Mercenaries are second largest force in Iraq: UN official

[Joanne98]

Between 30,000 and 50,000 mercenaries are working in Iraq, making them the second largest military force there after the occupying United States.

The case of Iraq "is a new manifestation of the use of mercenaries that has caughts the US by surprise", Spain's Jose Luis Gomez del Prado -- a member of the UN working group on mercenaries -- said Fridayduring a visit to Peru.

The United States has 130,000 soldiers in Iraq, he noted. Britain has 10,000 troops.

Gomez del Prado told a news conference thousands of Peruvians, Chileans, Colombians, Hondurans and Ecuadorans had been contracted to work as mercenaries in Iraq, thanks to an array of legal loopholes.

The trend has caused widespread public concern in Peru.

Rights workers have voiced concern that people are being hired to work as security guards in Iraq but are then given military training and asked to perform "previously unforseen tasks" which draw them into full combat.

Gomez del Prado's Colombian colleague, Amada Guevara, told the news conference that in some cases, workers were contracted by existing companies who exploited legal loopholes. But in other cases, they were taken on by ghost firms who arrived in a country, opened an office for a month, contracted workers and then disappeared without trace.

"This amounts to privatisation of warfare," she said.

Gomez said new legislation and better government oversight was necessary to prevent citizens desperate for well-paid jobs being lured into a mercenary career which put their lives, health and rights at risk.
http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070203144519.tc039g2b

[rodeodance]

1. "This amounts to privatisation of warfare," she said.

[saigon68]

76. More rose petal parades needed

[HereSince1628]

2. True to the principles of civilization, enlist the vanquished and colonized

to fight for the empire. I wonder which ones did the attack and highjacking?

[Dhalgren]

3. Who owns this army and where might it be used?

This is a huge worry. If this merc army is ultimately in the pay of our corporate bosses, then we are in more trouble than even we thought...

[cui bono]

22. Seriously. The new Global Corporate Armed Forces. Yikes!

:scared:

[LynnTheDem]

4. John Negroponte.

It's what he does.

[JackRiddler]

9. you're a few weeks behind

Negroponte's back at State Dept.

[0007]

46. You can say that again!!



[saigon68]

80. Ah Yes John Negroponte NUN RAPIST

[Solo_in_MD]

5. What is being counted as "mercenaries" for this article?

To some its only those under arms. Others consider the truck drivers and kitchen workers as mercenaries.

[msongs]

7. if you profit from war, you are a mercenary IMO nt

[Igel]

10. So a small army of mercenaries

may be the equivalent of a city's public works division.

And a squad of mercenaries might be the equivalent of a restaurant crew.

Suddenly, I don't think I mind mercenaries. Unless, of course, they make a bad burger or do a crappy job fixing potholes.

And having 30k of them might well be a good thing. Of course, the jobs should properly go to Iraqis, but then they'd be collaborators. The bastards.

The usual definition of 'mercenary' appears to have shifted. If so, then shouldn't the connotation shift along with it?

[struggle4progress]

19. Burger-flippers and pothole fillers? "The Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of ..

.. violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the rights of peoples to self-determination" is the group to which Jose Luis Gomez del Prado belongs.

If you have evidence they're really only interested in investigating burger flipping in Iraq, do feel free to post such evidence.

[Solo_in_MD]

13. I have a hard time thinking that kitchen help is profiting from the war

[roody]

40. Correct me if I am wrong.

The kitchen and cleaning crews are made up of poor people from poor countries, and they are desperate to make some money.

[heliarc]

60. And frankly...

I don't have an axe to grind there. Food is the first thing... morals later. As the great Brecht once said I remember the character from Brecht's play Mother courage who is a cook on the battlefield. Doesn't matter who is fighting. He'll cook for whoever. But does he have a real choice? Right now the minimum wage in the States that a line cook makes wouldn't put a roof over his head. Add hazard pay to that and the room and board they are probably offering and you're looking at a chunk of change you save that might buy you a house when you get home... wherever that might be. That's a tempting offer, and you haven't chosen to carry a gun to make it.

Now the guys who do this crap for fun? Weekend warriors? Fuck that scum. They should die if they knew what they were getting themselves into and they wanted to be cowboys. I hate to say it, but I'm for the insurgency when it comes to those fuckers.

But the article doesn't seem to be about that at all. It seems to pose another darker reality which suggests that they are tricking people who believe they will be working as support staff when really they will get dumped into an SUV and sent to see the whites of the insurgents' eyes. That's hella wrong, and I think there's a line to be drawn which separates those who sign up to wear kevlar and get shot full of holes, and those who are given the shaft.

[Big_Mike]

56. So by that definition, anyone who works for

any company that produces goods used by the military is a mercenary? The company earns their profits to pay their employees by selling to the military. Of course, this definition is absurdly broad, but you may want to restate your position as well.

[heliarc]

61. Yep

People here are sort of stretching it dontcha think?

[Zhade]

81. Technically, I think they're just war profiteers if they don't carry weapons.

But they do exhibit a mercenary attitude, that's for sure.

[struggle4progress]

17. According to GAO, US has 48,000 private soldiers in Iraq

Our mercenaries in Iraq

The president relies on thousands of private soldiers with little oversight, a disturbing example of the military-industrial complex.

By Jeremy Scahill, JEREMY SCAHILL is a fellow at the Nation Institute and the author of the forthcoming "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army."
January 25, 2007

... Already, private contractors constitute the second-largest "force" in Iraq. At last count, there were about 100,000 contractors in Iraq, of which 48,000 work as private soldiers, according to a Government Accountability Office report. These soldiers have operated with almost no oversight or effective legal constraints and are an undeclared expansion of the scope of the occupation. Many of these contractors make up to $1,000 a day, far more than active-duty soldiers. What's more, these forces are politically expedient, as contractor deaths go uncounted in the official toll ...
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scahill25jan25,0,7395303.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

[lyonn]

31. The troublesome part to the soldier for hire, mercs,

is who is controlling them in our (U.S.) name?

"These soldiers have operated with almost no oversight or effective legal constraints and are an undeclared expansion of the scope of the occupation."

And, we are talking about people from other countries being hired to do our bidding in Iraq.

