NEWS: Hi, My Name’s George And I’m a Failure

Bones is correct in this. Here is a breakdown - From a June 2005 Frontline storystory on private contractors in Iraq

50,000 support/logistics contractors
These are civilians hired by KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary which holds the military's logistical support contract. They work as weathermen, cooks, carpenters, mechanics, etc. Most are from Third World countries and the majority are Filipinos.

20,000 non-Iraqi security contractors
Of these, 5-6,000 are British, American, South African, Russian or European; another 12,000 are from Third World countries, such as Fiji, Colombia, Sri Lanka, and India.

15,000 Iraqi security contractors
Most of these were hired mainly by the British security firm Erinys to guard Iraq's oil infrastructure

40-70,000 reconstruction contractors
Hired to rebuild Iraq. Some are Iraqis, but they're mostly from the U.S. and dozens of other countries and employed by companies such as General Electric, Bechtel, Parsons, KBR, Fluor and Perini.

Frontline noted: "Doug Brooks, the president of the International Peace Operations Association, an association of private contractors, describes three categories of companies: logistical support firms, private security firms, and private military companies. The private military companies provide combat forces for hire. These types of companies, such as the now-dissolved South African company Executive Outcomes, are rare and none of them are currently operating in Iraq."

Dan forgot to mention at least one abortion clinic bombing that's happened this year. Of course, the administration probably doesn't consider this terrorism, because it's being done by the whackjobs on their side.

there are no American terroists..... it wouldnt look good to the other countries if we couldnt handle OUR terrorists but are all to willing to go beat up everyone else's...

"Show me one verifiable source where the US govt has directly hired or paid for mercenaries and I'll say I'm wrong, but you won't find any"

Typically I hate moving in on someone else's argument, but having read one too many articles like this one , I fear I can't just let it slide.

While the various agents of the government may hide their hiring of mercenaries in Iraq behind unbiddable contracts and fronting agencies, our government did in fact directly hire mercenaries. Perhaps we like to ignore it because we needed those mercenaries on our own shores?

You did see where I asked for a verifiable source? Two guys hanging out on a corner are far from that. I was in NO shortly after and That someone hired them wouldn't shock me, and I'm sure they got paid for any use of helicopters as relief, but any other claim is just that. Guess what as confusing as things were people got away with a lot but some idiot standing on the corner saying shit isn't proof.

If the US hires an armed foreign national and ships them off to a war zone and has them do jobs that would otherwise be done by regular military personnel, then that person is a mercenary. The fact that we don’t order them to attack military targets doesn’t remove that mercenary status anymore than not ordering a solder to attack revokes their military status.

Support your claim. A British company that's operating in the oil fields has hired a large number of "mercenaries" to protect the fields and pipelines. Does that mean the English Government has hired mercenaries? By your definition any security anywhere may be considered a mercenary. And you still haven't shown that any were hired by the US government.

So? Repeating the same thing again and again doesn't magically make it so.

What exactly do you consider a verifiable source? If you go to Blackwater's website they openly claim "Our customers include local, state, and , federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and most other federal agencies, multi-national corporations, non-governmental organizations, and friendly nations from around the world."

Does this offer you "direct" proof of their involvement in Iraq or NO, no it doesn't. But when I can point out articles like this, this and this in addition to the article posted above, and all of which list Blackwater as having a presence in either Iraq or NO (sometimes both) I'm not sure how much more you want. Is Blackwater SECURITY going to openly reveal their client list, not likely at the time of employment or during the period of their contract, but can we as logical beings combine eye witness accounts with company statements and various news articles to infer that Blackwater is in fact under the employ of federal agencies in these areas? I think that is pretty safe rational.

Honestly, at this point you're just playing the devil's advocate. And poorly at that. For an entity so hellbent on proof and not using rhetoric to form arguments, your counters to all posts have so far relied on knee jerk contradictions with no proof of your own and a species of rhetoric that is prepubescent at best. "Saying the same thing doesn't make it any more true." seems to be the extant of your grand argument, but you have forgotten that it works both ways.

Show me proof the government HASN'T hired mercenaries in Iraq or NO. I'll settle for one simple press statement.

Sure thing.
Some highlights:

Here is my favorite:

From CNN

My definition of mercenary is pretty specific and clearly applies here.
-foreign national
-armed with military equipment
-doing jobs that are normally done by regular army personnel
These guys fit that bill. A security guard in Minnesota doesn%u2019t.

Is CNN a good enough source on whether or not the US Government hires "private security contractors", or mercenaries. Wait, its illeagal for the US Government to do that. Better change the name then.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/01/iraq.contractor/

And what the UN has to say for mercenaries:

http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/mercenaries.htm

As I read in this thread about Mercenaries and "Private Security Contractors" hired by certain governments..... My mind connects to the 15 minute Trailers for Metal Gear Solid 4 coming out for the PS3... as it pertains to teh setting of the game itself, which is a battlefield being fought over by "Private Military Companies" ......


I love it when I can make a wacky parallel that creeps me out at the same time.

For them to be mercenaries per the Geneva convention they must be hired to fight. This does not include security work and or training. If they did get a contract in the US it would also not meet the standards. That they had some Homeland Security contracts (Really fema ) to sit on a few Trailer lots does not mean the Govt hired mercenaries. That they worked in Iraq is certain, but I do know they were employed at least part of the time by a company to provide the company employees and work sites extra security. That would not make them mercenaries. What it would take is for the govt to hire Blackwater and tell them their job was to go out and fight. Fight not secure. You also never even got close to showing that they got paid by the Govt in Iraq so it's really a moot point. You can say your right time and time again. give me links from propaganda sites where they know no more about it than you, but the claim that the US does hire mercenaries is baseless and you guy's are trying to say rumors and bs proves the facts. Hell it's your point to prove, how hard should it be to find one verifiable case?

That's the definition based on the Geneva Convention, so far you still haven't given one specific example that fits the bill.

Hell the army usually does it's own cooking too, that doesn't make contracted cooks mercenaries. Every company that's working in Iraq probably gets paid by the US. But when they hire someone that person is not a govt employee no matter what a writer tries to imply. You know I worked with a guy here in Houston as a PPO (bodyguard). He was a Mexican citizen and our client was a Russian citizen. That gets pretty close to fitting your bill and I don't consider either of us mercenaries, and neither would the UN.

They are fine acording to the UN

I think that people are throwing words around as if they have no meaning.

A mercenary is someone who is "hired for service in a foreign army" as per Answers.com

Thus, by definition, a citizen of the US cannot be a "mercenary" in the US Army.

I think that we also need to be clear that a "mercenary" generally operates in combat situations. That is in place of, or beside, US Army troops and directed by US Army personel - either directly or through some alternative chain of command.

While it is true that "private security contractors" in Iraq may carry weapons, and may use those weapons (and be quite brutal) in the "wild west" that is Iraq's new and improved status now that Saddam is in prision, to date, I am aware of no evidence that the US forces interact in any way with them that be construed as directing them in the specific sense of combat troops.

If anyone has any evidence of this I would love to see it.

Please let none of this be construed as support for Bush or the invasion. It just makes me crazy that people can't use the English language in the way it was intended - that is to communicate thoughts and ideas with some modicum of accuracy.

Your point of course raises the question of how exactly we should define the words 'security', 'combat situations' or 'direct'. If the U.S. military has, in fact, hired a private security firm to guard installations deemed necessary to the holding or maintaing of position in Iraq, how is this not a direction from the U.S. military? Perhaps the army has not specifically said "Your job is to fight a war for us." but I should imagine that an agent of the military saying "Stand here and shoot anyone who is not authorized by us to be here." is a fairly plain military directive.

By its own admission our military claims that it's purpose in Iraq is to 'secure' it as a haven for democracy. Our military continually seeks to 'secure' trouble areas, and maintain 'security' in the areas that is has already 'secured'. The very act of maintaining 'security' in a foreign nation is a military act by its most basic definition.

