nerdgirl

For concision, separating this out, by the majority of this thread's posts it seems to have been overwhelmingly shown that ... while "we" may have been through this before ... and may go through it again ... the above assertion is far from resolved or certain. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Where have I said that BW's actions didn't cross the line, Marg? You keep attributing an argument to me that I NEVER MADE. Please re-read what I wrote: “that some of the behavior and actions qualify as mercenary.” And I will, in turn, repeat my response - "Where have I said it wasn't???" You asserted That assertion is not as clear-cut as you asserted (see post #18), which you now seemed to agree in post #59 but now in post #61 you don’t. If I’m reading correctly, you’re re-iterating what I’ve been writing: the criteria you’ve been using aren’t what is in the international law? I've never claimed they were, and I've never said they were criteria. Do I understand correctly that now you’re arguing that the gate guard scenarios and repeated use of phrases like “offensive” versus “offensive” and “join the infantry in the line of battle” wasn’t meant to differentiate what/who qualified as a mercenary and who didn’t? So those weren’t criteria that you were trying to use to justify that original assertion? If they weren’t that was entirely unclear to me. (What were they then?) You continue to confuse my attempts to clarify the difference between offense and defense as "criteria". I have never said they are 'criteria'. What are you using them for because you seem to be using them to explain why some of Blackwater and other PMSC actions do not qualify as mercenary? Offensive and defensive are not part of the international law and are not clear in an insurgency. “Easily” and “over-broad” is highly subjective. Maybe that’s so. It’s not certainly not been decided or proven one way or another in this forum. Again, the criteria are not clear therefore I challenged your original assertion (quoted above). It *is* highly subjective - all the more reason to make sure that we're all talking about the same thing. At the base of it, a mercenary is someone hired to fight in a foreign war - to 'directly engage in hostilities', I believe the criteria is?. If you functioning under the assumption that is the definition then there’s part of the confusion. Among the criteria of Article 47 is “does, in fact, engage in direct hostilities.” It’s a subsidiary condition to the recruitment to an armed conflict, i.e., one can be contracted go to an armed conflict area and not engage, in fact, in direct hostilities and one would not be a mercenary, e.g., private medical personnel. And that may be your criteria. And it may be a reasonable recommendation. It is not international law, tho’. It also doesn’t apply to the situations I have referenced. While you might assert that should be the criteria, just like that skygod might think his criteria are the “right” ones and that speeder thinks he should be able to go whatever, that’s not what the law says. And my challenge to your original assertion stands. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Where have I said that BW's actions didn't cross the line, Marg? You keep attributing an argument to me that I NEVER MADE. Please re-read what I wrote: “that some of the behavior and actions qualify as mercenary.” The assertion that I have attributed to you is the one you did make: That assertion is not as clear-cut as you asserted (see post #18), which you now seem to agree (?) If I’m reading correctly, you’re re-iterating what I’ve been writing: the criteria you’ve been using aren’t what is in the international law? While one can apply their own criteria (like my skygod scenario) that doesn’t make it factually accurate. Legally, it's also strategically suspect to try to apply one's own criteria for speeding when a police officer pulls you over, which is probably a more apt analogy. You might argue that the criteria should be changed, revised, or eliminated and why. My own recommended criteria for what I think should qualify as “mercenary” may support revision or elimination ... but we've never even been able to get to that point ... altho' I did link one other proposal from Carlisle Barracks in 1999. “Easily” and “over-broad” is highly subjective. Maybe that’s so. It’s not certainly not been decided or proven one way or another in this forum. Again, the criteria are not clear therefore I challenged your original assertion (quoted above). /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