[heliarc]

62. Do you really believe...

That there is no oversight for some of these groups? After Abu ghraib it would seem like some of the corporations are really CIA fronts... Titan comes to mind. A lot of the chatter surrounding the prisoner detention at Abu Ghraib involved the way in which supposed mercs had access to the prisoners and were able to interrogate them: To what end if they wasn't oversight? Certainly there were some who "got out of control" like the Titan contractor who was extracted for molesting the prisoners sexually:

"Three Titan employees were accused of abuses in the Fay and Taguba reports including allegedly raping a male juvenile detainee, making false statements about interrogations and failing to report detainee abuse." http://www.amnestyusa.org/annualreport/2006/overview.html

But it seems to me that this is altogether very convenient for military leaders to point a finger when abuses fall out of bounds of their jurisdiction and control. Either they are out of the loop, or they are entirely complicit in the planned interrogation and abuse, but if the photos of Abu Ghraib had never come out... would anyone have pointed a finger at all? It seems more like there is complete oversight and the abuses are strategically distanced from military operations by NOC agencies that can operate freely as private companies. Why else would we be "missing" billions of dollars in Iraq? Because no one can turn state secrets to say where the money was going.

[struggle4progress]

18. 1989 convention on mercenaries

International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, 4 December 1989

... Article 1

For the purposes of the present Convention,

1.A mercenary is any person who:

(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;

(b) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar rank and functions in the armed forces of that party;

(c) Is neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a party to the conflict;

(d) Is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict; and

(e) Has not been sent by a State which is not a party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

2. A mercenary is also any person who, in any other situation:

(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad for the purpose of participating in a concerted act of violence
aimed at :

(i) Overthrowing a Government or otherwise undermining the constitutional order of a State; or

(ii) Undermining the territorial integrity of a State;

(b) Is motivated to take part therein essentially by the desire for significant private gain and is prompted by the promise or payment of material compensation;

(c) Is neither a national nor a resident of the State against which such an act is directed;

(d) Has not been sent by a State on official duty; and

(e) Is not a member of the armed forces of the State on whose territory the act is undertaken ...

http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/530?OpenDocument

[Vidar]

20. Just one more international convention our rogue nation insists

on violating. A miserable dath th Bush's Brownshirts!

[tabasco]

21. Truck drivers who are issued weapons to react to ambush

should be considered mercs. That's the same job as the Army Transportation Corps.

[davhill]

6. Nobody counts dead mercs

Nor does the government have to pay their care when wounded. If there is to much fuss over the casualties among the troops, it may be politically more feasible to replace them with more mercenaries. It may be more expensive, but hey, who's bothering to count the money and look at all the veterans benefits that will be saved. This is the neo-con vision of the future.

[saigon68]

42. good riddance to this scum

You gamble, you die, oh my, oh my.

[jwirr]

8. The really sad thing is that our tax money is paying most of their salaries.

[davhill]

12. Plus the obscene profits of

The corporations that hire them.

[heliarc]

58. Not to mention...

that their salaries are WAY higher than those of our Armed Services. Shameful.

[merh]

11. New legislation?

I don't think the weed wants new legislation to protect mercs, he wants it to use more mercs at home and abroad.

From the State of the Union - 2007

One of the first steps we can take together is to add to the ranks of our military — so that the American Armed Forces are ready for all the challenges ahead. Tonight I ask the Congress to authorize an increase in the size of our active Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 in the next five years. (DRAFT???) A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. (HIRE MERCENARIES???) And it would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.

[Joanne98]

14. I didn't even noticed that in the speech. Thanz for the heads up!

He'll make mercs an official part of the military over our DEAD BODIES!

[merh]

15. that may be what he is planning

:scared:


He is just nutts and congress has to do something to stop him while they still can.



as to the heads up, it was late in his speech, he threw it in their late knowing most had probably shut him down by that time. It was just before he introduced all of the "guests/heros" in the audience.

[Drum]

16. And yet Bush never thanks them in his speeches, sad.

Maybe they're the new surge?

Also: If the US has them in Iraq, should they be surprised that there might be mercenaries on the other side too? And if we call theirs "terrorist insurgents," what do you suppose the Iraqis call ours?

[Dhalgren]

25. And just wait till all these hired killers come home. Oh yeah, we

are in for some real good times...

[Megahurtz]

78. Yup. These are the kind of Guys that

come back home and work as Bouncers, Security Guards or Cops,
then they end up beating the shit out of people for no reason, or killing them.
Just like obedient Trained Dogs.

[Recursion]

23. I ****ing hate mercs

Mercs were why we had to hit Fallujah. And how hard we hit Fallujah is why we can't let go of it now (my old CO said it would be like telling Marines to abandon Iwo Jima; I think he's right). They do shit I don't even want to describe and the real soldiers and Marines pay the price for it because to the muj we're all just identical occupiers.

[sanskritwarrior]

26. This is getting old and tired......

I'm not defending mercs, however I am defending who is doing what.......Most mercs are not trigger pullers for Blackwater, Triple Canopy, Custer battles, etc......Most mercs are KBR laundry people, KBR truck drivers, KBR kitchen help from the Philippine Islands, West Africa, Mongolia, Malaysia etc......Most "mercs" never leave the FOB, they provide soldiers and Marines with hot water, good food, gym access, internet cafes, SEGOVIA phones, etc....These same "mercs" provide these same services at stateside bases.....In effect they make the military work by providing bodies to do basic services that the military has phased out as jobs.......I don't want to hear any crap about how I am endorsing mercs, I'm not doing that. I am correcting the record, for some reason some people have convinced themselves that all mercs are trigger pullers and bad people. Yes there are bad people that I would not lose sleep over if they were killed outside the wire....The average merc is cooking our food or cleaning our laundry, not barreling down the highway killing women and puppies........It shows a lot of ignorance IMHO to lump them all together....The trigger pullers are insane, however I liked most of the KBR menial labor employees ......think of me what you will, I am just trying to correct the perception around here.

[Recursion]

27. I meant the trigger-pullers

all the ones I knew bounced from the military because of "personality" problems. But yeah the drivers and cooks and stuff are cool.

[sanskritwarrior]

28. Ok, sorry

you were cool, there is just the general attitude on DU that anyone in Iraq for money is a servant of Satan..........That's about the broadest brush available on the open market today........

I make extra money in Iraq, I get all the combat zone money, my housing allowance as well as my separate rats money........And it is tax free. I make roughly 6-7K a month in Iraq with my housing allowance, combat pay, etc......


Granted I don't make what contractors make but , but I make a lot, am I also a servant of Satan??? ;)

[roody]

30. That depends on what your role is in this illegal,

immoral war.

[sanskritwarrior]

32. LOL

we've had this talk before....By no standard of AMERICAN LAW is the war illegal. If it was then Congress or our court system would have ruled it as such. Saying a war is illegal might make one feel better, but it does not make it true. In my post history I have gone out of way to remain extremely polite to people and I will continue to do so. That being said there is no way on God's green earth that the war in Iraq is illegal. I hold my own counsel on what I think of our involvement, but there is no basis for an illegal claim. Some people cite the Treaty of the Geneva Convention, that's nice but an act or resolution of Congress supersedes any treaty we have signed. If it did not then our very sovereignty would be a joke.

