What's your take on mercenaries?

[derby378]

Poll question: What's your take on mercenaries?

There's all kinds of mercs and "independent contractors" throughout history, from the Hessians to the French Foreign Legion, from Executive Outcomes to the Gurkhas and Blackwater. But what's your take?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. If all mercs disappeared tomorrow, I would not cry

Creating an economy that DEPENDS on war guarantees war.
The economies of Virginia, and Maryland would collapse if there were no wars

[tridim]

2. If they're Americans, they should be bound by US and International law.

And if they break the law, they should go to prison. As-is, they're completely immune and above the law.

[bloom]

12. That and....

I think they should get paid the same as regular military - instead of 100+ times more or whatever the heck it is.

[libertypirate]

3. Fighting for fortune is not a good reason to fight.

[lenidog]

8. A rich mercenary is a rare thing.

Many times the have fought for pay because its all they know how to do and there is nothing at home ot go back to. After WWII the mercenary world and the French Foreign Legion in particular were awash with Germans. After the fall of the Iron Curtain the Foreign Legion adn the mercenary world was awash in Russians and Eastern Europeans. All of them took up the profession because it was one of the only options open to them.

[jody]

4. We have thousands of them serving on active duty today in our military.

Citizens from other countries who are not U.S. citizens and serve in our military are one form of mercenary.

Remember, our fledgling country used mercenaries in our successful war with England.

[lenidog]

5. My view on them changes case by case

It all depends on what they are doing, how they are doing it, and who they are doing it for. With mercs there is no such thing as a generalization.

[One_Life_To_Give]

6. If you need them, then you have already lost.

If they do a poor job your enemies will take all you have. If they do well and destroy your enemies they will take what they want. As you have already proven that you are unwilling to fight for what is yours.

[bobthedrummer]

7. They are worse than scum of the earth. They are often violent whackjobs

racist RW criminals and thugs. I hate how The War President has abused our US Armed Forces by forcing them to take reprisals over mercenaries that he employs with our taxes.
:argh:

[leetrisck]

9. And more often they are not

nothing is worse than the RW criminal thug that occupies our house (or what was our house until he came along)

[seemslikeadream]

11. Yes they are worse than the scum of the earth because

Indications are that mercs ran Abu Grab and had a role in the abuses at the prison. Yet they cannot be punished under military law. Again, lawless mercenaries are complicating our occupation and attempts to rebuild Iraq.

Anyone who defends mercenaries hates our troops. Plain and simple. The actions of those mercenaries have been getting our soldiers killed.

Why are American soldiers taking orders from mercenaries/soldiers-for-hire?

[leetrisck]

16. Plain & simple, huh?

Anyone with an attitude like that (& so terribly, terribly misinformed) needs to educate themselves a little better. All those truck drivers, laundry workers, food supply people & the others who happen to carry guns and those who don't are hardly the scum of the earth. Years and years and generations of military (past & present) and family serving there now so don't even begin to think you call someone else scum when you don't know what the hell you are talking about.

[seemslikeadream]

17. Outsourcing War

Hired Guns
What to do about military contractors run amok.
By Phillip Carter
Posted Friday, April 9, 2004, at 2:57 PM PT

Contractors: Life during wartime

The ambush and gruesome killing of four U.S. contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, has sparked some of the most intense combat since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime last spring. It has also brought the actions of private military contractors—hired by the U.S. government to provide extra manpower and firepower in Iraq—into sharp focus, with reports that they are fighting their own battles with their own weapons, helicopters, and intelligence networks.

Military contracting in wartime is nothing new. The military depends on a vast support network of civilians to feed, clothe, equip, and train the forces. Indeed, today's U.S. military couldn't function without civilian contractors to troubleshoot its high-tech equipment. What is new is the extent to which these contractors are conducting combat operations in Iraq; rather than the purely support functions they have performed during recent missions in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. This shift raises a number of problems for the U.S. government, with which the Pentagon is only now beginning to wrestle—principally, how to control these contractors and ensure that their actions under fire further the national interest.