No, it's not a distractor - it's ANOTHER armed contractor that could end up in a firefight with the enemy, and as a result, end up labeled a mercenary using the laws as you have described them. Yes, it is a distracter when it's used repeatedly to avoid acknowledging that some of the behavior and actions qualify as mercenary, (all the while acknowledging the repeatedly referenced citizenry criteria). It's not about your interpretation. Really. I didn’t mean that as sarcasm. I’m guessing you did? was not as clear-cut as you asserted (see post #18). Disagree - as the point we keep bouncing back and forth between us proves, it's not as cut-and-dried as you want to make it look. I’m not the one who made the cut-n-dry assertion – how many times have I referenced exceptions and used words like “some”? Your quote above is the cut-n-dry assertion. I challenged your assertion that it was a decided opinion ... when as you agree now, its not. (And as I've repeatedly noted exceptions too.) No, they're not - but they're useful terms to try and explain the difference between personnel used as offensive assets (like troops) and personnel used as defensive assets (like gate and convoy guards) that could also end up in a firefight with the enemy. They are useful if you want to apply a criteria beyond/outside of what is international law. Now you would not be the first nor the last to do that. And sometimes that an important and good thing. IN this case, it serves primarily to force artificial constraints and suggest a certainty that does not exist in the international law. It’s not as I have “explained it” – I’ve cited and quoted Article 47 directly. I’m not adding or subtracting. I've never argued that BW's ACTIONS were outside the bounds of their contract. I haven't said that that BW's ACTIONS didn't fit the criteria of mercenary behavior. Find where I have. See quote above in which you asserted “they are NOT mercenaries” and make reference to non-existent criteria. And that it had been decided (“consensus”) when clearly it’s not. Valueing your opinion in this matter is not the issue. Sincerely and non-sarcastically, because I don't know any other way to convey it via html: it's not about you the person. I'm not angry at you or angered by you. Facts and what are the legal criteria (not mine) for use of a word, mercenary, are the surface issue. Secondary issue is why there is such a negative response to the use of term "mercenary" when some of the actions do meet those criteria rather than addressing those responsible for the actions? Does it also serve to distract from addressing the accusations of child prostitution? And of most value and most interest to me are all of those other questions and issues that I've been mentioning: what is the strategic impact of the expanding role of private armies for operations that previously were conducted by uniformed military … & what that means for counterinsurgency, stability, and reconstruction operations … for force projection and US strategic interests … for strategy … for economics of warfare (war has a business side) … for privatization (shall we privatize the entire US military?) … or for international and domestic law? All those issues are much harder and much more interesting to me. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I'm still wondering what you meant by "your's and Darius' arguments"? The aggregation suggests that you think they're the same? (Please note question mark meaning I'm asking for clarification.) Beyond he & I both having some sort of response to the accusations of systematic child prostitution, I don't think Darius and my arguments are the same. (And it's likely that a significant part of my reasoning beyond illegality of child prostitution is different, i.e., I consider the potential effect on COIN and SSTR operations). If you do think that our arguments are the same, then I have failed to communicate. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

The gate guard scenario is not the issue - it's a distractor. It’s not about you. Really. It’s about the criteria of international law, which the US has signed. (It’s even less about me, since I’m not employed by a military contractor of any sort.) It’s about the fact that your original assertion: was not as clear-cut as you asserted (see post #18). "Line of battle" and "offensive troops" are not the criteria. It's akin to me asserting that a person had to have at least 1000 jumps from at least 6 different aircraft and dock last on a 20-way or larger formation in order to be a skydiver. While there might be a few skygods that want to apply that criteria, that doesn't make it so. It’s about the recognizing that some of the actions that have repeatedly been referenced, i.e., the USMC Col in Iraq in 2004's account and Mr. Prince’s own testimony, fit the criteria for mercenary behavior (w/the repeatedly noted citizenry exception … altho’ w/the implementation of the SOFA in Iraq that may no longer apply since the US is not engaged in armed conflict with the Iraqi government). Do you see the question mark at the end of the subject line? You didn’t offend me – you made a choice to use cussing in a response/to swear at me and a choice to insult me directly. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Thanks for the additional information. As I wrote to you, the Executives Outcomes case in Sierra Leone is not something about which I know a lot. Me too … but I’d hope that would be evident from the style and substance of what I write, as well as the times I’ve defended other posters and their challenging of my arguments, including Mike ... but that's more general than really addressed to you. I’m not sure what you meant by “your’s and Darius’ arguments”? If EO acted in the strategic interests of the state, in this case Sierra Leone, than that’s not counter to what I’ve written … but I need to print out the paper you attached, read it, and think about it. Thanks for the reference.