Other people say it is a preemptive war, that's nice but as a soldier I am duty bound to follow legal orders. Legal orders in this case are deployment orders from my chain of command. So far my chain of command has not instructed me to refuse to deploy. So far the United States congress has not revoked the Iraq War resolution, so far no judicial Federal court has ruled the war illegal. Under those conditions I would be acting in an illegal manner if I refused to deploy. I have my own feelings about the war, but soldiers are not allowed to let their "feelings" decide if they want to follow LEGAL orders or not. If and when Congress revokes the Iraq War resolution, if and when Congress impeaches the President and asks the military to arrest him, if and when a Federal Court rules that the war is illegal then things can change. If a soldier just decides which orders he likes or doesn't like, then that sets the stage for a coup. We have these checks and balances for a reason. I for one am not going to refuse to deploy just because "my feelings" about the war do not mesh with my orders and in accordance with the oath of enlistment.

So again, saying the war is illegal might make someone feel better, but show me a legal precedent backed by either the Judicial or the Legislative branch.......Don't mistake me for a war lover, I am someone that is neutral before the law, my feelings are irrelevant in light of my oath....

[roody]

34. I will settle for immoral.

[daleo]

36. So an invasion was legal within the legal framework of the invading power?

And that is good enough? By that standard the various invasions of Hitler, Stalin and the rest were legal as well. By that standard, every action of Saddam's was legal too.

[sanskritwarrior]

49. Yes

I would go to jail if I refused to deploy, I understand the Oath of enlistment very well, I understand what an illegal order is and what a legal order is......So far no order to deploy to Iraq has been Illegal in accordance with UCMJ.....Personally I don't give a crap about Nazi germany, Stalinist Russia, etc, etc......My allegiance is to the United States, so far none of our laws have been broken according to congress and our courts.....I listen to my chain of command. Find me a congressional resolution that supercedes the Iraq War resolution. Find me a Federal court ruling that says the war is illegal....until you can do that, you are just whistling dixie.......Starting tommorrow a very brave 2Lt is going to find out that this war is not illegal according to the military. The military derives its orders from the Executive Branch, so far the executive branch has not ruled the war illegal and the Legislative Branch nor the Judicial Branch has either.....So Lt. Watada while a brave and honorable man is going to go to jail, soldiers DO NOT GET TO DECIDE what orders we get to follow. Now if my CO orders me to shoot women and children that's a different story.

[struggle4progress]

43. Quite a number of qualified people have expressed the view that the war is illegal:

certainly if the Nuremberg trials established any precedents, they established that wars of aggression are criminal, and that local law cannot provide cover for grand crimes.

Among qualified persons who have expressed the view that the Iraq war is illegal, let us note a few:

Bush and Saddam Should Both Stand Trial, Says Nuremberg Prosecutor
Aaron Glantz
OneWorld US
25 August 2006

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 25 (OneWorld) - A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg has said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein. Benjamin Ferenccz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, told OneWorld both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting "aggressive" wars--Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime," the 87-year-old Ferenccz told OneWorld from his home in New York. He said the United Nations charter, which was written after the carnage of World War II, contains a provision that no nation can use armed force without the permission of the UN Security Council.

Ferenccz said that after Nuremberg the international community realized that every war results in violations by both sides, meaning the primary objective should be preventing any war from occurring in the first place ... http://uk.oneworld.net/article/view/138335/1/

Full text: Iraq legal advice

The full text of the advice about the legality of war with Iraq given by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, to the prime minister, Tony Blair, on March 7 2003

Thursday April 28, 2005
Guardian Unlimited

...
2. As I have previously advised, there are generally three possible bases for the use of force: (a) self-defence (which may include collective self-defence); (b) exceptionally, to avert overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe; and (c) authorisation by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

3. Force may be used in self-defence if there is an actual or imminent threat of an armed attack; the use of force must be necessary, ie the only means of averting an attack; and the force used must be a proportionate response. It is now widely accepted that an imminent armed attack will justify the use of force if the other conditions are met ...

However, in my opinion there must be some degree of imminence. I am aware that the USA has been arguing for recognition of a broad doctrine of a right to use force to pre-empt danger in the future. If this means more than a right to respond proportionately to an imminent attack (and I understand that the doctrine is intended to carry that connotation) this is not a doctrine which, in my opinion, exists or is recognised in international law.

4. The use of force to avert overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe has been emerging as a further, and exceptional, basis for the use of force ... I know of no reason why it would be an appropriate basis for action in present circumstances.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1472450,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1472459,00.html

The rest of the Goldsmith memo above is devoted to a tortuous hair-splitting on exactly what the UN Security Council resolutions meant. But the real significance of the facts laid out in the Goldsmith memo may be judged by the following resignation.

Wilmshurst resignation letter

Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, resigned in March 2003 because she did not believe the war with Iraq was legal. Her letter was released by the Foreign Office to the BBC News website under the Freedom of Information Act.

A minute dated 18 March 2003 from Elizabeth Wilmshurst (Deputy Legal Adviser) to Michael Wood (The Legal Adviser), copied to the Private Secretary, the Private Secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary, Alan Charlton (Director Personnel) and Andrew Patrick (Press Office):

"1. I regret that I cannot agree that it is lawful to use force against Iraq without a second Security Council resolution to revive the authorisation given in SCR 678. I do not need to set out my reasoning; you are aware of it.

<The following italicised section was removed by the Foreign Office but later obtained by Channel 4 News>

My views accord with the advice that has been given consistently in this office before and after the adoption of UN security council resolution 1441 and with what the attorney general gave us to understand was his view prior to his letter of 7 March ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4377605.stm

This British military had similar concerns:

Army chiefs feared Iraq war illegal just days before start

Attorney-General forced to rewrite legal advice
Specialist unit dedicated to spying on UN revealed

Martin Bright, Antony Barnett and Gaby Hinsliff
Sunday February 29, 2004
The Observer

Britain's Army chiefs refused to go to war in Iraq amid fears over its legality just days before the British and American bombing campaign was launched, The Observer can today reveal.

The explosive new details about military doubts over the legality of the invasion are detailed in unpublished legal documents in the case of Katharine Gun, the intelligence officer dramatically freed last week after Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, dropped charges against her of breaking the Official Secrets Act.

The disclosure came as it also emerged that Goldsmith was forced hastily to redraft his legal advice to Tony Blair to give an 'unequivocal' assurance to the armed forces that the conflict would not be illegal.

Refusing to commit troops already stationed in Kuwait, senior military leaders were adamant that war could not begin until they were satisfied that neither they nor their men could be tried. Some 10 days later, Britain and America began the campaign ... http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,1158859,00.html

What the United States actually did, compared to what the Security Council actually authorized, led to this:

Iraq war illegal, says Annan

The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told the BBC the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.