The first set of problems arises from the legal status of contractors. Armed contractors—like the four men ambushed in Fallujah last week—fall into an international legal gray zone. They aren't "noncombatants" (as unarmed contractors are) under the 4th Geneva Convention, because they carry weapons and act on behalf of the U.S. government. However, they're also not "lawful combatants" under the 3rd Geneva Convention, because they don't wear uniforms or answer to a military command hierarchy. These armed contractors don't even fit the legal definition of mercenaries, because that definition requires that they work for a foreign government in a war zone, in which their own country isn't part of the fight. Legally speaking, they actually fall into the same gray area as the unlawful combatants detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
more
http://slate.msn.com/id/2098571 /


The bulk of the media and political class in Britain has followed this lead in an apparent attempt to normalize the occupation of Iraq in the eyes of the public. The fact that British squaddies shot dead 15 Iraqis in Amara on Tuesday has had little more coverage than the shameful beating to death of Iraqi prisoners in British custody. Both the BBC and ITN routinely refer to British troops as "peacekeepers"; private mercenaries are called "civilian contractors"; the rebranding of the occupation planned for June is described as the "handover of power to the Iraqis"; the Sadr group always represents a "small minority" of Shia opinion; and a patently unscientific and contradictory poll carried out in Iraq last month - in which most people said they were opposed to the presence of coalition forces in Iraq - is absurdly used to claim majority support for the occupation.
more
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0408-05.htm

Outsourcing War
An inside look at Brown & Root, the kingpin of America's new military-industrial complex
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_37/b3849012.htm

The New Condottieri and US
Policy: The Privatization of
Conflict and Its Implications
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/02winter/smith.htm

Right of peoples to self-determination
Report of the Secretary-General**
http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/0/a987f0110ca2567ac1256c39004c32d5?Opendocument

[bobthedrummer]

22. I'm not naive, I'm referencing the PMC/Private Military Company

goons, thugs and losers from all over the world-and the world condemns them yet George W. Bush aka The War President employs them in his failed Bush Doctrine.

These folks are not sworn to defend the US Constitution, they are war profiteers that will do anything if the price is right-fucking scumbags is what they are--their crimes have harmed our US military and made the world unsafe for Americans now.

Mercenaries Condemned by World
http://www.caat.org.uk/information/issues/mercenaries.php

http://www.umn.edu/humanrts/commission/thematic51/29.htm

Mercenaries in Grenada/Dominica were neo-nazis
http://www.thegrenadarevolutiononline.com/page17a.html

Private Military Companies/PMC's
http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/

http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1884

Who's dispensing the disinfo kool aid, who is naive about these scumbags?

[Javaman]

10. you get what you pay for

[bloom]

13. It doesn't seem so in this case.... eom

[redqueen]

15. Unaccountable scum that have to be paid ten times what soldiers earn?

While REAL soldiers are having their pay CUT?

Yeah, that sounds like a bargain.

[cestpaspossible]

14. Too expensive.

Have you ever tried financing a coup? It adds up quick.

[ConfuZed]

18. I really don't see a problem with "MERCS" they havent murdered as many

innocents like our soldiers in iraq plus they are better trained to boot.

[UdoKier]

19. Other. All our soldiers right now are mercenaries.

They are fighting to make a buck for their boss's clients. There is no real national interest in this war. Sure, they are mostly being conned by Dumbya and they're getting chump change, but they are mercenaries nonetheless.


And no, I don't hate them for trying to make a living as mercenaries when there are no other opportunities open to them. I feel sorry for them. I was brainfucked like them once, too. There is a reason the military mostly uses boys age 18~22...

[Demoiselle]

20. Their use is a sign of our country's moral collapse...

I don't know any mercenaries so I won't try to judge their character. tBut it seems to me that if a democracy like ours has to fill its ranks with mercenaries to fight in Iraq, we're in big trouble. They're having a terrible time recruiting these days (excellent article in the Times about parents around the country objecting vociferously to recruiting tactics) but I don't think they can reinstitute the draft--the reaction would make anti Viet Nam war activism pale in comparison.. So they're forced to pay outrageous salaries to man their outrageous wars. And we lose all credibility--here and everywhere else in the world.

[Joey Liberal]

21. I have no problem with mercs

I have no problem with mercs. I've got a real problem with people who make a living as Loggers.