On "Mercenaries"

[Valerie5555]

Just wondered if anyone would consider the "mercenaries" of any sort to be "good guys" if they happened to be Japanese and were embarking on a scheme to rescue those Japanese captives.


Just wondered if anyone also considered the "mercenary force" in Ken Follet's "On Wings Of Eagles" to be fairly respectable "good guy" types for they were actually full time business executives and only "one time" mercenaries who were just putting everything on the line to rescue their colleagues who had been unlawfully detained in Iran during the Shah's downfall......................


BTW, I wonder what the then American ambassador at the time would have thought had he found out Mr. Perot was contemplating hiring a "mercenary force" to break his unlawfully detained employees out of jail.


On edit There may be some cases where private individuals had hired mercenaries to rescue hostages, but in some cases or more than some cases, it was a case of the individual in question "playing with fire," and "getting burned." :argh: :mad:

[Cleita]

1. Ken Follet writes fiction.

Please keep to the real world when discussing this.

[Union Thug]

2. Not me...

Mercenaries are for hire killers, legitimized hitmen. F* 'em

[Indiana_Dem]

3. Glad you mentioned the word mercenaries.....

I was wondering if it is just weird thinking on my part or is the media kind of covering the fact that some "contractors" may actually be "mercenaries" privately hired by the military to help protect the troops during dangerous excursions? They sure have been using the word "contractors" a lot. Some of the missing people they say are "contracted workers". Maybe it's just a blanket term they're using for all kinds of hired workers but I bet a lot of the population isn't aware of the mercenaries contracted to work for the government.

on edit: I'm sorry but if i hadn't read From The Wilderness yesterday, I probably wouldn't be aware of the language usage by the media. The government doesn't have to report anything about them or be responsible for them.

[Indiana_Dem]

5. Oh yeah, and the taxpayer is paying for them as well.

[mhr]

6. What Better Language For Covering Up CIA Covert Operations

The Iraqis are not stupid, the CIA types are generally easy to spot.

[arcane1]

8. hell yes they're mercenaries

Blackwater USA lost some contractors this week, and they ain't hard hats and tape measures:

http://www.blackwaterusa.com

"Blackwater USA is comprised of five companies; Blackwater Training Center, Blackwater Target Systems, Blackwater Security Consulting, Blackwater Canine, and Blackwater Air (AWS). We have established a global presence and provide training and tactical solutions for the 21st century."

Our clients include federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense, Department of State, and Department of Transportation, local and state entities from around the country, multi-national corporations, and friendly nations from all over the globe.

We customize and execute solutions for our clients to help keep them at the level of readiness required to meet today's law enforcement, homeland security, and defense challenges.
Any and all defense services supplied to foreign nationals will only be pursuant to proper authorization by the Department of State.

Come to Blackwater, where the professionals train."


Gary Jackson
President



ADDITIONAL LOCATIONS
"Blackwater USA has recently opened two new offices. The Baghdad and Kuwait City offices are open now.

[Indiana_Dem]

9. Thank you! This was bugging me!

Everytime the media mentions the "contracted workers" or "contractors" it makes me think of people like architects and builders not hired killers! I imagine that's what the rest of the country thinks that doesn't know this.

[arcane1]

10. Exactly. Precicely. And it is deliberate

"contractors", "terrorists", "compound", "insurgents", "reconstruction", they are all examples of deliberately using words that convey a certain specific image in the mind that is contrary to what the word is representing. They do it at home with bullshit words like "family", "robust", "forward", "values", etc...

I'm sure there is a PR term for it.

[scottxyz]

4. Also on mercenaries

There's something really sick about a government that cranks the money-presses at the mint day and night printing up trillions in soon-to-be-worthless paper...

while paying its soldiers $1,200 a month...

and paying its mercenaries $30,000 a month (that's $360,000 a year)...

...to fight a war designed to route more of that paper money back into the hands of the VP and Prez and Chalabi's families.

[Indiana_Dem]

7. well...have any of you noticed this?

