared Polis gave his campaign a shot of firsthand experience on the issue by visiting the war zone last week.
Polis spent the week in Baghdad and Amman, Jordan, where he kept an Internet blog of his experiences and held live question-and-answer sessions via conference call and computer.
He is scheduled to be back in Colorado early this week.
Polis’ rivals in the race, former Colorado State Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald and Colorado Conservation Trust Executive Director Will Shafroth, have questioned whether the trip by the wealthy Boulder entrepreneur is anything more than political grandstanding.
The three Democrats are running for the congressional seat currently held by Rep. Mark Udall.
Polis reserved much of his online commentary for the military contractors the United States hires to provide support and security in Iraq.
“Apparently, this is modern warfare. Private armies hired by nation states and controlled by corporations,” he wrote in a Wednesday posting to his congressional campaign Web site. “The contractors owe allegiance to the corporations who employ them more than any particular nation state.”
He remarked that several of the contractors he ran across in Iraq were Chilean and Peruvian men hired by American companies and said thathis most nerve-wracking moments came during a night spent in a compound outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone that was run by Angolan guards overseen by South African contractors.
The candidate sensed that a mutiny by privately employed gun-toting guards against their superiors was “only a matter of time.”
“All it will take is a slight, real or perceived, from a corporate employer; perhaps a late paycheck, a corporate error that costs lives, or orders that the mercenaries don’t want to follow,” Polis wrote in a Saturday posting. “At its best, the mutiny will be a work-stoppage; at its worst there could be bloodshed on all sides.”
He called on Congress to scale back the role of private contractors, especially as it relates to combat roles.
Ask Jared a question!