He said the decision to take action in Iraq should have been made by the Security Council, not unilaterally ...

The UN chief said in an interview with the BBC World Service that "painful lessons" had been learnt since the war in Iraq.

"Lessons for the US, the UN and other member states. I think in the end everybody's concluded it's best to work together with our allies and through the UN," he said ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm

Then there's this fellow, who was in charge of the international teams searching for the non-existent WMDs, before Bush warned him to remove his teams immediuately before the US attacked:

Blix: Iraq War Was Illegal
Blair's defense is bogus, says the former UN weapons inspector
by Anne Penketh in Stockholm and Andrew Grice
Published on Friday, March 5, 2004 by the lndependent/UK

.. Mr Blix, speaking to The Independent, said the Attorney General's legal advice to the Government on the eve of war, giving cover for military action by the US and Britain, had no lawful justification. He said it would have required a second United Nations resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force for the invasion of Iraq last March to have been legal ... http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0305-01.htm

Even some of those who pushed hard for the war knew that complying with international law would probably prevented the invasion:

War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal

Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday November 20, 2003
The Guardian

International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.

In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html

Related information is widely available; see, for example,

International Law Aspects of the Iraq War
and Occupation
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/lawindex.htm

[sanskritwarrior]

48. That's nice and all

but until Congress or the courts say yes the war is illegal it DOES NOT MATTER. I don't listen to a Nuremberg prosecutor. I don't listen to a former president, former Senator, presidential adviser, etc etc......UNTIL the United States Congress or the United States Supreme Court rescind the war resolution, declare the war illegal, or impeach the President I am OATH bound to follow his orders. In no way shape or form does it make me a Buh supporter, in no way shape or form does it make me a war supporter.....It makes me a supporter of the Constitution and the Balance of Powers.....You can post sources all day long on people that find the war illegal, if they are not Congress (a majority) or a Federal court, I don't give a crap, they are not in MY CHAIN OF COMMAND and I am not authorized to listen to them....Damn this is getting ridiculous...

If we did it some of ya'lls way we would have a coup in this country everytime soldiers listened to their feelings and ignored UCMJ and the Oath of Enlistment.......Again I'm trying to remain calm, but this is basic govt. 101 stuff we are talking about here.....

[struggle4progress]

51. I will certainly admit that the issues here are very thorny:

It is absolutely clear that military discipline -- up to and including subordination to the lawful civilian authorities, and a loyalty to the Constitution -- is essential, not only for a functional military but for our democracy, so long as we maintain any standing armed forces.

On the other hand, the abstract view, that the war is not illegal until declared so by Congress or the Courts, is rather easily disposed of: on that view, any war of aggression is lawful, if the aggressive party says so. But on the principles established at Nuremberg, it seems clear enough to me that such a view really does not pass muster.

I recognize that such an abstract criticism helps the soldier in the field not a whit. It is simply a reality of life that ethics must be practiced in situations where the facts may be murky, the options limited, the consequences uncertain, and the ideal response a pleasant-sounding impossibility. On that view, I can feel only sympathy for anyone in uniform.

In my circumstances, I feel obliged to assert, that the war is not only illegal but obviously illegal, and that those who by fraud foisted this catastrophe upon my country and upon many entirely innocent Iraqis have committed a grave crime for which I hope they are held accountable. But I do not pretend to know what would be an appropriate response from you to your circumstances.

[heliarc]

69. International Law

would deem it illegal. You can scoff at the premise, but this war made us a rogue in the international community, and we are paying the price diplomatically in the Middle Eastern, Pan-Asian, and African Theaters. Hands down.

[Zhade]

82. Anyone making money off this war is not a servant of good, I know that much.

NT!

[cap]

33. the "mercs" you describe are what we used to call civilian contractors.

nobody has an issue with that... just as long as they stay cooking your food or doing your laundry. We had them in Vietnam as well. The "mercs" everyone is upset about are the ones doing combat duty whether they signed up for it or not.

[sanskritwarrior]

35. Do some reading around here

there are lots of "all civilian contractors should burn in hell posts"....

[cap]

45. given the way that this administration has conducted the war

I dont blame them at all. Given the massive fraud involved, I think the contractors should burn in hell.

BTW, I was a civilian contractor for DOD myself. But I got the hell out and changed industries to avoid any involvement in this mess.

[sanskritwarrior]

50. So a guy

from Alabama with no college that is running a laundromat at FOB Warrior in Kirkuk should burn in hell? Sorry, I'm not that cold.

[cap]

53. I am that cold

because the guy from Alabama who is running that laundry almost certainly voted for the Bush criminal gang that got us into that mess in the first place. He is almost certainly running around backing the criminal atrocities of G'tmo and Abu Ghraib and Blackwater shouting "This is WAR!" and "SAVING AMERICAN LIVES". He has no remorse for harming innocent women and children and wants to stay in Iraq for the duration. He wants us to follow that commander-in-chief blindly like lemmings running over a cliff. His voice is almost certainly part of that choir that you hear on C-Span telling people that they are traitors and should be led away in chains for presenting a dissenting viewpoint on the war. A lot of these combat support are more virulent than the warfighters themselves. A lot of combat wannabees.

He is probably hiring a "security company" like Blackwater to protect him and his sheets instead of demanding protection from the American military itself. Remember those days when the American military protected its own civilian employees in Vietnam?

He has no compunction about running up a huge deficit that will hurt the Baby Boomers in their declining years by taking away money from Medicare and Social Security. I am, of course, assuming that he is only making the traditional 8% profit margin that historically has been awarded to DOD contractors and not the obscene profit margin that Haliburton is making. But, chances are, he is padding his contract, too. Of course, at the same time, he is moaning about the flag-burners and has closed his ears to any evidence that the President lied about the war.

Perhaps, like the company I worked for that was headquartered in Alabama, he is pressuring his subordinates to contribute to the Republican party or one of its PACs. I was at a manager's meeting where I was told that we were to start collecting contributions for a PAC that the CEO was starting from our employees. Literally told that the company needed to start doing this otherwise we wouldnt get military contracts.

There is a fair chance that he, too, is a so-called "Christian" that is trying to hire only other "Christians" like a fellow manager at that above mentioned company and may even be part of the "Christian Warrior" movement that is lurking. These "Christians" consider a Catholic like myself to be an idol worshipper.

This laundryman from Alabama is generally not the most tolerant when it comes to race or gender issues and tends to promote only fellow white boys. In fact, he's sitting around moaning about whatever minimal EEOC compliance he has to do by law. I could go on and on about the culture, or lack thereof, of these good old boys.

Funny you should hold up a guy from Alabama as an object of pity....I know these folks only too well. Aint too many libruls in the mix down there. Not too many of these laundrymen vote Democratic or even moderate Republican. They are at the heart of darkness within the Republican party.

