Are we turning Afghanistan into a mess like Iraq?

Juan Cole lists the top ten reasons the US may be doing precisely that. I was caught by this one:

5. Now thousands of private security contractors (i.e. mercenaries) will be hired in Afghanistan. But they won't be Americans for the most part. Children, can you say "Hessians"?

I don't understand the concept of paying someone $200,000 a year to guard armed GIs being paid a fraction of that. Wouldn't it be better to expand the size of the army if you need more troops? Wouldn't it be more efficient to have one line of command? Aren't these essentially high-priced MPs?

I think the ways in which we are privatizing our military are really dangerous, and it frustrates me to see Barack Obama's administration continuing down this road.