While I was in Iraq, I saw black water as a problem. We almost engaged them in a fight-fight once when they thought they were going to try to run us (American Army Soldiers) off the road because they were in a hurry.

I have no love for someone who has no self control. We got into plenty of ambush situations and never shot up the civilians.

Doesn't hurt my feelings to see them getting kicked out.

Maybe this will finally lead to us leaving and not caring about the wrong side of the world anymore.

_kungfoo_

Los Angeles, CA

April 2005

SEP 20, 2007 10:45 AM

CNN interviews victims of the shootout involving Blackwater:

r00kers

Nederland, CO

February 2003

SEP 21, 2007 07:04 AM

Whoops, not so much. Blackwater is back in business in Iraq.

"Mercenaries are usless, disunited, unfaithful
They have nothing more to keep them in a battle
Other than a meager wage
Which is just about enough to make them wanna kill for you
But never enough to make them wanna die for ya"
John Cale Mercenaries (Ready For War)

DrStinkypants

Saint Paul, MN

October 2002

SEP 21, 2007 07:25 AM

Yup. Maliki says "it may prove difficult for the Iraqi government to follow through on threats to expel Blackwater".

Not surprised in the least

RandomNerd

I'm lost

January 2005

SEP 21, 2007 08:19 AM

Machiavelli warns that princes must never depend on mercenaries.

If only we had such enlightened leadership today!

SockPuppet

I'm lost

July 2006

SEP 21, 2007 06:12 PM

Zarth said:

r00kers said:
I would posit that the employment of mercenary forces is the direct result of the waging of a politically 'iffy' war with an all volunteer army. Bringing back the draft to support this mess would be a non-starter and the all volunteer army would not be able to support a multi-year occupation like this, especially given the rising unpopularity of the occupation.
Perhaps the overall lesson is that it is really unwise to railroad/trick a nation into war. Unless it goes swimmingly, then nation will not offer up its young people very willingly. We still have to pay for this mess, including the merc's salaries.

I think there are some elements of that at play, certainly.

But what I also at least suspect is that the increasing privatization of the military is the result of having taken exactly the wrong lessons from our failures in Vietnam.

In the aftermath of that debacle, we abandoned the draft, seeking to isolate the military and civilian populations from each other (and to insulate the civilian population from any sense of the sacrifices of war), and we deliberately abandoned "nation-building" in favor of ever-increasing specialization in combat operations and activities directly associated with combat.

These, I think, were shortsighted fixes. Nationbuilding is the face of war, now - battle, in the traditional sense, is largely (albeit not entirely) a thing of the past, like duelling. And the Army is now unstoppable in battle - as it always was, even in Vietnam - but can't do nationbuilding at all.

One of the reasons it can't do nationbuilding is that it doesn't have to justify its existence at home. The USA looks astonishingly militarised, to (at least) most of Europe.

Apart from that, I agree; though frankly, being unstoppable in Vietnam should have been trivial.