[sanskritwarrior]

55. I am sorry

that you are so heartless welcome to the ignore list......In Iraq I don't care who you voted for, I don't care why you are there, you are an American and unless you just killed an innocent Iraqi, I will do everything in my power to help you out.......

[cap]

57. there ARE people I will say no too

The guy I almost married is head of Blackwater training. I come from Cumberland Maryland, the home of Abu Ghraib. Maybe this is why I am so frosty. The folks in Alabama are just on the slippery slope down there. There were people on the board of that company who knew what PNAC was up to right from the start and they chose to go along with it.

Hmmm... your remark makes me wonder about you... "SAVING AMERICAN LIVES" is it??? I've heard that justify too much bad behavior. I think I hit too close to home with that last post. Did I peg you by accident? Are you that laundryman?

too bad you're not listening... Other people are. When you post nonsense, I will continue to answer. Other people can see the response. You just wont have a chance for a rebuttal. I'm not sure how much the ignore list really buys you. You are doing the equivalent of closing your ears and wagging your tongue.

[heliarc]

64. And you're just plain inflammatory

You should burn in hell for almost marrying the head of Blackwater training. What the hell were you thinking? Did you let him buy you a diamond ring with his death money? We're supposed to excuse you, but not the non-combat laundryman who is trying to buy a house or support his family back home just like most of the poor (and yes uneducated) enlisted guys are?

Of course there's complicity. Of course there's corruption. But your lines are too thickly drawn. There's a grey area that you're missing, and you should watch out. Your proximity to the mercs makes me wonder about you too.

Sure, I don't shop at Wal-mart, but when it comes to town and puts all the mom and pop stores out of business, I don't blame people for taking a job there because there isn't anything else to do. The disgusting CEOs who came up with the policy to force unpaid overtime... those guys should rot in hell. They have more of a choice than someone who maybe has a GED and can only fold clothes. The guy doing laundry is just trying to get ahead because doing laundry anywhere else isn't going to get you hazard pay. He's taking a risk, and he's not A number one moralist in my book, but he's a hell of a lot higher on the list than some Titan rapist torturing bastard whose idea of a good birthday present is a new uzi. I think you give a lot of us on this list too little credit. I can certainly understand the interstices of ethical quandry when it comes to the working class in all of this, but the working class has to work, and salaries aren't going up here in the states. Keep your moralizing to yourself miss "I almost married a merc"

[cap]

67. Here's the full story...

I met the guy 30 years ago in college and thought about marrying him 25 years ago. No diamond ring.. No nothing. I was working my way through school. He was a different person then. I knew a bright young college kid who worked his tail off to join the Marine Corps as an officer. I could not have imagined this would happen. Lost contact with him and then four years ago, three weeks before I got married, he found me. We had a few phone conversations catching up on old times and then he told me he was going to join Blackwater to do some "security work" in Iraq. I tried to talk him out of it but failed (you're right about moralizing!!!). There's no economic reason for an Ivy League graduate to join the mercenaries. No excuse whatsoever. I just couldnt say goodbye when he said he was going for sure. I was just stunned. I found I couldnt pray that he keep safe; but I found I could pray for his soul. (More moralizing, I know...). I havent talked to him since.

It is a rather icky feeling to be this close to evil. My proximity to all this makes YOU wonder? It makes ME wonder, too! It's not like I ran out looking for trouble! No hanging out in gin-joints near a military base, no Mata Hari type activities, nothing... Grew up in a beautiful rural area and went to university. I didnt go looking for all this.


My family isnt rich except that they knew about studying hard and understood how to get a scholarship. That's what saved me. I am the granddaughter of Polish mill workers and farmers. One side of my family starved during the Great Depression and they rode out the Great Textile Strike without becoming a company goon. My grandfather got blinded in an industrial accident and my grandmother We know about poverty first hand and we know about not sacrificing your values for money. We were FDR Democrats. My dad rode the rails and knocked on doors for jobs. All the men in my father's generation on both sides in the family were draftees. The GI Bill was my Dad's ticket out.

I know about why people from small towns go into the military. One of my first jobs was working as a clerk in the recruiting office in Cumberland Maryland. I know about life in these small town where the only way out is going into the military. These folks were my classmates and they are part of me. The contractors dont have to be there and a whole lot of them are combat wannabees that excuse the atrocities in this war. They're just disgusted that we arent winning. But they are happy that they are making a bundle -- or at least, what passes for a bundle to them. Sorry, but Roscoe is the Congresman from Cumberland MD. They are voting for the war and their own economic demise and the continuation of folks who exploit them... They arent Kucinich fans, even though Kucinich is working hard to make their lives better and Roscoe is grinding them deeper into the dirt.

I do have a bone with people no matter what their income level or educational level is who support the mercenaries. Go read Joe Bageant's essays over at www.joebageant.com. Winchester, VA is just down the road from Cumberland. His background is similar to mine. He judges these folks worse than I do. What ticks both of us off is that there is a level of common decency that cries out to be heard. There is a moral code that people adhere to regardless of their socio-economic status. And there is a clarity that asks not to make an excuse for people who are stripping other folks naked and piling them up in pyramids. A lot of these folks arent the ones piling folks up in pyramid but they are part of the gang that passes around the nasty photos and eggs them on. Joe and I both moralize at the top of our lungs because it hurts to see the injustice visited on our neighbors and kinfolk transmitted onto an ever wider pool of humanity. We want it to STOP! We want people to start organizing politically for the benefit of their own lives starting with their own small town. We want people to start unionizing, to start voting for politicians who will provide economic development so that they "Dont Have To Go To Iraq". Stop voting for politicians who find targets for them to hate like Gays or folks of color and exploit them. There's a point when you've just gotta start breaking the cycle. That's the difference between the ethnic immigrants of the 20's and the folks down South today. Those ethnic immigrants didnt run off to become mercenaries somewhere else; no, they stood their ground and fought for their rights. Three thousand people died in the next town over from my grandparents. They were starving and desparate and charged the factory. They got gunned down by the company goons. People died for the rights that these small town folk are choosing not to exercise. Yes it's hard; but, yes, it can be done. Get a good political/union organizer down there and start moving.

What can you say about a town up the road from us that the Abu Ghraib whistleblower came from. They ran the guy out of town for turning in those CDs with the nasty pictures on it. Cumberland MD has had a welcome home party for the members of that unit. They are not owning up to what those boys did and are chalking it up to the distortions of the media. No. You've got to own up to what happened. Otherwise, there's a whole cycle of abuse that will demand payment.