Hiring to fight alongside the troops in offensive actions are not the criteria. Defensive versus offensive is not the criteria. One can engage in hostilities defensively or offensively during an armed conflict. “In fact, engage in direct hostilities” during an “armed conflict” are the substantive criteria. Not my criteria. And it is the interpretation of "engage in direct hostilities" that we're quibbling over. I submit that BW was NOT, in fact, hired to 'engage in direct hostilities' - the fact that they DID put them in violation of their contract, as has been said several times in this thread and others about BW. The criteria state “in fact, engage in direct hostilities.” There isn’t a restriction for inadvertent engagement versus overt contracting. I apologize if I've offended you. I've tried to stick to the argument and the issue. Now you're changing it to play the player instead of playing the ball and insulting me (see quoted passage above). I have thought a lot about it -- see all the references and citations I've posted. And accusing me of throwing out red herrings wasn't playing the player, Marg? Not if they are, in fact, red herrings and not if that’s a comment on the argument and the issue, which is what it was. And I apologized. Yes, that is part of the criteria – and yes, the actions count. There also had to be an armed conflict. (Altho' one might argue that's tautological.) Again, it’s not my criteria. It’s not my fault. And, as I’ve written repeatedly, there are other criteria like the national citizenry exception. No one ever said you didn’t. (That’s a strawman.) It’s just not directly relevant to whether *some* (as I’ve repeatedly stated) of Blackwater and other PMSC’s actions in Iraq qualify as mercenary. Again, why not address why there is the negative connotation, i.e., actions of some then-Blackwater employees, rather than argue against a term? I keep trying to push that forward. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

For me, it is different. (See my comments throughout basically synopsized to force projection, etc. as a function that includes more than just cost/profit as the sole determining independent variable.) While the EO/Sierra Leone case was an example, as I understand, of a private company employing a foreign national private company to engage in armed conflict, it wasn't an international conflict. Again, my understanding is that the state failed to provide the security and law enforcement that was needed for a domestic business entity to function. (May have been a transnational company (?), which makes it even more complicated). It's clearly a piece, but it's also substantively different, imo. Is that (private armies) the solution for dealing with failing or failed states? (The "So What? Who Cares?" for me w/r/t failing/failed states isn't specifically humanitarian but in instability they create that affects US strategic interests, whether through offering safe haven to pirates or radical Islamist terrorists.) Me neither. Altho' when I was supposed to go to Iraq in 2004, the private military security contractors (not Blackwater) who were contracted did inadvertantly, I think, contribute to substantial/substantive changes that were made in the planning. It was something that I speculated about at the time ... and that I am reminded of by this conversation. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

To which volunteer organizations are you referring? Other individuals who “created or greatly enlarged volunteer service corps” include President Franklin Roosevelt (USO), President GW Bush (USA Freedom Corps, see EO 13254, and Citizen Corps under FEMA), President Kennedy (Peace Corps), Lord Baden Powell … who was also a Lieutenant General in the British Army and fought in the Boer Wars (Boy Scouts), and Juliette Gordon Lowe (Girl Scouts). Correlation does not equal causation. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Hiring to fight alongside the troops in offensive actions are not the criteria. Defensive versus offensive is not the criteria. One can engage in hostilities defensively or offensively during an armed conflict. “In fact, engage in direct hostilities” during an “armed conflict” are the substantive criteria. Not my criteria. I apologize if I've offended you. I've tried to stick to the argument and the issue. Now you're changing it to play the player instead of playing the ball and insulting me (see quoted passage above). I have thought a lot about it -- see all the references and citations I've posted. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

... Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

That is an incredibly useful comment. Thanks! /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

