The indictment of six Blackwater guards on charges of manslaughter is widely seen as bad news for Blackwater in particular and the private military industry in general. Admittedly, this is hardly the kind of publicity that any firm or any industry would want. But it is hardly logical to see these charges as an indictment of an entire firm, much less an entire industry, any more than court-martial proceedings against individual soldiers are an indictment of the army as a whole. In fact, prosecutors were careful to say that, as the Washington Post put it,

Blackwater, the largest provider of private security services in Iraq, was not a target of the investigation, and federal officials said the grand jury returned “a narrow indictment” against five of the contractors. [Joseph] Persichini [assistant director of the FBI’s Washington field office] said most of the convoy’s other guards “acted professionally, responsibly and honorably” that day.

In a perverse way, the indictment actually could be a positive development for the guns-for-hire business. The biggest knock against Blackwater and its ilk has always been their lack of accountability. That is why Congress expanded the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act to cover the actions of contractors overseas. It is this law that is being used by federal prosecutors against the Blackwater personnel. Assuming that the prosecution is successful–meaning that case is resolved on the merits, not thrown out on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional–this would reassure the U.S. government and our foreign allies that contractors are not unaccountable rogues. If there is a functioning mechanism to bring private guards before a court to answer for their abuses, that could actually make the business more viable in the future.

That’s a good thing. Because for all the criticisms lodged against “mercenaries”–see, e.g., today’s Eugene Robinson column in the Washington Post–the reality is that we have no choice but to continue relying on them at least until our armed forces become substantially larger. That is an investment we should make, but it will take a lot of time and money to train and equip and field more soldiers. In the meantime, given the commitments the U.S. has made in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, we will have to outsource some guard duties to the private sector so that uniformed personnel can concentrate on the kind of offensive military operations that Blackwater is not allowed to undertake.