My parents spent their lives trying to educate these folks and it is a long slow haul. My mom was at the school board constantly trying to do this or that. I am still working on my sister-in-law just to get her to understand how to cook for a diabetic. It aint easy. It takes a long time, sometimes even generations. When my mother died, the community gathered together and took up a collection. I took the money and followed my mother's wishes to establish a scholarship in her honor for a kid in need. Her feeling was that maybe all a kid was going to do is to go work for the water department with an AA degree and that would be just fine. If he went onto something better, great. My dad worked with his kids trying to prepare them for the larger world -- he was always there after hours minding the lab so that the motivated kids could go on to better themselves.

One of my in-laws has won prizes for her work teaching in the inner city. She's very effective because she lives there and knows the whole family -- sometimes three generations! Some of the murals in Philly are painted by her kids. She knows when to be tough and when to be tender.

I come from a family of moralizers. We all spoke out and we all tried to make life better for our fellow man.

[heliarc]

68. TMI

Well, you've got some things to work out, even if I didn't need so much back story. And you sound like a very thoughtful nice person. Sounds like you need to hear that from time to time, and I'm sorry if I pushed a button. But you should try not taking it out on the people you would most likely agree with once and a while. Isn't it clear to you that no one here likes mercs??? Do you really think we want this war to go on and on like a broken record? I still think there's a wide divide between the people who cook burgers and fries in the greenzone and the assholes like your ex who work for Titan or Blackwater and are probably on a CIA payroll anyway. If you don't want to make the distinction, fine, but don't take it out on us that you don't want to get detailed about all of the hatred you have stored up, because when you come on so strong it almost seems like guilt.

Boo hoo. Everyone in this country's been brushed by evil. If we followed your logic (and your morals), paying sales tax would make us the bad guys, and frankly, you working for that company in Alabama should put you on your own "I hate you list" too. "How dare you work for people who do that?" I should say, but I choose rather to imagine that well, maybe you just have to make a living in this country where so much of the budget is spent on defense (offense?). Where do you come off assuming that all the guys who flip burgers in Iraq voted for Bush, and have no remorse for the people that are killed? Should I assume that you too voted for Bush and deserve the same criticism for working for that company which extorts money for the RNC? I hate to be harsh, but look at yourself once and a while and give it a rest.

[cap]

70. Can't give it a rest because too many people are being hurt.

I'm sorry if my passion scared you but many in the union movement are passionate about change. Read Walther Reuther's speeches. They arent for the faint of heart. In the 60's, people came on strong because they needed to wake up the country. Go back and read some of the anti-war speeches. Cindy Sheehan is not an unemotional person herself.

When you see things that are incorrect in this world and you know personally the people who are affected, it is not an intellectual exercise, especially, when you, yourself, must help pick up the pieces. I also am genetically predisposed to passion. I'm Polish! Our fellow Slavs, the Russians, brought you the sight of Khruschev banging his shoe at the UN. We are quite the opposite from the British stiff-upper lip!

However, I do have a strong analytical/intellectual component to my personality. So, here goes.

Annecdotally, I can tell you that I've never seen a peace sticker on the car of a working class military contractors. I have never participated in a conversation with any of these folks where they have preached any tolerance. On the contrary, I have heard a whole lot of racial epithets used. I can recall that during Bosnia there was an effort to educate the troops and enforce religious sensitivity during the peace keeping mission there. This same unit from Cumberland MD was sent from Bosnia where they were guarding checkpoints at one of the most brutal sites of ethnic cleansing to Iraq six months later to be the guards at Abu Ghraib.

When you look at the demographics of the contractors, they do not come from liberal precincts. (Nope, pro-union, pro-choice, gay feminists from San Francisco are not well represented.) Especially, those contractors at the lower levels who are drawn from the working class. Overwelmingly, they come from rural America, are evangelical, and espouse conservative view points. Overlay these small towns with the voting map and you will see that they do come from counties that voted red in 2000 and 2004. So, I feel comfortable making these generalized statements. I know some have buyer's remorse and voted blue in 2006. But it was a remorse brought on by defeat and not by an intellectual examination of the issues. Look at the precincts that are voting for politicians that are breaking the unions and you will find that they over lay the homes of these contractors. Things are just starting to change down there but slowly.

Did I vote for Bush? On the contrary, I went out and demonstrated in front of the Supreme Court when he was selected. It was no fun. I was pushed and shoved by some right wingers who were beating on my sign. Sometimes there were more of them than there were of me and I was standing by myself. Uff. I am a slightly overweight, out of shape, middle aged woman. I am not a street fighter at all. It wasnt pleasant. But it was important to be there and make a non-violent protest.

I am telling people to make some hard choices because I have made this choice myself. I worked for that company before the Iraq war. As the war drumbeat accelerated and I began to understand what was happening, I quit and was unemployed for some time. It wasnt easy; there is no unemployment insurance when you quit. But I put two and two together and understood that when senior management talked obiquely about a "consortium" in the Pentagon that they were talking about either PNAC or the OSP. I did not want to be involved with this. I am asking people to make a similar choice. I understand full well the implications of that choice for the working class of this country because my family has been there and, to a lesser degree, myself. There is an alternative to going to Iraq as a contractor and that is, participating in the union and progressive movement and working for change in your back yard.

The laundrymen are part of the privatization of the war effort. It is an effort to build a constituency that will be economically dependent on war and lack the oversight that the Defense Department has. This lack of management control is deliberate in order to create plausible deniability for the leadership. It is an effort to destroy what self-correcting mechanisms the Defense Department has in order to ensure that our people act in accordance with our values. I fear the military less than these contractors because the military reflects a bit more broadly (although not like it used to) the values of our society. It does seem that when things go astray like My Lai that someone in the military tries to stop the criminals and that someone begins the reporting and the paper trail up the chain of command. Within these companies, there is no Inspector General auditing finances or policies and procedures. They are depenendent on the military IG (which is being defunded and obstructed) for this policing action.

You talk about guilt. I thought about adding that to my previous post but in the interest of brevity, I left it out. There are other people that I have known that have been involved in the course of the war. I have left out their stories, but it does seem that for some strange twist of fate, I have been at the confluence of some far-distant, yet intertwined, events. (Honest, no hanging out in smoky gin joints! I dont go looking for trouble!).

Back to guilt. I believe fundamentally, that we are all guilty in this country in one aspect or another, myself included. As noted writers who have studied totalitarianism have pointed out, great evil does not exist by itself. It depends on the silence and uninvolvement of fundamentally good people. It depends on the day to day actions of the majority of people. We have profited from the lack of investment in the Arab world and the acquiescence of dictatorship for the sake of oil. We have systematically defunded and exploited our working class in this country. We have done nothing meaningful to invest in our social capital for the less fortunate of our society and in the Muslim world for 35 years. Believe it or not, we were once well-regarded in those countries for our good deeds. Those of us who have spoken out have not tried hard enough or have not been competent in organizing to fight the right wing. For this we are paying dearly.