The contractors are a cheaper option despite getting paid more in salary because While one can construct notional arguments on either side, the reality (one might call them facts) is that which is cheaper is not known. Mr. Prince acknowledged under oath during the Q&A period of his Congressional testimony that there was no data supporting the perceived value to the taxpayer of contracting Blackwater versus employing federal workers in Iraq for private security. For me -- & owned very much as my opinion -- the biggest "So What? Who Cares?" is: If one sees value and importance of the US military for force projection globally – & I do – whether for national security, in support of allies, stability operations (per DoDD 3000.05), reconstruction, or humanitarian, is the reliance on private military security contractors, whether they are acting as mercenaries or not, eroding that capability? Does Xe (nee Blackwater), et al., represent America and do we want them to represent America? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Again, it’s not my criteria. It’s international law, which the US has signed. That’s what you’re arguing against. You may or may not. In that scenario in will largely depend on whether or not the government to which the individual is contracted is engaged in “armed conflict.” Some of the actions by Blackwater – see all those references I’ve cited over and over again, from the active duty USMC Colonel in Iraq to the CEO of Blackwater testifying to Congress – are not limited to your notional scenario and do fit the criteria (w/the citizenship exception.) And perhaps, rather constructing notional red herrings it would be more effective to address the well-documented incidents and problems, to address the alleged incidents (i.e., accusation of child prostitution), and to acknowledge the expanding role of private armies for operations that previously were conducted by uniformed military … & what that means for counterinsurgency, stability, and reconstruction operations … for force projection and US strategic interests … for strategy … for economics of warfare (war has a business side) … for privatization (shall we privatize the entire US military?) … or for international and domestic law … rather than pursue stubborn insistence that some private military security contractors aren’t acting as mercenaries, eh? The latter is easy. All those issues in the former are hard. Constructing red herrings might also might serve to distract from addressing the accusations of child prositution and all those other hard issues. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Brilliant! Now that's excellent satire. Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

That one we haven't discussed at the Atlanta Citizen's Police Academy yet. Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Georgia is the only State that does not require the use of seat belts when riding in/driving a pick-up truck. Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Great story Jimmy! The world needs more like you! /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Ugh ... condolences to his family, especially his partner and their son, who Mike adored. He & I jumped at Hollister at the same time. He was a great guy. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

What is dry firing? /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

did my pm not cover it? Well, I was hoping that you might add that case/example into the discussion here. I was also hoping that you'd write more on it.