:kick:

[solinvictus]

11. Lay off the freelancers...

They're just trying to earn a living. Geez, let up a bit.

[DulceDecorum]

14. Have gun, will kill for money

heck, it pays better than my old job at the slaughterhouse.

I don't mind the blood and I don't know these people.
Besides I am a patriot.

[BiggJawn]

12. If you pay me $1,000 a day to kill anyone that you want dead...

...I'm a Mercenary, and as Mae West observed "Goodness has nothing to do with it".

Just like whores got hearts of gold, right?

Hey, it's OK. I had a hard time believing my government is hiring ex-soldiers who hanker too much for that "Ultimate Hunt" and then pay them a kilobuck a day, too.
Sorry, but I got no patience anymore for Follet's (or anyone else's) fiction or mental masturbation about "What IF??"

A "Sell-Sword" has never been an honourable profession.

[DulceDecorum]

13. I dunno

but I do know that if you hire a hit-man to off an active child molester, you too get to go to jail, regardless of whether he kills him or not.

Hiring mercenaries is illegal.
There is a UN document which the US and UK have pointedly REFUSED to sign since they operate just about the only two licensing and registration offices in the world.
Everyone else on the planet HATES mercenaries.

But the US and the UK just don't care.
They were that way about slavery as well.
Wouldn't give it up until YEARS after everyone else.

Something about people who speak only English....
It really helps the thought process' to learn another language.

[DEMVET-USMC]

15. NOT MERCENARIES,Security men:

I truly wish all DUers would stop and consider that these men are all Americans , and former U.S. military men. They are not contractors, but men who are hired to protect workers hired to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure and protect aid workers, etc.. These people need protection. Surely the kidnappings and killings of people who are in Iraq to help the Iraqi`s is as proof enough they need protecting. The U.S. armed forces are stretched so far as to not be able to provide this necessary protection. Would any of you wish to re institute the draft? I doubt very much that these men were paid $300,000 + per year to provide security. There are so many militarily trained men throughout the world , ask yourself, why would these Corps.be being paying such high wages?Regardless, this callous attitude toward fellow Americans is not going to win over any swing voters. Quite the contrary, it will give the GOP an issue they can use against us. IMUS IN THE MORNING did just that referring to simular statements made on Air America. If us Democrats want to win this election I say stop all this mercenary crap. I`m beginning to wonder if some of these postings are not quite possibly from agents provocatures....Oscar

[revcarol]

16. They're such Americans that these firms are hiring former Pinochet thugs

from Chile and former apartheid "enforcers" from South Africa.

You were saying?

[DEMVET-USMC]

17. Every one of these men were American Veterans:

All of the men butchured that day were American veterans according to THE BOSTON GLOBE. Do you have a source that states otherwise?...OSCAR

[Malva Zebrina]

44. and there are lots of American Veterans around

who do not hire themselves out and expect to be protected by the currently active serving young in military. Why should any vet expect that when they go off to foreign lands and put themselves, deliberately, in harms way for $30,000 a month that they deserve protection and actually to be avenged by the active military? They are making decisions that are not within the boundaries of the active military. They are independant contractors. They do NOT take an oath to defend the constitution and they owe their allegiance to the corporation that hires them. The corporation such as Blackwater, is the one responsible for avenging their untimely deaths and not our active military.

Enough already of the American "vets". I am beginning to think that we should privatize the entire military forces and get away from this military "mysticism" and poster like propaganda that romanticizes the US military.

Obviously they are not to be admired in Falujah. I suppose you could call them brave because they follow orders without being able to question their commanders. The answer to that is to teach them early on that war in these days, is not a video game, is not romantic, and serves purposes that are immoral so that they will not be brainwashed with visions of bright shiny medals and the admiration of their peers. They are no longer defending our freedoms, for there is no one that can deprive us of our freedoms.

I would go into debt in order to send them to college without having them need to put themselves in the position of becoming pawns and slaves to insane people in power who desire to use them for their own greedy purposes.

as far as the mercenaries

In practice, they can be said to be Bush's private army and that is more dangerous than any weapon they may be carrying.