However, as a Catholic, I believe in redemption. As a world citizen, I believe we must work through a process to bring us all together, from the laundry man, the Blackwater mercenaries to the G'tmo inmate. It is necessary for peace between nations, peace between all of us Americans, and peace within ourselves. However, as Desmond Tutu points out, for redemption and forgiveness to occur, we must speak truth and we must take that truth and speak to power. Otherwise, it is an idle exercise. I believe we need a Truth and Reconciliation movement within the US and between the US and the Arab world. Unfortunately, for your love of rational discourse (and I am not intending to mock it), in the presentation of the facts, there will be a serious emotional accounting. The Truth and Reconciliation movement within South Africa, along with the presentation of facts and figures, was a highly emotional event where people were encouraged to bring forth their stories and tell them to the world, and to confront the people who did them wrong. I believe that this process will avert violence here in the US, a violence that I fear is rapidly approaching.

In the spirit of this endeavor, I do try to speak truth to power. I work with my local Democratic representatives and support DFA. Also, I am working with the Fransiscans on a celebration of St. Francis of Assisi ( you know the prayer, "Lord make an interest of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.) It is little known that St. Francis was a soldier who became a priest and then went to the Middle East to convert the Sultan. St Francis failed. However, both men were charmed by each other and St. Francis came home deeply influenced by Sufi Moslem thought and incorporated a number of those ideas in Franciscan devotion.

Additionally, I am working with a friend of mine to start an exchange program with India. There is much we can learn from India in terms of working together with Muslims. Yes, India has had a lot of problems between religions; but they have been working on inter-religious harmony with the Muslim world and have many good ideas on how to get along. I think these lessons can be used in our dealings with the Arab world as a basis for a new beginning. Horrible things have happened in India but somehow, they have mechanisms to renew themselves.

It is time to start taking these diverse ideas from unionization to the anti-war movement to inter-religious harmony down to the rural dispossessed communities. It will be an effort that will restore American society and her place in the world. These are just a few thoughts on how I am finding my way. I invite you to find your way to rebuild this country and this world.

[heliarc]

71. TMI again

Your passion doesn't "scare me" at all. It is dangerously expressed so as to exclude as many people as possible. You're not the only one with passion. I've had family members and family friends who were tortured by CIA backed coup so don't lecture me about passion. I don't understand how you can say something like "Anecdotally, I can tell you that I've never seen a peace sticker on the car of a working class military contractors" and then condemn the whole lot of them with any level of certainty. Seem's like a bunch of them are just as afraid as you were back in the day when you actually worked for a DOD lackey company. Just read the letters of soldiers that write to Michael Moore, and I'm sure that if you asked civilian contractors to write in as well you'd get a good proportion of detractors. Sounds like you read whole paragraphs in between the lines, and that is dangerous to the left's argument. You can't know what people as a group are thinking without real data. You certainly can't condemn a whole group "to hell" as you did for being misinformed or misguided. You work with catholics? Aren't ALL catholic priests child molesters? ...

No they aren't. There are a high number of cases of child molestation in Rectories because some men of the cloth chose their profession to be near children who are their prey, or are warped by their professions obsessive demands that they remain celibate + society's discrimination against Gay people take your pick on an explanation. While I believe that an alarmingly high proportion are sexual predators, I'm just as sure that there are priests who are also vehemently opposed to the molestation of children and have taken brave steps to stop it. Am I the kind of person who will condemn the whole group of them because there are some child molesters? Besides the fact that I think that religion is misguided, I also feel it is anyone's right to believe whatever nonsense they want just so long as they refrain from screwing with the beliefs of others. But my opposition to the Church and its medieval views on everything from Jesus's relics to birth control doesn't stop me from thinking that you may be an ally and it is my firm belief that there is strength in that.

I respect a lot of what you say, but boy, you have a very VERY inflammatory way of presenting it. It seems to me that the more you say, the more people you disenfranchise. You're not going to go very far making arguments like the ones you are making, and listen to you! You keep expounding like you own and are entitled to this passion you preach without acknowledging any fault of your own.

[cap]

72. TMI?

The reason you are getting so many personal details is because you have attacked me personally with implications that I am a gold digger, or an elitist, or a Bush supporter. You have now moved onto religion. In order to refute personal attacks, people must reveal personal details. If you dont like hearing about me personally, then please stop attacking me. All these topics are topics that can be discussed in polite company. I have written to Joe Bageant and the author of "A Question of Torture" and we have shared personal experiences in our lives dealing with the sort of folks who go off and become military contractors or who are military personnel who have violated our standards of decency. Neither of them criticized me for being inappropriate.

I have also chosen to respond in a way that is a bit of verbal jijutsu. I take the personal attack, refute it, and use the examples out of my family's past to illustrate a more powerful and profound truth about the ability to make choices in difficult situations.

If you read Bageant's article about the Borderers which details the lineage of violence that many of these folks are heir to, you will start to understand why it is necessary to meet these folks gloves off. There is a sad tale of violence, denial, blind obedience to authority, and painful experience that needs to be accounted for. These contractors are choosing the time honored technique of a sort of Manifest Destiny of profiteering that has led to a shameful exploitation of peoples and natural resources rather than choosing social justice for all.

We cant find these contractors posting criticism on the Internet because they dont believe that they are doing anything wrong. At best, they just wish we were winning when they can acknowledge that there is something wrong. What criticism that derives from military contractors that exists comes from the white collar crowd; and even that, is few and far between. There is a dearth of commentary at this site and other sites where they would receive a friendly reception. These folks use the Internet -- use of the Internet is especially high in farming communities to gain information about farm management. They have nothing to fear when they return home -- and they are returning home where they can write about their experiences in peace, unlike our military.

[struggle4progress]

47. Fears over huge growth in Iraq's unregulated private armies (Guardian 10/31/06)

Mercenaries 'outnumber UK soldiers three to one'
Security companies are unaccounable, say critics

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday October 31, 2006
The Guardian

... British private security companies have contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan worth £1bn. There are 48,000 employees of private security firms in Iraq - 21,000 of them British - according to War on Want. The total has now dropped to 10,000, British companies say. Aegis, which won a multimillion pound contract from the Pentagon to provide security in Iraq, saw its turnover increase from £500,000 in 2003 to £62m last year. ArmorGroup, a British company, trebled its turnover from £37m in 2001 to £122m. In Afghanistan, 150 employees of the US company DynCorp are protecting president Hamid Karzai. Blackwater has won contracts in Iraq and to combat opium cultivation in Afghanistan. Control Risks has contracts with UK and US agencies, including the Foreign Office, to provide security in Iraq ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1935704,00.html

[struggle4progress]

39. José Luis Gómez del Prado is investigating soldiers-for-hire, not laundry folk,

and the US has placed quite a lot of these soldiers-for-hire in Iraq -- perhaps as many as 48,000.