While Prof David Kaiser of the US Naval War College's Strategy and Policy Development Department did not write some things being attributed to him, he did write >2600 words in response to the circulating email and on the general subject in May “A Great Fear?” I tried to excise to Kaiser’s core ... but suspect that I was not as successful as I might have liked. I’ve interspersed a few of my own comments, largely off-the-cuff metaphorically and tried to use emphasis and color to bring attention to his comments most relevant to the “fraudulent email” (Prof. Kaiser’s description). Excerpts, which convey (hopefully) how a historian writes: “This week, hundreds of people will see this post because of an email that has been circulating fraudulently under my name. The main purpose of these commentaries, as regular readers know, is to use the past to gain perspectives upon the present. In the same way that a skilled physician or therapist can relate the patient before them in the office to cases from their previous experience, I have tried to find analogies to current events, confirming Thucydides's prediction that his work would be useful to those who wanted to understand the events of his day, ‘which, human nature being what it is,’ would recur, in much the same way, in the future. “The ‘event’ which I shall take as my text today is a small one but, in its own way, significant: the very widespread circulation of an email on the current state of the nation, comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler, which has been attributed in thousands--probably tens of thousands--of copies to myself. Based on the experience of the last couple of weeks (see below), I estimate that between one and two thousand new readers will be reading this post this week to find out who I am and if, indeed, I did write it. The answer, of course, is no--I didn't--even though it has probably made me more famous, certainly in a shorter period of time, than any of my six books at right. [bold in original – nerdgirl] More importantly, I think this viral phenomenon is in its own way a significant historical event, precisely because it reflects the age that we are living in, and resembles similar occurrences that have convulsed other nations that were also in the midst of defining crises--such as France in 1789, when the French Revolution began. “I have in front of me a slim volume, The Great Fear of 1789, written by one of the greatest of French historians, Georges Lefebvre, who lived from 1874 to 1959. It recounts a series of extraordinary events in French towns, and especially in the countryside, during the summer of 1789. Late that spring, by royal proclamation, the three orders of French society, the nobles, clergy, and commoners, sent representatives to the first Estates-General called in 175 years, beginning the climactic phase of the first great crisis in modern French political life. The trigger for the crisis--like those experienced by Germany and the United States in the first years of the 1930s, and the one that we are entering now--was a financial panic (coupled with a bad harvest), but that was only half the story: all those nations had experienced other severe economic downturns without such transformative effects. What made them all so severe was the simultaneous death of the old order: the French Old Regime, whose decline was described by another Prophet, Tocqueville, in one of the greatest classics of western historical writing, The Old Regime and the French Revolution; the free-market capitalist system created by the Republicans after the Civil War, and restored to full vigor, after a Progressive interlude, in the 1920s; and the Weimar Republic, the successor to Imperial Germany, which had not been able to create vibrant new institutions in the midst of successive economic crises in the 1920s.” Kaiser outlines, with some specificity (not present in the fraudulent email), possible scenarios that have occurred historically given economic situations that the world experienced over the last 18 months - ranging from the French Revolution – overturning rule by nobles and rise of modern liberal states, rise of the free-market capitalist system (!), and rise of the Weimar Republic, which was established in 1919. 1933 minus 1919 equals 14 years, i.e., more than the 6 in the fraudulent email. Kaiser posits an analogy in which those looking for conspiracies today to the elite of Russia at the start of the 20th Century: “... Moreover, as my friend and colleague William Fuller has shown in his recent book, The Foe Within, the upper reaches of Russian society were also transfixed by intrigue, accusations of fantastic conspiracy [akin to the Kenya birth certificate question? - nerdgirl], and an almost total absence of civic virtue--phenomena that brought the Empire down in 1917 and brought the Bolsheviks to power with the help of the peasantry, which played a role similar to that that its French counterparts had in the 1790s. Russian readers of Fuller's book have commented on the troubling similarity between the conditions it describes and Russia today.” That last line is also worth noting – things are a lot worse in other states and the US domestic differences are less pronounced than in other states. “Fear, of course, was rampant in Germany and in the United States, the two countries most affected by the Depression from 1928 through 1932, as well--fear of hunger and starvation, and of anarchy, which was actually much more serious in Germany, where Socialist, Communist and Nazi militias were battling in the street, often with fatal consequences. Fear was the essence of Nazi propaganda, which painted Germany's wretched state as the more or less conscious work of Marxists and Jews. That, of course, was false. The biggest single cause of Germany's catastrophe was the previous world war, which the Germans had done so much to unleash, only to spend the entire decade of the 1920s denying their own responsibility. Fear and hatred had already led to the assassination of several moderate statesmen involved in the signature of the Versailles Treaty and agreements on reparations. Upon coming into power, Hitler seized upon the burning of the Reichstag to announce a nationwide Communist plot, suspend civil liberties and the Parliament, formally deputize the Nazi SA as law enforcement officials, and open lasrge [sic] concentration camps. The same pattern continued for the rest of the Third Reich. “Across the Atlantic, nothing so clearly illustrated the brilliance of Franklin Roosevelt's leadership than the most famous words of his inaugural address: ‘So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.’ His weapon against it, then and for the next twelve incredible years, was to remind the American people of their basic values, bluntly to describe the enormous problems they faced, and then to explain simply and clearly how they would emerge. The President's sense of humor, his optimism, and most of all, perhaps, his evident joy at having been called to power at such a moment, carried most--though never all--of the country with him. Lincoln, in even darker times, had done much the same. (As always when I have to consult one of Roosevelt's texts, I am astonished by the range of issues he covered and their relevance to the present day. Who remembers these words from the inaugural”