As for 'combat situation'... its a country in the middle of a military occupation plagued by an indefinite number of armed uprisings. If I, as a soldier, am ordered to secure a fuel point, and spend my days working 'security' detail around that site and I am attacked by an insurgent (and Christ do I hate how they have been using that word lately. How quick we are to forget that the British parliament referred to the early American revolutionists as insurgents.) force, than any armed reprisal by me and mine against them would in fact begin a 'combat situation'. Therefore, how does any activity between two armed parties, regardless of who they worked for or why, not count as a 'combat situation'?

The moral here kids, is that anything, say verifiable proof or statistics or military/government/independent reports, are always and forever open to interpretation. It is why anyone who has studied law will tell you that it is never about being able to prove anything, but all about convincing people what to think. Sorry for all you CSI junkies, the law has never worked on proof.

Nor have governments. After all, the entire reason we entered Iraq was because we had 'verifiable proof' of weapons of mass destruction. Katrina occurred because there was no 'verifiable proof' that those levies were going to fail. Throwing out requests for verifiable proof is just setting up the one who demands it with the ability to claim culpable deniability no matter what is brought up.

So Bones, you win. I can't offer you any verifiable proof. Even if the president of the United States were to announce that he had in fact hired mercenaries (which it should be remembered that the major instigator in having the given definition of mercenary for the Geneva convention were the French who wished for the French Froeign Legion, a sanctioned mercenary organization, to be able to continue to act as they did on foreign soil without sanction) tomorrow, we both would be able to argue any number of circumstances as to why that was not verifiable.

However, if any number of news agencies (and my apologies for using 'biased' sources, I just took the first four articles after googling 'Blackwater'. I'm sure if you liked you could go to any news source you wanted, search the term Blackwater, and find similar articles to the ones I offered. Hell, even that bastion of 'fair and unbiased' news Fox has articles about Blackwater in both Iraq and Katrina listed) report the same group of stories over and over, I think that we as rational beings can start inferring some things. And when we are dealing with a government that has already had quite a lot of trouble with the concept of 'verifiable proof' (search the above mentioned plus Palme, Enron, Haliburton, Libby, etc.) I think we should all be a little more leery about how we interpret any given source.

Finally, no language is designed to communicate thoughts/ideas clearly. In fact, most languages have developed with the idea of obfuscating the speakers intent as much as possible in order for their words to be open to interpretation. The entire Japanese language developed the way it did in order to allow the speaker to gauge his audience's response so that he could change his verb at the very last moment. This is also why the English language has so many words and interpretations for words that essentially mean the exact same thing. We all now that horror and terror are meant to mean the same thing, whie we accept that they imply differing degrees of the same fearful emotion. However, can anyone clearly tell me the variation of degree? Honestly, every time I read a series of arguments on this site someone tries to argue the use of language. The entire point of language is to make it openly interpretable. Works both ways as it allows the speaker to claim one thing or another depending upon how the wind blows, and allows the listener to feel supeior or agreed when the words used suit him.

Oh... And just because this point bothered me quite a lot. Those 'two guys on a corner' were employees of Blackwater. I don't know about you, but someone with a Blackwater ID, standing in a place where they have been hired to be, telling me that they are working for a very specific someone seems pretty goddamn verifiable to me. Yes, I understand that not everyone in a company knows everything that goes on in it, but I think it is fairly safe to assume that anyone being deployed to secure an area has a fairly good idea of why he is there, and who he is working for... especially if they can flash an official badge from the state of Louisiana.

No if he did announce that he did hire them so be it. The likely hood of that being the case beggars the imagination. Hell they have hired some of the groups, just not as mercenaries. They hired them as trainers for Iraqi police. Since they were there to train and not to fight they did not meet any reasonable definition of mercenary.


The individuals in the legion may very well be mercenary, but to call the legion itself mercenary just makes no sense, less so even than the
British Gurkha regiments.

You have never hung out with military or security guys before have you? They lie, a lot, and brag tell stories and try to freak out and fuck with people. I worked in NO ofter the hurricane. Unless that guy was already commissioned by some department he was not law enforcement. They had a big problem, because of having so many people in from all over the country, not knowing who and what people were. What sounds cooler, "I'm going to stand in a lot protecting FEMA trailers" or "I was hired by the govt to help looting and lawlessness in New Orleans". The first is much more likely to be the truth.

Whoa there, tex. First of all, the orginal point I made was refuting your statement about "military contractors", not "mercenaries". I think there is more than enough proof on this page to show that in fact the US does hire "military contractors". Of course, I then went on to refer to them as mercenaries, which seems to be a hair that for some strange reason, you're getting your rocks off on splitting. The semantic differences between the two words are almost not enough to merit debating, but it's Sunday and I'm bored. So, in reference to the Geneva Convention's definition, I'm not sure how you can maintain that hiring someone to provide "security" for one warring side against another by employing the use of automatic military weapons and body armor when insurgent attacks against the American presence happen ALL THE TIME is not hiring someone to fight. They don't go over there to sing fucking nursery rhymes, they go to fight. That's how some of them have died. Fighting. So the US government has gotten crafty with the use of wording they employ while feeding "news" reports about these folks. That doesn't change the fact that in Iraq right now, "providing security" and "fighting" are synonymous.

And no, you and your little bodyguard buddy were not mercenaries, but nice try at pointed response. You weren't in a war zone, you didn't have an entire country of insurgents trying to kill you or your client, so shut the hell up about that one.

And finally, I'd just like to note the irony that you quoted the Geneva Convention for a definition that you thought was convenient, when as a conservative, I thought you all were supposed to pretend that the fucking thing never existed. Or at least all of the leaders you so vehemently defend act that way. Oh wait, I mean, unless it's politically convenient. So nevermind, I guess you were following party protocall.

Well although we didn't sign the damn thing I thought that would be a definition we could all agree upon. You seem to think that that anyone who might have to fight is a mercenary if they have "big guns"? Somehow I don't think equipment make the mercenary and what are you saying the UN is full of shit (not that I would disagree)? To be honest I don't feel like I "vehemently defend" anyone on these boards so much as dispute what I believe to be incorrect facts, false or unproven allegations, bad logic, ect. While I don't think Bush is a bad Press and I definitely prefer him to Kerry if you check I really don't go around saying how swell I think he is.

The difference in hiring someone to provide security and hiring a mercenary is the mercenary's job is to fight, security is to protect. It seems black and white to me. I understand disagreeing with the war but getting spastic over every thing , exaggerated, misstating fact, and just making shit up doesn't help your case or "cause" as it may be.

First of all, your point about the UN is a strange conclusion to draw from what I've said. I really don't know how you reached that determiniation.

Secondly, isn't a major part of the US military's job to fight in the interest of protecting? Specifically, isn't that one of the major taglines of this silly war? Fighting to protect America? So how is a military contractor fighting to "protect" something really a black and white difference from what the normal military does? I ask this sincerely because the two seem remarkably similar to me.

Definitions are useless because they stem from language, which more often than not inhibits understanding and the transmission of information due its contraining of ideas and the vageries of its understanding across a population. Language is the prison in which we trap the world. I know this because I'm a writer. I am not however a journalist. And I don't look at the boards for news because I'm not in front of the computer that much. This is the place for rants, and its the place where you can shout, but if I say something, its something I have read, heard, or know from both direct, indirect sources.

And you constantly question, which is good, but you always come with the same neocon attack, "Show me proof", but you never disprove. You never offer anything other than "You're wrong." Just because Frontline calls them "military contractors" doesn't mean I am going to call them other than "mercenaries", much the same as if you say "Global Climate Change" I will say "Global Warming."

The war is not for land or oil anymore, its for information.
King Mob Lives!

If their job would be to fight and defeat the insurgents then I would agree but if they are just travelling with a crew out to a job site and then leave with the crew then no I don't think they could be considered mercenaries.

Also they would be in the pay of the contractors not the US govt.