Thanks.

I believe that Jim Henley was doing an April Fool's; alas, Kos was apparently not. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the latter's gotten grief from it on his own site, which probably means that he's going to have another purge.

The desecration of the bodies was despicable. I thought, though, that anyone out of uniform was an illegal combatant and could be shot at sunrise. I mean, that's our theory with respect to Gitmo. I don't see why "contractors" make sense, as they are very expensive relative to enlarging the army, and I have a sneaking suspicion they are recruited for tasks not in conformance with the laws of war (e.g., torture and assassinations).

Andrew, since I know some people contracting over there, I'll point out that they're doing boring (but risky) things like guarding the engineers fixing power plants.

Your suspicion is beneath you.

And I'm past ballistic at Kos for his comment.

If we're going to show the consequences of war, I can think of a bunch of imagery from 9/11 that needs to be playing right alongside it.

A.L.

The WSJ has an excellant front page article today on the work these "contractors" are doing, and why the Iraqis are nuts to be shooting them.

Dear Joe:

Thanks for linking to Ali's moving post. It needs to get more play. I linked to it from my own blog yesterday.

And the Henley piece was an April Fool.

Andrew's comment was almost as out of line as was Kos'. "Beneath" him? We should hope...

sad about Henley and his ilk. If he thought that was funny, we should send them to Fallujah BEFORE we take action on it.

Kos and the rest of these fools should remember that these were not mercenaries. They were simply men doing a dangerous job in hopes of making the changes necessary to prevent these kind of acts from happening in the first place. They are the bringers of freedom, the architects of liberty and the engineers of justice. They are the cogs in the machine that, through their efforts, will one day turn Iraq into a functioning member in the community of free democratic states.

If they were truly the "mercenaries" that Kos claims them to be, why was the area not littered with corpses of mob. Surely these low men that Kos desribes would have been looking for any excuse to off some arabs. This fact alone might lead one to the conclusion that perhaps these men were not bloodthirsty "mercenaries", but rather men doing a job that very few would.

Praise them. Honor them. Remember them.

A.L., I know that we have civilian contractors doing all sorts of wonderful (no sarcasm) work in Iraq, on the oil pipelines and the electricity grid and so forth. That's very far from the whole story.

You don't have to be a retired Navy Seal for that work. You don't have to be a retired Seal to protect the engineers, either: I don't understand why we just don't admit we need more GIs and use them, instead of paying $1000/day. (I believe that's their income; the cost to the taxpayer after overhead would then be far, far greater.)

Meanwhile, we both know that these outfits aren't loyal to any government and aren't subject to military discipline. That's how we get groups like the "contractors" who fell into that double-cross in Africa. Note their official story was providing mine security, but their real mission (except they were being set up) was a coup and/or assasination. Contractors in the Balkans are participating in the thriving trade in women there. Wicked as this is, it's made even worse that there is no structure (you can tell I'm a big structuralist) in which to bring them to justice: contractors answer to no one, not American justice, and certainly not the host government which they are ostensibly protecting.

Further to Mr. Robert's comments, Mr. Lazarus has not increased his credibility by his comment; something I find unfortunate as I found his post yesterday to be a well reasoned, if not ultimately persuasive, case against the escalation of the war with Iraq.

Instead we get a cheap shot at Gitmo and an accusation that we are engaging in torture and assasination by contract. Perhaps this was standard procedure at the time of the Kennedy administration, but I suspect most government agencies and responsible individuals within them have learned that employment of such methods may easily become public knowledge and redound to their detriment. One ned only look at the treatment of the US colonel who shot a pistol past the head of a captive to gain immediately needed tactical information to save the lives of his troops.

In any case, should we determine that physical torture is necessary, I suspect we would be much more likely to turn any captives over to our friends in some other country who are far more experienced in such methods of interrogation than former US military personnel who have assumed civilian careers such as being stunt men in movies.

The suggestion that those helping to rebuild Iraq are illegal combatants to be shot at sunrise is an example of the knee jerk anti-Americanism that distinguishes the liberal from the leftist that has been the topic of several other threads.

I look forward to Part II of Mr. Lazarus post with much less eagerness.

Hear, hear, Richard.