By pure happenstance, this morning a report on the topic of addressing violations of international law by Private Military and Security Contractors (PMSC) was in my email inbox: “PRIVATE MILITARY AND SECURITY COMPANIES: WORKING TOWARDS AN INTERNATIONAL CODE OF CONDUCT.” “Why an International Code of Conduct?” “[Private Military and Security Companies] PMSCs are legally established entities which provide on a contractual basis a wide range of services, up to and including support services to combat operations and post-conflict training and reconstruction. The industry is both highly transnational and rapidly growing in value and importance. With a dramatic increase in the number of providers and services offered in the last two decades, there has been intensified media and public scrutiny of the industry’s conduct, particularly when operating in conflict contexts, and concern about the lack of consistent standards. There is broad agreement on the need for a better regulatory framework, improved accountability, including investigation of alleged violations, and rigorous quality control.” I’ve been using “military” as a gerund to modify the type of security contractors, this document, which included the contribution of folks who own, operate, and are employed by PMSCs, makes it a stand-alone noun, i.e., acknowledgement that they are Private Military Companies. I'd be willing to bet that they prefer "International Peace Operations" tho.' /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

By that logic, the contractor gate guards here in Kosovo are mercenaries, because they would engage in hostilities if attacked. No. The ‘logic,’ more precisely the criteria, I’m using is that of international law, signed by the US ... not ‘nerdgirl’ law, whatever that might be . If a private individual engages, “in fact, in direct hostilities” (+ the other criteria) as part of “armed conflict,” then he (or she) qualifies as a mercenary. The criteria are pretty clear. Again, which I’ve written repeatedly: the vast majority of contractors do not qualify (even without considering the nationality technicality). Blackwater in Fallujah in 2004 as COL Toolan describes and as Mr. Prince testified in October 2007 Congressional hearings, Crescent Security and other PMSC in Iraq & eleswhere as documented in Big Boy Wars and I’ve noted previously, and Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone [which [downwardspiral] mentioned … & I hope he’ll write more about] were neither acting as Dairy Queen clerks nor as gate guards. They engaged in direct hostilities as part of “armed conflicts” … & in the first case, their actions, per COL Toolan (& others) significantly complicated and forced changes in USMC planned operations. What would be the critique if a news organization or NGO members caused that? And they would have a more believable assertion, altho’ still not good excuse, for not knowing better than individuals employed as PMSC. Do you agree that the Hessian soldiers who aided the American colonial forces were mercenaries? Do they have a pejorative characterization? I don’t think so … maybe you do? Why has “mercenary” come to have a pejorative connotation? Because one doesn’t like the term “mercenary” doesn’t make it less true *in those cases in which the criteria are met* … stepping back, it might make it the sort of argument that is frequently derided as “PC”? Being called a mercenary is offensive to some, therefore don’t do it – is that the argument? If the connotation is perceived as negative perhaps directing effort toward those who are responsible for the negative association, if warranted, is due? Is it an issue of a need for personal responsibility? Especially as those are choices made by individuals not something genetic or beyond their control. I.e., the original subject line – Blackwater security contractors being investigated for child prostitution … a charge that has nothing to due explicitly with mercenary activity. If found guilty child prostitution is a violation of the law, being a mercenary isn’t. For example, see my earlier comments (& soon to be subsequent ones) on Codes of Ethics for Private Military and Security Companies. Or is that some part of ‘us’ – the American populace – doesn’t want to acknowledge mercenaries/private armies are a result/consequence of privatization of what were previously government functions … or as a consequence of political choices that were made without proper planning or acknowledgement of requirements? Still unaddressed is my question for the advocates of privatization: what is reasoning beyond lack of advocacy for privatizing the combatant military? For use of mercenaries? (For those who aren’t advocates of privatization of everything, it’s a non sequitor.) LTC Thomas K. Adams, USA (ret), proposed “three types of mercenaries” in his 1999 paper, “The New Mercenaries and the Privatization of Conflict” without specific negative connotation as I read it. The first type resembles the Geneva Convention Article 47 and historical characterization of mercenary activities. The 2nd and 3rd types, are in line with what PMSCs are being tasked to do in Iraq & Afghanistan, i.e., “fairly large commercial companies that provide the kind of services expected of a general staff in one of the more developed national armies: high-quality tactical, operational, and strategic advice for the structure, training, equipping, and employment of armed forces” and “highly specialized services with a military application, but these groups are not in themselves notably military or paramilitary in organization or methods,” respectively. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying