You might call military contractors the absent presence in President Obama’s Tuesday speech announcing his new strategy in Afghanistan. There are currently 104,000 military contractors supporting the American mission there, and those numbers will grow as more troops deploy. Contractors serve meals, deliver munitions, run security for the U.S. Ambassador in Kabul, and help train Afghan police units... and according to an article in Vanity Fair this week, Erik Prince, CEO of Xe – the company formerly known as Blackwater – was involved in assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaida members.  Robert Young Pelton, author of "Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror," and Allison Stanger, author of "One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy" join us to discuss how much contractors cost the U.S., and how accountable they are to the government who hired them.