I was under the impression that private individuals in Iraq were subject to Iraqi laws, such as they are. If a complaint was lodged by an Iraqi against a foreign worker for, say, assault, is it the case that nothing would be done?

Also, I'm not aware of any wrongdoing by contractors or private security firms in Iraq. I'm sure there will be, eventually, improper conduct, but I've yet to see reports of it. If people have evidence of wrongdoing by these particular 4 individuals, that should be provided. Innuendo and unfounded allegations are inappropriate, coming soon after their deaths, "sneaking suspicions" notwithstanding.

I may be wrong, but I beleive the use of civilian contractors for security of civilian personnel is expected to net a cost savings to the tax-payer. Consider that a soldier signs on to a multiple year contract with the government when enlisting, contractors are more often signed to terms of service which are much shorter. While it may be true that they are paid a greater sum in the short run, the long term cost savings are what the DoD is after.

And why not use ex military? Clearly these are the people willing to do the job. Hopefully there will be enough to get the job done.

Andrew, that's just stupid.

The "wonderful work" being done by coviulian reconstruction contractors in Iraq could not be done without security; security won't be pervasive in Iraq until - in part - the work those reconstruction contractors need to do is done. So how do we deal with it in the interim?

The military have jobs to do in generally securing the contry and going after the bad guys. The civilian contractors are bodyguards, plain and simple, and for that, the kind of training the ex-military have is obviously useful.

Here's on where you might win some serious points by demonstrating enough flexibility not to have answered the question before all the information is in.

A.L.

A.L. (et al), I am not in a position to say that the particular victims in Fallujah were doing something improper. I don't, I will admit, know of evidence that these agencies in Iraq are behaving improperly, although I wonder by what route we would find out if they were. I don't think the situation is conducive to whisteblowing.

However, my last post provided two links to stories showing exactly these sorts of "contractors" running rampant. I believe the agency accused in the Balkans does indeed have contractors in Iraq. The fact remains that these contractors are answerable to no one. That makes abuse all but inevitable. (Mark must be joking if he thinks Iraqi police can arrest our contractors and bring them before Iraqi courts in case they are accused of a crime.)

Do you not believe the allegations arising in Africa and the Balkans? If it's a question of credibility, I'll research further links, although the pandering accusations have entered common wisdom. If the defense is merely that these particular four contractors never committed any atrocity of this sort, I'm not interested. My argument is with the system that employs these transnational agencies.

(Followup to Mr. Heddleston: You have missed my point. The reaction to the American officer who shot past the head of a captive is exactly why there is temptation to resort to non-military personnel in these situations.)

Andrew, I'll happily match your story of contactor misbehavior in the balkans with UN staff misbehavior, and NGO misbehavior.

I do think it's (the role of armed non-military) an issue that needs to be thought through, but - particularly in this context, your knee-jerk smear (let's go to the record:"...I have a sneaking suspicion they are recruited for tasks not in conformance with the laws of war (e.g., torture and assassinations).") is outrageous.

"I have a sneaking suspicion that Kos has been bought off by Al Quieda."

That's an outrageous and offensive thing to say, and mirrors your accusation exactly.

A.L.

I'm in agreement with those who've expressed disgust at Kos' comments. Whatever they were doing, no-one needs to be dancing on anyone's graves. I'm also in agreement with Andrew's position: we don't need to go airbrushing the world of private military contractors any more than we need to be celebrating their deaths. To do so would be irresponsible, rendering protestations of caring for the "Iraqi people" suspect at best and counterfeit at worst.

The incident in Fallujah does provide an opportunity to set things straight, however. Until now, private military contractors have been operating in obscurity in Iraq and elsewhere. Those who would like to see their work and their lives honoured alongside regular soldiers now have an opportunity to demand that we know more about the role these people are playing, not least to clarify the question of what kind of accountability they have and how they're affecting Iraqi perception of the occupation.

It's pretty evident that the CPA is using mercenaries to plug the gaps in the coalition's forces on the ground. While we're looking for an informed discussion of the roles those contractors are playing, it's also worthwhile to ask why exactly there's a need to resort to measures like this.

Kos' response to the flap.

I think my first post is being read as an accusation against the particular individuals who were killed, and not against the peculiar advantages of employing armed "contractors" outside any chain of command and unfettered by the laws of war. I most certainly did not intend at any time to make such an accusation against the particular individuals, and I hope that you accept this is a misreading.

