Why don't we DEFUND the mercenaries?

[Th1onein]

They are using our guys to protect them. Why are we still paying for this in dollars and lives?

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Paprika Jones]

2. The entire "war on terror" is just a smokescreen to distract..

this nation from facing its greatest problem, the results of
generations of abuse of African Americans who are responsible
for building this country yet are denied the fruits of their
labor.

Reparations now!

[sam sarrha]

3. JUST PAY THEM MINIMUM WAGE.. THEY WILL LEAVE, or they will raise minimum to $5000 day

[Kagemusha]

4. To avoid using more reservists and enlisted men, duh.

I imagine you have a good reply to that. Just get them all out. I am not aiming to disagree. But pretending there's no answer to your question isn't cool...

[Th1onein]

6. From what I've heard, they are using our troops to protect the mercenaries.

If the mercenaries want to make money off this fucking war, let them put THEIR asses on the line, not our soldiers'.

[Kagemusha]

8. They're using our troops to protect the supplies being driven.

Those supplies are for the troops. Our troops.

Surely you understood this.

[stillcool]

5. here's an interesting article about why...

Why the US Is Not Leaving Iraq: The Booming Business of War Profiteers
By Prof. Ismael Hossein-zadeh *
Global Research
January 12, 2007
...................Last summer, in the lull of the August media doze, the Bush Administration's doctrine of preventive war took a major leap forward. On August 5, 2004, the White House created the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, headed by former US Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate ‘post-conflict’ plans for up to twenty-five countries that are not, as of yet, in conflict. According to Pascual, it will also be able to coordinate three full-scale reconstruction operations in different countries ‘at the same time,’ each lasting ‘five to seven years.’" 11

Here we get a glimpse of the real reasons or forces behind the Bush administration’s preemptive wars. As Klein puts it, "a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction." Klein also documents how (through Pascual’s office) contractors drew "reconstruction" plans in close collaboration with various government agencies and how, at times, contracts were actually pre-approved and paper work completed long before an actual military strike:

"In close cooperation with the National Intelligence Council, Pascual's office keeps ‘high risk’ countries on a ‘watch list’ and assembles rapid-response teams ready to engage in prewar planning and to ‘mobilize and deploy quickly’ after a conflict has gone down. The teams are made up of private companies, nongovernmental organizations and members of think-tanks Pascual told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in October, some will have ‘pre-completed’ contracts to rebuild countries that are not yet broken. Doing this paperwork in advance could ‘cut off three to six months in your response time.’"

No business model or entrepreneurial paradigm can adequately capture the nature of this kind of scheming and profiteering. Not even illicit businesses based on rent-seeking, corruption or theft can sufficiently describe the kind of nefarious business interests that lurk behind the Bush administration’s preemptive wars. Only a calculated imperial or colonial kind of exploitation, albeit a new form of colonialism or imperialism, can capture the essence of the war profiteering associated with the recent US wars of aggression. As Shalmali Guttal, a Bangalore-based researcher put it, "We used to have vulgar colonialism. Now we have sophisticated colonialism, and they call it 'reconstruction.' 12

Classical colonial or imperial powers roamed on the periphery of the capitalist center, "discovered" new territories, and drained them off of their riches and resources. Today there are no new places in our planet to be "discovered." But there are many vulnerable sovereign countries whose governments can be overthrown, their infrastructures smashed to the ground, and fortunes made as a result (of both destruction and "reconstruction). And herein lies the genius of a parasitically efficient market mechanism, as well as a major driving force behind the Bush administration’s unprovoked unilateral wars of choice.<<read more>>
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/contract/2007/0112warprofiteers.htm

[kenny blankenship]

7. After this next election hopefully we can start something in Congress

and in the UN maybe as well, to forbid the creation and use of private armies. Corporations with armies is a nightmare idea that should be returned to the realm of science fiction where it started.

[patrice]

9. We were talking to our Representative, Dennis Moore, about that

yesterday at a Dem. breakfast.

He was, as usual, quite non-committal, but he did say that Congressional oversight of the Contracting situation in Bush's War on Iraq may yeild some tools that might be useful for de-funding the private contractors.

[patrice]

10. Hi Th1onein, how are you?

I observed a day of silence on March 6, so I could pray for your friend and his family.

I hope you are okay.

[Th1onein]

11. Thank you so much, Patrice.

I am okay. It is still difficult for me to believe.

I learned something I should have known already--the people over at a certain conservative website were having a party, counting down until the death of my friend. My mother always said that people judge others by the way they are themselves, so it was kind of a shock to me that there could be such cruel people in the world--gloating over the pain and the death of a fellow human being. I know now, though, that true evil does exist in this world. It is called "conservative."

[patrice]

12. It is so hard to protect oneself from that negative energy.

Everyone is soooo deeply stressed out. It is pretty clear that there is something seriously wrong with people who enjoy even more pain.

The only thing each of us can do is to renew his/her commitment to helping others and maintain hope for the best. It helps me to know there are people like you out there ministering to people like Robert Perez. Something is always more than nothing, **especially** when, were it not for that "little" bit of something, there would be Nothing.

:hug:

[midnight]

13. Very good point. Thanks for bringing this to our

attention. The fact that our soldiers who make less than, the blackwater soldiers, are putting there own lives, and our tax dollars toward that type of protection. It does not make sense, and I have read that it really has pitted the two groups of soldiers against each other. It is good to see a post from you.

[Vidar]

14. Great idea--doubt its implementation.

[Leopolds Ghost]

15. Are you implying Democrats don't support our mercenaries?

Our fighting men and women in combat and their for-profit bosses over at Blackwater, Halliburton and the Central American Fruit and Nut Export Co?

Man, that just ain't right.

When a mercenary gets spit on in an airport, it does a dishonor to all professional mercenaries throughout history, from the Hessians to the Persian empire to the CIA assets and hired criminals in places like Baluchistan and Iraq.