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Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Private Contractors Doing America's Work


After watching the documentary "Shadow Company" and the spontaneous visit by Michael Logozzo (Ferrara's Brother) we have many different views of the work of "private contractors" in Iraq. How are the two different? What similarities did you hear from both the movie and the guest speaker?

Do you think the "mercenaries" portrayed in the documentary were fairly depicted?

How did Michael Logozzo come to have such an interesting life? What is one thing that you will remember from his visit and the movie?

An interesting comment by Michael Z. "There is always be war. War is necessary." (please feel free to respond here) I know Sam and Pyne had much to say today and didn’t get a chance. I would love to hear from you both.




PS.

Here is the contact info and website link of Nancy's brother.


PS.

Here is the contact info and website link of Nancy's brother.

Michael Logozzo (director of facilities, Afghanistan) (Roshan )
Roshan Website: www.roshan.af

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Warning: LONGEST COMMENT EVER.

On Shadow Company:

I enjoyed watching shadow company, because I always thought private contractors were literally rebuilding Iraq. I didn't know they were mercenaries, hired soldiers. I had no IDEA any of that was happening. Our soldiers and the contractors are different. Contractors chose that as a job, and with soldiers, many sign up because they wanted a free education.(& I quote the movie jarhead, "I got lost on my way to college, sir!") The contractors in the documentary were very...professional and well spoken. After listening to them, it was a little difficult to believe that they kill people for a living. They were fairly depicted as (oddly enough) moral people, professionals who do a service, and do it well. But if we hire out for every war, people won't care if we're in one at all, which is a point Mr. Brown made today. Unless is directly affects some people, they don't CARE! It's sad.

On Michael Logozzo:

Ms. Ferrara's brother was fun to have speaking to us. He has led an interesting life thus far, and now he's apparantly going to China. How one moves from t.v. cooking shows in Poland to Director of Facilities for a Telecom company is a strange transition. Although he said it was mainly luck that put him there, and being in the right place at the right time, he must have been interested to even consider such a strange job. Living in Afghanistan sounds tough, and I doubt I'd want to. His visit didn't relate to the movie too much, to me, because the only similarity is the danger (which he didn't talk too much about due to ms. ferrara being there.) I remember him explaining why he misses WALKING. It must be pretty wierd to not be able to walk around to work and be driven around in an armoured car. He seems to enjoy what he does, which is good because someone has to do it.

On Zilber's comments:

I do agree to some extent that war is bound to happen, although I don't believe it is "necessary". I feel that somewhere, it's a part of human nature. I believe what Michael was saying is that its all about oil and he's okay with that. I'm still on board there. BUT I would rather being told by our gov't thats why we're wasting BILLIONS of dollars a day, as opposed to being fed bullshit lies about WMD's (weapons of mass destruction), or how Saddam and Osama are connected (but most people DON'T know but should, that Osama and Saddam HATE eachother with a fiery passion.) I don't like being told we're fighting a "a war on terror" even though we're really fighting a war for oil. If it were really a war on terror, we'd be in Korea and Ireland, hell even in England. Its sad that the American people can't handle hearing it, and that we can't be weaned off of our dependence on oil yet. Other alternatives have ALREADY BEEN FOUND & then bought by the oil companies so that we're DEPENDANT on them. Its absoloutly aweful.

Okay, I think I'm done.

Anonymous said...

on the shadow company:

i learned more about iraq by watching this video and seeing the everyday life there.they hire contrators then soldiers because they have more expericence and more ideal of what to do. when they kill people for living i wonder to have dreams about the people they killed and that the drama in iraq is more then the army can handle...

on micheal logozzo:

i thank ms. ferrara's brother for coming to class and speaking to us. He led us to information to what he do and why he do it and that he's going to china.he went from cooking for a living to now in iraq in the telecom company. he didnt really talk about the dangers of that- so that he doesnt make ms . ferrara upset.. and he enjoy what he do and im proud of him ...

mike z :


i do agree with mike. the govt is giving alot of money to go to the wars but never to what the counrty really needs.and always telling lies about the war in iraq and never the truth. and always around the hoildays or something major is about to happen the news always have something bad to say and when the hoilday is over it's somthing good.. WHY IS THAT???

Mighty Mojo said...

I do believe that this comment may rival Sam’s in terms of length and degree of rambling…

I also learned a great deal watching the film "Shadow Company". I always fancied that impersonating American Soldiers was illegal and that America liked to practice a "no one is above the law" policy. I have come to the conclusion (not that I didn't think this before) that the American government thinks it's above itself. It's not okay for me to have almost an entire demographic of people believe I'm an American soldier, but that is okay for people the government has hired. Now there's a surplus of hype about drafts and whatnot, but, what with all of our esteemed equality laws and everything, that possibility is almost eliminated, which means that we'll just have to continue to hire private companies like the ones shown in "Shadow Company" to do all our dirty work. And we do do a lot of it, don't we?

As far as Michael Zilber's comments go, I agree that, on occasion, we must have war. Apparently it's a fundamental process humans need to go through in order to maintain their "holier than thou" philosophy concerning the different manners of life forms living on this lovely little planet with them. However, I would argue with him that OIL, a dirty stinky liquid that we use to destroy the ozone layer and further global warming, is NOT a valid reason to kill thousands of people (although Sam seems to have more of an issue with being lied to - not going to get into that here - than with what they're doing through that lie...). If, say, one group of people were, say, murdering another group of people (*cough cough* - Rwanda, Darfur and Chad and Central African Republic - *cough cough*) then I think it would be a little appropriate to break out the machine guns and send out some soldiers. But I suppose we wouldn't get any monetary rewards out of that one, so I suppose we don't really care.