A.L., your point about U.N. and NGO misbehavior (I believe they are also deep into the traffic in women) is very well taken, and I think we should consider how better to safeguard essentially defenseless populations in regions where the internal judicial system has broken down from all of these sorts of judicially-immune (de facto as well as de jure) predators.

For some reason, pro-war posters who are skeptical of the contractors are showing up at Tacitus much more so than here (including, I think, Tac himself).

I once worked a summer job as a security guard with a retired SEAL at a retirement community. He was working there to be near his wife, who was in the attached nursing home. So no, Mr. Lazarus, a security detail many, many orders of magnitude more difficult and dangerous than the one I worked is not beneath ex-SEALs. Your insinuations, however, are definitely, and without a doubt, beneath contempt.

Andrew, I'd call it more of a miswriting tham midreading, but let it go. Please check your email re Part II, btw...I need a text copy.

A.L.

> The fact remains that these contractors are
> answerable to no one.

Uhh, ultimately they are accountable to the CPA, which either hired them or else hired the company who hired them.

now Kos is saying that the civilians are less worthy because they willingly went into a warzone. He says that we should love the soldiers because they were ordered to go by the Bush neo-con cabal and so are not blameworthy, after all they are just following orders.

But these people who go into the warzone willingly deserve only our condemnation. We are required to believe that they are there, not out of a willingness to do a dangerous job furthering the intersets of freedom, but rather for some more nefarious reason. Try again.

trying to make the best of an impossible situation [emphasis added]

Mitch, you've reversed necessary and sufficient conditions. Your friend could have held that job with a lot less training than Navy Seal.

A.L., sorry: I'm at the wrong (i.e. office) computer and I can't get you copy until tonight.

In re-reading, I agree that my first post can easily be read with implications I emphatically did not intend. My argument is with the employment of these organizations in general, who are then free to do pretty much as they will, not with any individual (in the absence of an accusation).

Kirk, does the CPA have some established investigative procedure for arrest and trial (where!?) of contractors who run afoul of the law? Is there an active "Internal Affairs Bureau" like the MPs? The idea that contractors who buy child prostitutes (as they have in the Balkans) can be fired is not really registering here.

The company Andrew is referring to is DynCorp, who does have employees in Iraq, but none that were involved in the Fallujah atrocity.

I did a brief write-up on DynCorp and DoD outsourcing *here*.

now Kos is saying that the civilians are less worthy because they willingly went into a warzone.

You render the word "civilian" largely meaningless if you're going to apply it to people wearing flak jackets and carrying guns in a warzone on a mission for an occupying government. In fact, the fuzzy status of the mercs is one of the reasons regular troops were uneasy about them as far back as last October.

But these people who go into the warzone willingly deserve only our condemnation.

Forget about whether or not you agree with Kos for a second. Do you deny that people profiting from the waging war are different from volunteer soldiers? Do you believe those people should be regarded as the exact equivalent of regular soldiers?

There are large numbers of perfectly valid reasons why the use of mercenaries has been repudiated. If you're going to make an argument against that position, you're going to have to actually educate yourself about it and the empirical evidence related to it. Sniping for momentary partisan convenience isn't going to cut it.

Again, I think the best way to clarify all this is to call for the CPA to come clean about how it's using mercenaries, and to urge PMCs to fully disclose their activities and their impact on Coalition troops and policy. If suspicions about the overall role of mercenaries are invalid WRT Iraq, that should certainly help to settle the matter, shouldn't it?

Mr. Lazarus,

I agree that the new and innovative use of civilian contractors is subject to abuse on several dimensions and preventing this is a subject for debate. I do not think that they are utterly unaccountable as this discussion demonstrates. How they should be utilized and monitored is certainly subject to change as we learn more about how the idea actually works in practice.

Like the military, there are human beings working for the contractors who will do things that are wrong. They should be held acountable for their actions. I am not necessarily excited about the idea of subcontracting defence related activities and I am not sure it is the low cost option, but it is not entirely without merit either.

However, to state that the government, either DOD, CPA or any other agency, hires them to gain "the peculiar advantages of employing armed "contractors" outside any chain of command and unfettered by the laws of war" is unwarranted as far as any evidence you have presented.