[heliarc]

59. It might seem like a change of subject

and its no fault of the folk who take these jobs in the hopes of making more than they would in our lapsing economy (enough to buy a home hopefully)... but why is it that McGreenzone is so goddamned privatized? Why did we phase out those jobs in the first place? Halliburton gets to mismanage state funds? I thought that was what all the right wingers were mad at the government for doing... mismanaging funds. I much prefer the Government mismanaging my tax dollars, than some outsourced profiteer doing it.

but I'm sorry, last I checked a mercenary was a combat fighter... not a contractor like the guys flipping burgers in the greenzone. Of course there's a level of complicity in anything like that, but can you blame a guy for getting a job in the greenzone and milking Halliburton for every cent of hazard pay you can get? Sounds like a reasonable wager to me.

But the article seems to be referring to legal loopholes that allow security companies the right to trick the contractor who believes he is going to man a stable position into full combat. That doesn't seem like an army of one to me.

[Roland99]

24. And they cost how much more than our own soldiers?

But, do taxpayers have to foot the bill for their injuries that send them home?

[spindrifter]

29. What the article doesn't discuss is

the fact that the "mercenaries" work for a lot of different, and not necessarily coordinated sources. Most are employed as "security" for private companies to guard the company's resources, not to do battle as a unified force against some target in Iraq.

[Toots]

37. This Administration also has put into place an immunity clause for Contractors (Mercenaries)

They can do anything they want with no reprisals. They can rape kill loot or you name it and they are immune from prosecution which our troops are not... Great isn't it?

[ohio2007]

38. Dangerous situation when you cut the payroll of mercs,

They may decide to stay and run their own little slice of Iraqistan

[heliarc]

66. It's perfect...

for keeping the blood off your nice uniform. That any of this is a surprise to our military leaders is such a joke.

[saigon68]

41. Thugs, Criminals and Murderers Need a Rose Petal Parade

[kitty1]

44. Could some English speaking mercs been hired for the Karbala..

killings? They would have the sophisticated means to pull something like that off. I wonder who hired them though if that's the case.

[BestCenter]

52. Just remember, though

The U.S. Constitution allows the use of privateers (handing out letters of marque).

[cap]

54. but no letters of marque have been cut since the days when

piracy on the high seas was an issue.

[heliarc]

65. Piracy is still an issue in case you didn't know.

Piracy is actually up... and most maritime law hasn't changed a bit for almost 150 years. This is from the Wikipedia entry for piracy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy

Modern victims

* Environmentalist and yachtsman Sir Peter Blake was killed by Brazilian pirates in 2001.
* The American luxury liner The Seabourn Spirit was attacked by pirates in November 2005 off the Somalian coast. There was one injury to a crewmember; he was hit by shrapnell.
* Netherlands-baised motor tanker attacked outside the port of All Saints Bay in Argentina in November 1998. Multiple injuries.
* The cargo ship Chang Song boarded and taken over by pirates posing as customs officials in the South China Sea in 1998. Entire crew of 23 was killed and their bodies thrown overboard. Six bodies were eventually recovered in fishing nets. A crackdown by the Chinese government resulted in the arrest of 38 pirates and the group's leader, a corrupt customs official, and 11 other pirates publicly executed by firing squad.
* Collision between container ship Ocean Blessing and hijacked tanker Nagasaki Spirit in the Malancca Strait in 1991. Pirates boarded the Nagasaki Spirit, removed its captain from command, set the ship on autopilot, and left with the ship's master for a ransom, leaving the ship going at full speed with no one at the wheel. The collision and resulting fire took the lives of 51 sailors; between the two ships there were only 3 survivors. The fire on the Nagasaki Spirit lasted for six days; the fire aboard the Ocean Blessing burned for six weeks.
* A total of ten UN aid ships were hijacked and held for ransom in 2005.
* In October of 1985, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked off the coast of Egypt by terrorists claiming to be from the Palestine Liberation Organization. The terrorists demanded the release of PLO operatives imprisioned in Israel. Following the Israelis' refusal, the terrorists shot an invalid American tourist named Leon Clinghoffer and dumped his body overboard.
* In August 2002 al-Quaeda operatives attacked a French oil supertanker outside the port of Aden, the same port where the USS Cole was blown up. The single compartment was occupied; if it was empty, then the terrorists could have damaged up to five of the ship's compartments.
* Pirates boarded the supertanker Dewey Madrid in March 2003 in the Malacca Strait. The pirates did not focus on the crew or cargo, instead focusing on learning how to steer the ship. They left taking manuals and technical information. No injuries.
* Authorities estimate that only 10% of pirate attacks are actually reported

[cap]

73. Piracy is an issue; but letters of marque havent been used since the

mid 1800's. Although we didnt sign the treaty that abolished the use of this technique, we have agreed to abide by that treaty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque

[superconnected]

63. It's always nice to know exactly what army

will be loosed on us when bush refuses to leave office and we protest.

[Megahurtz]

79. That's probably Part of the Reason.

These obedient Trained Dogs will be the one's unleashed on us if Marshall Law is declared. :scared:

[ShortnFiery]

74. Man, this is one large scale lame USA version of the flick "The Wild Geese"

The Wild Geese

The action, adventure and humor never stop when a shady British corporation hires veteran mercenaries to rescue a virtuous African leader from execution. Richard Burton (Wagner, Where Eagles Dare), Sir Roger Moore (James Bond films, The Saint) and Richard Harris (Harry Potter films, Gladiator) unite their all-star power to give you rousing good fun, complete with a perfect military mission, an evil double cross, and enormously satisfying revenge. The gloriously remastered 30th Anniversary Edition includes extras: Last of the Gentleman Producers documentary, commentary by Sir Roger Moore, “making-of ” feature and more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Geese#The_Story

[Doondoo]

75. this is the rat hole where your tax dollars go

[nomatrix]

77. There is a documentary about mercenaries

Shadow Company

http://www.shadowcompanythemovie.com/trailers_clips.html

Click on any of the trailers to see a selection of the movie.

It defines what is happening in this world today. These are not actors. They are the people who run these businesses, the paid "soldiers" for hire who do the actual security for pay. They work for who ever pays them.

So when ANYONE declares there are mercenaries in Iraq or any country, you need to ask yourself WHO is paying them. It does NOT involve an allegiance to any country. These are global employees.

This is not about sides or teams. It may give you a clearer picture to why this will never end.

[Unbowed]

83. Maybe this is why the republicans keep voting down the minimum wage.

:sarcasm: