The United Arab Emirates has deployed a team of Colombian mercenaries to fight in Yemen

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Business Insider

The United Arab Emirates has deployed a team of Colombian mercenaries to fight in Yemen
Jeremy Bender Tomorrow at 7:46 AM  

The United Arab Emirates has trained hundreds of mercenaries recruited from Latin America and sent them to fight in Yemen, according to The New York Times.

The Emirates have steadily built up the mercenary force over the past five years. The deployment to Yemen is the first time the Emirates has sent mercenaries into an active war zone.

The development of the mercenary force, which is largely comprised of fighters from Colombia, allows the wealthy Gulf nation to engage in combat operations abroad with little risk to their own citizens.

“Mercenaries are an attractive option for rich countries who wish to wage war yet whose citizens may not want to fight,” Atlantic Council senior fellow Sean McFate told the Times.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/uae-deployed-colombian-mercenaries-to-yemen-2015-12

[bananas]

1. "UAE is in the midst of an arms buildup aimed at making the country’s military one of the most power

The UAE also faces a potential manpower shortage: As of 2011, only 11.5% of the UAE’s estimated 8.5 million inhabitants were actually Emirati citizens, according to the State Department. The UAE is in the midst of an arms buildup aimed at making the country’s military one of the most powerful in the Middle East. It’s an ambition that might require more personnel than the population can provide.

wtf?

[LiberalArkie]

2. Well, they would want to get their hands dirty you know, being rich and all.

[MosheFeingold]

4. Indeed

Latin Americans are an interesting choice.

They are presumably Roman Catholic, which I think is important from the Yemini perspective, in that they would not be able to betray their bosses and have a power base. Hence, why no local group is being used.

[LiberalArkie]

6. They do grow some good mercenaries down there.

[Mika]

3. Wait for these mercs to return to Colombia - and then head to the US.

[EL34x4]

7. Depends on how much they're paid.

Of course, being professional mercenaries, they'd prefer to live to spend the money they earned. Mercenaries charge for their services which include killing for you, but not dying for you. If they think they're on a suicide mission, they'll take their services elsewhere.

[EL34x4]

5. Foreigners do pretty much every job in UAE

That require even the slightest bit of actual labor. It's no surprise that their Armed Forces would be made up of mercenaries.

This small percentage of the population who are citizens enjoy a life of leisure. If they work at all, it's in high-salaried "make work" positions that consist of little more than driving their Ferrari to the office for a few hours each week.

[Judi Lynn]

8. The Tip of a Bloody Iceberg: Colombian Mercenaries in Yemen

December 2, 2015
The Tip of a Bloody Iceberg: Colombian Mercenaries in Yemen

by W. T. Whitney

Some 800 retired special-forces veterans of the Colombian army will be fighting in Yemen soon as mercenary soldiers. It’s no surprise: Colombia is a star contributor to the U. S. project of orchestrating proxy warriors to enforce its global plan. The mercenaries represent only a small part of the assistance Colombia provides overall. The big story is Colombia’s program of using military and police officers to instruct soldiers, police, and intelligence personnel in dozens of countries within the U. S. orbit.

The Colombian mercenaries will be joining military forces of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) engaged in Yemen as part of a Saudi-led coalition now fighting to restore Sunni rule to that distraught nation. They will receive a pension and also UAE citizenship, along with family members. If they die in combat, their children will go to university free.

Arrangements were already in place. On behalf of his military contracting firm Xe Services, Erik Prince signed a $539 million contract in 2011 with UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to supply fighters for wars throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. The New York Times indicated Colombian mercenaries were involved and suggested that the U. S. government was endorsing Prince’s venture. The United States had concerns about political changes following the “Arab Spring” and about gains for Iran. Prince’s earlier company, Blackwater, “has a long history of working with Colombians,” analyst Jeremy Scahill pointed out.

Colombians fighting in Yemen will be serving U.S. strategic purposes. Saudi Arabia entered Yemen’s civil war in March 2015 at the head of a coalition of four Arabian Gulf states including the UAE. The United States is contributing to a naval blockade and provides military advisers and drone attacks. The coalition’s objective is to thwart the return to power of Yemen’s Houthi movement of Iran-backed Shiites. The Saudis have enjoyed $90 billion in U. S. military assistance since 2010.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/30/alan-grosss-improbable-tales-on-60-minutes/

[Judi Lynn]

9. For a mere $9 billion plus since 2000, the U.S. has bought Colombia. From the article:

For the U. S. government to pay the cost of housing, feeding, and equipping foreign trainees is less onerous than paying for “a U. S. “squadron of instructors” abroad. U. S. Assistant Secretary William R. Brownfield regards help from the Colombians as payback: “It’s a dividend we get for investing over $9 billion in support for Plan Colombia.”

Importantly, there is the notion that if trainees violate human rights, the U. S. government is blameless inasmuch as the military and police instructors are Colombian. The dismal human rights record of police, soldiers, and paramilitaries in U. S. client states in Latin America provides a rationale for expecting trouble.

Testifying before Congress, U. S. Southern Command head General John Allen spoke of “The beauty of having a Colombia – they’re such good partners, … When we ask them to go somewhere else and train the Mexicans, the Hondurans, the Guatemalans, the Panamanians, they will do it almost without asking, (And it’s) important for them to go, because I’m–at least on the military side–restricted from working with some of these countries because of limitations that are, that are really based on past sins. And I’ll let it go at that.”

The Leahy Law of 1997 prohibits the “furnishing of [military] assistance … to any foreign security force unit where there is credible information that the unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.”

[a la izquierda]

10. Nothing can possibly go wrong here. Nt