I'll echo a comment I made over at Nathan Newman's here.

The guys captured in the plane in Zimbabwe? Mercenaries.

The guys standing around with guns while engineers fix power plants and sewer lines? Security guards.

Now the environment is pretty hostile, so you need very good security guards.

And you do need some transparency to make sure that the two roles don't blur.

But until the DynCorp and Blackwater start mounting assaults, let's call them what they are - guards.

A.L.

Andrew, evidently the best I can understand your cycle of "slander/retreat" is that you didn't intend to slander the dead without evidence, just to slander their peers and the Bush administration without evidence.

Hardly an improvement.

Doc

My intent is not to snipe out momentary partisan comments. The evidence that you provide is interesting, and we should alwasy be watchful of those who have been given powers by our government. To do otherwise is to invite disaster.

I searched the United Nations document on use of mercenaries, and was only able to find one instance of suspected United States involvement. That of the group Alpha 66. Was there something else you wanted me to look at, or am I to assume that you believe that because their is a problem with mercenaries, the US is somehow complicit in it.

I do not believe that these armed contractors are anywhere remotely related to bands of armed thugs, however well trained, that the term merc should be applied. Those in the employ of the US military are accountable for their actions. In addition, they are accountable to us. When we see violations of the trust they have been given, we must rail against it with all our might.

I merely suggest that we give these people the benefit of the doubt, as we would demand for ourselves. There will always be bad apples in every group willing to spoil it for the rest. These should be weeded out. The bathwater, not the baby.

Just in case it isn't clear in my post above, I did link to the Ballasteros report in 1994 on the modern use of mercenaries. URL is: http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/0/3bb0d073ac60c2b080256714003a28e0?Opendocument

Ballasteros is pretty unambiguous about the problematic role often played by mercenaries. (His commentary on the Balkans of the time is particularly of interest.) He also levels the charge in many cases that mercenaries are employed basically for dirty work by the governments that hire them. Whether or not this is true in Iraq we have no way of knowing -- a problem in itself.

(For the definition of mercenaries apparently most applicable to this case, see item 85© of the linked document.)

Posted the last item before seeing DG's reply.

I've noted the part of the Ballsteros report that seems applicable to what I know of PMC's thus far in Iraq. I assume the US is involved in this case because the US is running the Coalition Provisional Authority. If the US is somehow not in the loop that brought these people to Iraq, that's a very serious problem.

I'm not accusing the US of necessarily hiring these folks for "dirty tricks" purposes. I'm not ruling out the possibility either -- the history of PMCs at minimum provides some precedent for this. I have a suspicion, and nothing more, that the truth is probably a mixture of the mundane and the not-so-mundane, but we have no way of knowing right now.

So the mob hacks at the guardians of Iraqs food supply and the anti-war? pro-peace? liberals? in America cheer?

I was under the impression that liberals favored the food bringers over the mere military hired guns.

I am having daily conversations with another lefty who says bringing democracy to the ME is a mistake, too costly, and the ME desreves despotism because they can't handle democracy.

And besides war is no way to bring democratic goverment to people and .............. the latest position on why X is bad or X is good depending on the needs of the day. Kerry is the perfict candidate for the American left.

Bush in a landslide.

The left (of which I was formerly a member) has totally lost its moral compass.

I was under the impression that liberals favored the food bringers over the mere military hired guns.

Interestingly enough, that anti-American pro-evil liberal lefty Tacitus raised some questions about the whole "altruistic food bringers" story. I look forward to your denunciation of his obvious desire to see America fail and Americans die.

I am having daily conversations with another lefty who says bringing democracy to the ME is a mistake, too costly, and the ME desreves despotism because they can't handle democracy.

You know, one of the most damaging memes to the prowar position is the self-serving fiction that a swathe of apocryphal "lefties" can be assumed to want despotism for the Middle East because they don't buy Bush's "solution" to the problem of despotism. As far as the majority of the antiwar movement goes, this line of reasoning is a patronizing and irrelevant strawman. File it with "you're objectively pro-Saddam" and "you're not anti-war, you're just on the other side" as things you should never, ever say if you want to be taken seriously. It's a bit rich to be yapping about "moral compasses" when you're behaving like this.

"I'm not accusing the US of necessarily hiring these folks for "dirty tricks" purposes. I'm not ruling out the possibility either"

Good and nor should you. I am a great believer in the idea of meting out small amounts of power (or areas of responsibility) to parties who are accountable for their actions, and then watching them like hawks. This would seem to me to be the very foundation upon which the American System is based.

I think it is also dangerous to view the actions taken by the US in terms of the world's views or actions. I am not saying you should be nationalistic, but realize that this is one of the places people go to get away from the "world". It was built for that very reason.

As a regular reading of tacitus, I take issue with the selective quotes that lazaurus and slack used to butress their points.

Pleas quote the whole thing. You will find less support for your opinion.

please read this one for the full story

http://www.testtacitus.org/story/2004/4/1/1595/88102

Congressman Martin Frost of Texas and Joe Donelley of Indiana have already pulled thier adds from KoS 's site. This cost him at least 4K a month.

The Failed Left, now also the ANGRY Left, at least in America and the West, absolutely love and adore the materialism of decentralized Republicanism, Capitalism, and Rightism YET REFUSES TO MOVE TO RUSSIA, CHINA, CUBA, NORTH KOREA,....ETC. TO HELP IMPROVE ON THE FAILED COMMUNIST AND SOCIALIST IDEOLOGIES OR FAILING STATES, THERE - THEIR ANSWER IS SEEK TO TURN AMERICA LEFTWARDS WHILE DENYING THEY ARE DOING SO, just as their answer for rectifying or improving upon failed local, national, and regional Communism and Socialism is to GO GLOBAL!
As once indicated in PRAVDA, at least under Communism Soviet citizens were OPTIMISTIC, DESPITE BEING PERSONALLY, SOCIETALLY, AND NATIONALLY POOR - at least Soviet citizens weren't warmongers and imperialist, "war-for-oil" capitalist and Western profiteers like Bush and Bush/GOP-led America! IN EARLY APRIL 2004, according to PRAVDA again, NEITHER AMERICAN DEMOCRATS OR REPUBLICANS, AS AMERICA AND AMERICANS IN GENERAL, STILL, STILL, STILL CAN'T BE TRUSTED BY DECENT FOLK, ONLY YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD, DEMOCRACY-/FREEDOM-/PROLETARIAT-......................../DOG-PRESERVING, A'SAVIN, AND DEFENDING COMMUNISTS OR COMMUNIST-CENTRIC ARMED REVOLUTIONARY GROUP - Gee, no kidding. shirlock, I guess Communist Bill didn't inhale after all, ALA "AMERICA MUST BE RESTRAINED AND CONTROLLED"!? * Poor little Clintonian, Communists/Centralists-for-Federalist-Republicanism [CFR] thing - just wanna be hugged and understood as they kill America from within!

Could we take up a collection to buy JosephMendiola a keyboard without "Shift" or "CapsLock?" It would be much appreciated.

RE: things you should never say

"File it with "you're objectively pro-Saddam" and "you're not anti-war, you're just on the other side" as things you should never, ever say if you want to be taken seriously."

Dr. Slack, this is my interpretion of your syllogism. Please correct me if I am wrong

1) You wish to be taken seriously.
2) People who make false statements are not taken seriously.
3) You must not make false statments.
4) No Americans are objectively pro-Saddam or "on the other side" (IE these statements are false)
5) You must never assert either of the propositions in point 4.

When stated this way, it is clear that you are asserting point 4 without evidence. Please provide us with either evidence or a decision rule.

Thanks,
Shaun

Robin, Doctor Slack and I have supplied substantial evidence Internet-style for our contention that some of these contractor companies engage in odious behavior, or at least that the contractors do, with impunity. By evidence, I mean we supplied links to several news stories appearing in reasonably respectable outlets.

I ask again: are you contesting the truth of the stories about contractors trafficking in Balkan women? If so, then we can try to look for some more facts. If not, then where did we slander anybody? Why is this not disgraceful and criminal?

I don't have the least reason to believe that the particular contractors in Fallujah did anything improper, and I don't wish anything I wrote to be interpreted to the contrary. Call that a retreat if you want.

Since these contractors are responsible to minimal legal authority if any, having no military chain of command with a recognized and responsible government at the apex, and as they operate in regions where local authority has collapsed, abuse is likely.

Doctor Slack,

Are you reading my e-mail? If so you must have missed my conversation with the anti-war lefty.

If you are not reading my e-mail you are blowing smoke out yer ass. Perhaps prepratory to inserting your personal vision, olifactory, and mandible apparatus.

BTW this is not the first conversation of this type I've had with an anti-war lefty.

Perhaps I attract an unrepresentative sample.

Perhaps I just attract mainstream Democrats who think like KOS. What are the odds?

Andrew,

The one thing you haven't provided evidence for is that any of the malfeasance you have uncovered is taking place in Iraq.

Is it possible that the organizations in question have cleaned up their acts without formal prosecution?

Sometimes a word to the wise is sufficient.

Dr Slack,

Do you deny that people profiting from the delivering of food to the population in a war zone are different from volunteer soldiers?

Do you deny that the profit motive is evil?

Do you deny that the USSR is the most sainted country on the planet for having destroyed the profit motive?

Do you deny that driving the UN and it's food delivering war profiteers out of Iraq by the insurgency was a good idea?

Do you deny that the left is tripping over itself and its principles (feeding the hungry) in order to smear Bush?

Do you deny that despite 70% of the population favoring medical marijuana, against Bush's opposition , that the left is largely silent on the issue?

Andrew, Dr. Slack, others,

OK the UN says mercenaries are bad. Yep. Sounds about right.

Now please explain how armed guards are the same as mercenaries?

Does that mean that every bank guard in every town in America is a mercenary? Every guard at a concert? Every guard at a K-Mart?

Please explain what turns armed guards into mercenaries.

I read Tacitus,

According to him my small town (Rockford, Illinois) is filled with mercenaries.

I must be in much more danger than I realized.

Could we please send in the Army to do the jobs the mercenaries are doing? Rockford doesn't need mecrenaries. What it needs are soldiers. If security is needed in America soldiers ought to provide it. At least they have a chain of command.

So I have a grand proposal for eliminating mercenaries in America.

Declare permanent martial law.

BTW as proved by Admiral Rickover the military can do a very good job at engineering. I am an engineer. I make many times what a Naval Officer doing the same job would get.

According to Tacitus I'm a mercenary too.

If the government started doing a lot more of what the private sector does for profit costs would be lower and there would be a hell of a lot fewer mercenaries.

The USSR was a pioneer in this field and is still regarded as one of its preeminent practitioners. They foud out that you cannot trust people who do things for money. By eliminating mercenaries they raised the level of trust in that country to an extroadinary level.

We should be so lucky.

It wouldn't violate the Laws of Thermodynamics for these "contracting" agencies to very quietly clean up their acts, but don't you think the burden of proof is on you, M. Simon? And the problem is, there is no more reason for these agencies to be responsible in Iraq than in the Balkans, or in Zimbabwe, or in Colombia, because they still roam the earth answering, for all practical purposes, to no one. That's one reason your mall security guard is completely unlike these mercenaries: he's responsible to the police and to our regular court system. In many states, he's even licensed in advance. I can assure you, if you know anything about human nature, if we hired mall guards from veterans of the Chilean and Nationalist South African secret police (among others) in a situation where they were a law unto themselves, we would have some real problems at the mall. (The rest of your posts are just bloviating.)

From Shaun:

No Americans are objectively pro-Saddam or "on the other side"

Nope, that's a misquotation. Go back, read my original post and try again. (And while you're at it, think hard about where the burden of proof lies in demonstrating that someone is "objectively pro-Saddam" and what providing such a "proof" involves.)

From M. Simon:

Does that mean that every bank guard in every town in America is a mercenary?

Yah. Are American bank guards hired soldiers in a foreign combat zone? Jeesh.

Incidentally, the hash you make of Tacitus' argument throws your competence as a spokesman for anonymous "antiwar lefties" into serious doubt. But it doesn't surprise me.

> Could we take up a collection to buy
> JosephMendiola a keyboard without "Shift" or
> "CapsLock?"
>
> It would be much appreciated.

Not by me--the caps serve as a very useful ok-to-skip-reading-this-comment indicator.

Logical conclusions:
Getting paid to perform a moral act, is in itself such an immorality, that everything asscociated with it becomes immoral.

Therefore, all paid workers are immoral.

It now follows that only volunteers can be moral, and then only if the acts that they perform do not benefit them in any way, directly or indirectly.

In fact, working for your dinner can now be seen for the true immorality that it is.

My elderly mom, a former teacher and principal who survived the Depression and WW2 on Guam, besides the whole of the Cold War, wants to know why America just doesn't bomb Fallujah off the face of the earth, courtesy of your friendly neihgborhood B-52 BUFFs! I was surprised-shocked as heck that she - a woman, a mother, a grandmother, a great grandmom, and an educated senior citizen with a near PHD, would support such a destructive thing/method, besides also insisting that if America meeds to brutally raze a city or cities to stop Islamic terror against Americans in Iraq, or America itself, she has no problem with that! Anyways, I'll say it again - if UltraLeft COMMUNIST now works and sleeps with UltraRightist FASCIST, and if so-called FAITH-BASED ISLAMOFASCIST terror groups post-Madrid are going to support [Spanish] SECULAR SOCIALISTS, then why should ordinary or mainstream Americans believe Saddam Hussein was NOT engaged in malicious anti-American CONSPIRACY, and why should they believe these same IslamoFascists are NOT proxies for Cold War "first strike" Communist armies! WHY SHOULD BUSH AND THE RIGHT BE BLAMED FOR CAUSALLY AND WILFULLY DESIRING FOR AND DESTROYING WORLDWIDE INSTITUTIONS WHEN ITS ONLY THE ALTERIORIST-LOVING LEFT WHOM HAS BOTH EVERYTHING TO GAIN, AS WELL AS EVERYTHING TO LOSE, BY FORCING OR INDUCING FREE AND CAPITALIST AMERICA INTO ACCEPTING SOCIALISM AND ANTI-SOVERIEGN INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST CONTROL! During the Cold War, the former Communist USSR, via party-state policies of "Russification" and "Sovietization", as Mao TseTung/Zhedong-led Communist China did with "Sinofication" and "Maosification", used force to despotically impose HOMOGENOUS RUSSIAN OR CHINESE NATIONAL VALUES ON NON-RUSSIAN OR NON-HAN CHINESE ETHNIC GROUPS, TO INCLUDE THE MINOR "BLOC" COMMUNIST STATES! The one common thread that HARDLINE, THEOCRATIC ISLAMOFASCISTS/THEOSOCIALISTS HAVE WITH SECULAR SOCIALISTS IS THE LEFTIST PRECEPT OF GOVERNMENT-. BUREACRATIC-, AND STATE-CENTRIC
ABSOLUTISM, INTOLERANTISM, AND UNCONDITIONAL, UNCHALLENGEABLE POLITICAL AND EXTRA-POLITICAL POWER, as DESPOTICALLY OR FORCIBLY IMPOSED on all levels of society, nationhood, AND BELIEF SYSTEMS - this is a FAR, FAR, F-A-R CRY from Rightism's and Hitlerist Fascism's precepts of causing to become as BASE AGENDA OR [DESPOTIC?]PUBLIC POLICY the COMMON VALUES OF THE NATION, SOCIETY, OR THAT OF THE DOMINANT OR CONTROLLING
ETHNIC GROUP! A LEFTIST OR LEFTIST-SOCIALIST NATION BY DEFINITION CAN NOT AND NEVER, EVER BE, DEMOCRATIC, TOLERANT, PRIVATE-INDIVIDUALIST, OR CAPITALISTIC - THOSE THAT PROCLAIM TO BE SO HAVE EITHER NEVER STUDIED LEFTIST THEORY, OR ARE JUST LYING, SELF-CENTERED POLITICIZED POWER-HOGS OUT TO "GET THEIRS" AT EVERYONE ELSE'S EXPENSE, TO INCLUDE BETRAYING OR DESTROYING THEIR COUNTRY!? Think of a BANDIT ARMY out to pillage and rob, forcing hardworking innocent farmers and merchants to give up their goods, wealth, and women for the bandits' well-being and lusts, forcing local children to serve and fight in their army, and deliberately creating a local or regional SLAVE-HOLD separatist government-fief while attempting to force the legitimate main government to give up its power and sovereignty to them while pretending to all who can see they are only defending the free and common interests of the people they are forcibly robbing, killing, pillaging, and prostituting - then, when there's nothing left to steal, rob, kill, pollute,or rape, the bandits in the name of "living space" and "anti-foreign imperialism" wilfuly attack the next town, city cities, or region while simul demanding their former slavehold find some way to rebuild itself, without the bandits' help, for the benefit of the bandits the next time they come around! ITS A NEVER ENDING CYCLE OR CIRCLE, WHICH IS WHY EVEN IF THE CLINTONS AND THE FAILED LEFT SUCCEED IN FINALLY CONTROLLING OR EVEN DESTROYING AMERICA, AS LEFTIST-SOCIALIST ENTITIES COMMUNIST-CENTRIC FASCIST RUSSIA AND COMMUNIST CHINA WILL EVENTUALLY BE FORCED TO KILL EACH OTHER UNTIL ONE AND ONLY ONE RULES A SHATTERED AND DESTROYED UNIPOLAR SOCIALIST WORLD!

