Cheney Doesn't Need State Power to Make War

Cheney doesn't need state power to consolidate power in the hands of elites. But it helps. Securing government contracts, especially those without much oversight has vastly enriched and expanded corporations such as Halliburton and guns for hire like Blackwater. The more military operations and administrative capacities are allowed to privatize and to expand, the groundwork is laid for corporate actors to pursue their own interests and to enforce them with military force and terror. When non-state actors have the independent power to capture resources and extract payment from those dependent on the resources, those actions are no longer controlled and authorized by states, but by non-state, undemocratic entities. Since they have captured the state (both the U.S. and Iraq) members of those states can still exert influence to limit their power. And we must. Once they are out of office, they can continue enrich and arm themselves against any attempts to bring them to justice.

We can see how this has operated in the 1980's and 90's when for example: members of the CIA operating through a company called "United Fruit" collaborated with the corrupt contras of Nicaragua to confiscate land from farmers and to tyrannize the population by seizing and murdering anyone who tried to organize democratic institutions or opposition to their activities. Numerous contemporary examples exist as well.

How much easier it is now for a corporation to form a cartel and hire its own military force to enforce its operations and its prices.

This will likely be the terrorist threat of the new century. Congress should be acting now to impose criminal penalties against corporate terrorists because international law is too weak to control Americans acting in foreign countries. Unless American law prohibits these activities and punishes them to the fullest extent of the law, there is nothing to prevent any of us to be at the mercy of these independent powers.