OIL is not a cause. Many of the greatest inventions were born of necessity. If there were to be an extreme oil scarcity I'm sure America could rack a few scientists together and make billions when they created non-oil alternative fuels from renewable resources.

As for Michael Logozzo, I am just in awe. I wish he would take me with him. Ms. Ferrara should surprise us like that more often. Mr. Logozzo is, I don't even know what to say, just a perfect human being. He is not satisfied with perfecting one task, one profession. He is not satisfied with doing one good thing. He must continue learning and doing and helping people in order to live. I would love to do what he is doing. I think I may email him in four years, when I'm through with college, and ask to tag along. There is no limit to the number of times I can say thank you to him for coming and speaking with us.

I would also just like to say that everyone should read the second half of Sam’s last paragraph five times so that I don't have to repeat it here. Oh well, I will anyway: Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are ENEMIES. They HATE each other. There is NO CONNECTION between the Taliban (Bin Laden) and Hussein. NOT OCONNECTED. Stop watching the American news and start reading the newspapers. Watch some Al Jazeera news on YouTube or something. Goodness gracious it just annoys the crap out of me when people slap together Hussein and Bin Laden in the same breath when talking about said infamous "war on Terror". Oy gevult. Okay, I'm done.

Thanks for listening (reading…). Happy Winter, joanna vogel

Anonymous said...

I like Sam, had no clue that we had mercenaries who fought wars for us over in Iraq. I thought that the people who were fighting this war were soldiers from our countries armed forces. I feel that this is a bit immoral for mercenaries to fight in wars. People hired to fight wars don't necessarily give me the impression that they are defending their nations pride. Mercenaries have no real motivation to fight for these countries other than money. Soldiers who fight for their countries are conscious of the reasoning behind the wars and therefore feel compassion for the advancement of their respective nations.

Anonymous said...

I agree with sammalamma...i didn't know that we had mercenaries in the war, especially them being "hired soldiers" but i do think that that is a good idea. After watching Shadow Company and looking at different videos from YouTube I really understand why people sign up for the war. Unfortunatly my cousin is leaving to go to Iraq in August and it is a tough time in my family i feel he will do a great job! Also, at the place where i work, there are alot of people who have been in Iraq as a Marine and when i asked them about the war they jus get choked up and do not wish to say ANYTHING. That is totally explainable. On Zilbers comment...I feel that he is actually right and that there always will be war no matter what. The government is so ridiculous that they will probally go to war for just about anything

Anonymous said...

I think that private companies are good. It involves people who want to fight and get paid for it. I think that it gives the people a choice of going into war, instead of forcing them to go such as having a draft or recruiting people. I think people respond more to getting something in return such as money, instead of doing something for charity, or to better a country when fighting. it’s the type of world we live in that’s cut throat and has people who are willing to do the dirty jobs only for reward (not being self recognition, but for a fee). I think that Mr. Logozzo’s view of his private company is much different from those of the mercenaries in the video shadow company, because both have very different agendas. I walked in a little late (sorry) to the class, and didn’t hear the begging of what Mr. Logozzo did and I thought that he was one of those people in the video that we saw, as I was about to ask “did you ever kill a person” I realized how is that possible, when he’s meeting mulas and receiving lambs as gifts for his private company that deals with telephones, and cell phones. I saw that his private companies agenda was not set up to harm people but to help them. The people in shadow company’s agenda was strictly to protect and kill soullessly walking around Iraq or anywhere in the world with a chip on their shoulder. The mercenaries in the movie showed great arrogance and ownership of land that they weren’t even native to and had no born given right to. I think that private companies that deal with violence are ones that need to stop and more private companies should be installed that are there to help improve wherever they are, instead of increasing pointless bloodshed to fill a persons pocket. I think that war is a pointless thing, and I totally disagree with Michael Zilber 100%. I think that going to war for oil, is greedy on the Americas part. The whole entire world needs oil to run on, oil is a natural resource and doesn’t have anyone’s name on it. I don’t think we should be barging in someone else’s country because we are in dire need of it for the guy with the escalade whose overweight and wont spring for a public transportation. I think we shouldn’t waste our money on fighting a pointless war of numbers. Instead of dwelling on what we don’t have because its going to run out, why not use that same money and put it towards building a safer future that will help the better of the country instead of hording money away for a war to prove to the world it was worth it in the end. I honestly think that war can be avoided, and if it isn’t, it defiantly shouldn’t be over natural resources that we could do without and find other ways of getting it. If the man who drives an escalade really cant do without his oil, he should get up from his couch and fight for it, rather than the 18 year old who just got out of high school who wants to start their career who sadly might get drafted just to fill this guys tank, or lower prices to make his life hard. I don’t think people realize the comforts of life we have in America compared to people around the world. We have it too good, while others are struggling to get by.

Anonymous said...

Stepahnie, you said your cousin is going to Iraq, and you think hes going to do "a good job!"




whats his job? and how do you know hes doing it good? (just wondering, becuase i dont know what it is like to do a good job when you are a soilder.)

Anonymous said...

My cousin is in the Army flying black hawks. and I feel he will do a good job because of the amout of train he has been thru the bott camps he delt with.. and in his traning class he gratuated yop of his class..im not trying to say "hes the "only" one doing a good job" b/c thats a lie but from what i've heard from him i have a feeling he will do a good job out there..i hope that answers ur ques?