Getting paid to perform a moral act, is in itself such an immorality, that everything asscociated with it becomes immoral.

Because of course, volunteer soldiers aren't paid, and therefore anyone who thinks they're preferable to mercs must be a damned commie. And of course, soldiers perform only moral acts.

Oh wait. Volunteer soldiers are paid, and soldiering is as morally complicated a profession as it gets. What were you saying again?

Uh Doctor Slack,
Dude, I was trying to use sarcasm to show that getting or not getting paid to do something, does not say anything about the morality of that something or the act of doing that something.

Sorry that I failed to make this sufficiently clear.

Dude, I was trying to use sarcasm to show that getting or not getting paid to do something, does not say anything about the morality of that something or the act of doing that something.

I know. My sarcasm was to show that that's not the question at issue with mercenaries, and that claiming that your opponents are arguing this gets you nowhere. Glad we had a chance to clarify.

Doctor Slack,

OK. I missed what you were saying completely, and I'm lost. Can you catch me up?

What then is the objection to mercenaries, or contractors, vis-a-vis regular military?

The difference between mercs and regular soldiers is structural. In the Western context, regular soldiers are answerable to a civilian leadership (and at least theoretically, to an electorate), and are accountable to a government's foreign policy. There are established traditions of service, esprit de corps, discipline and so on.

By contrast, as Andrew Lazarus pointed out earlier, PMCs don't operate within a standard chain of command and have minimal legal accountability, and tend to be called into regions where local authority is chaotic or has entirely collapsed. That's why abuses have happened in the past. If they're happening now (I don't know if they are or not), it's a big issue for the CPA, which is enmeshed in a political conflict as much as a military one.

Docter Slack,
Thanks for the clarification.

WRT, to the past abuses: Are you referring to PMC's in Latin America oprating in anti-drug activites? What about Africa, has there been issues there too?
I haven't heard of anything specific about abuses.

The only thing I can remember hearing about PMC's is that they are a greater risk since they don't enjoy the same protections as regular military, e.g. Geneva Convention, etc.

It is interesting to me that this negative reputation has been carried over to Iraq, when there's apparently no evidence that any abuses have ocurred there. This is a disservice to those men that were killed.

At any rate, thanks again for the summary as I was completely missing the subtext of the discussion. Hopefully, others will find it helpful as well. Then again, maybe I'm the only obtuse one.

Lurker: It's all good, these comments threads do get unmanageably long sometimes.

The only thing I can remember hearing about PMC's is that they are a greater risk since they don't enjoy the same protections as regular military

Which is true. Hostility to mercenaries has a long history. Re: past abuses, you'll see some examples in the UN report I linked to a ways up the thread. Other pertinent links that have come up are *here* and *here*.

Suspecting there are abuses going on in Iraq is a natural consequence of the conditions there being not dissimilar to (and in some ways worse than) other cases where abuses have happened before. I wonder, for example, how many of the persistent Iraqi rumours of "American soldiers" stealing and kidnapping girls, taking liberties with Iraqi women and randomnly beating people up are actually connected to PMCs and not just urban myth. The DynCorp case is one of those that gives one grounds to wonder, but right now we can't know.