[Tinoire]

18. Mercenaries. Greedy, immoral, psychopathic mercenaries

Mercenaries who are fighting a legitimate freedom struggle do not deserve any mercy. They already do not have any rights under the Geneva convention because they are used to bypass the Geneva conventions.

These mercenaries went out looking for trouble and found it. Not one single life should be affected because of these greedy psychopaths.

A Private in the Army gets paid a whopping $1,500 a month, which equals out to a "generous" $20,000 a year. That's about $10 an hour. Would these self-proclaimed "trained professionals" want to serve a year in Iraq if the salary was less than what elementary school teachers get? That would be a big, fat NEGATIVE.

How much do you want to wager that Blackwater corporation is nothing more than a CIA "cut out" corporation much like the Carlyle-funded Vinnell corporation whose barracks were bombed in Saudi Arabia? Most of these mercenary corporations like Dyncorp, Vinnell, etc... are not "independent" companies but are used by the American government as proxies and cut outs. Its called "Plausible Deniability" and deserves no mercy.

Iraqi resistance fighters killed four highly paid mercenaries from a private, up-market Norfolk-based killing outfit on a dollar-rich gore fest and, as is tradition, barbecue and dismember the buggers. Suddenly, after months of hiding the fact that tens of thousands of freelance murderers specializing in mayhem and carnage of a general nature are doing the Halliburton-sponsored U.S. military's job while it hides behind 15-foot slabs of concrete (donated by Blackwater), the bottom-feeders of the war apologists set out to convince the world that the lid had blown off Hell.

Forget it.

My concern is the residents of Fallujah & the innocent, confused, terrified soldiers over there whose families have to borrow money to provide their kids with protective gear. $300,000 x even 10 buys a hell of a lot of protective gear those kids aren't getting.

[DEMVET-USMC]

20. TELL IT TO THE MARINES !

1.Has anyone established that these security men were being paid $300,000+ for their extremely dangerous work ? If so give a source.I cannot imagine some greedy corporate types paying those sort of wages to a large pool of former grunts who end up taking McJobs here in the U.S.A..I am a veteran and I know many. 2.Would you prefer that the draft be reinststated to protect the people these men were hired to protect? 3.How is making such callous statements about these men who died horrible deaths going to garner any votes for us Democrats or doesn`t that matter to you? I want to see us Democrats win this election. Do you care about that? 4.Do you honestly think Sen. Kerry, Gen. Clark or Mr.Clarke would have anything other than revulsion at the cruel attitudes you promote. 5.Are you a Democrat or a GOP agent provacature? You sure are not helping us Democrats with such callous remarks.

[Tinoire]

26. Look DEMVET-USMC, take it from a 20 yr DEMVET-USA

that those jobs exist and they pay that much and sometimes even more if you can add language skills on top of it or can pass undercover.

1. Read on. Read the all Black-water/mercenary-related posts in LBN and GD from the last week. All your answers are contained therein; I really don't have the time to discuss this with someone whose views are so radically different than my own.

You main concern seems to be in defending the honor of those psychopathic mercenaries who the day before were firing women and children in the backs of their heads (and I puke as I use the word honor in the same sentence as mercenaries). I couldn't care less for them. How many dead Iraqis and American soldiers are they worth? Is this the new equivalent of killing SS officers? Fallujah-Lidice? Fallujah-Oradour-sur-Glane?

2. "To protect the people these men were hired to protect?" What people? Are these men protecting? Bremer? String the murdering ass up for all I care. Kittim that Nazi who talks of making the Iraqis pay dearly for resisting an immoral occupation at the hands of your beloved mercenaries who are in Iraq at a ratio of 1 mercenary for every 10 US soldiers and yet whimper like babies that when they call the military to come bail their ass out of the messes the get into, the $10 privates resent it and their NCOs won't send them in? The only thing those mercenaries are doing there is causing trouble and getting decent soldiers killed. String every single last one of those Blackwater etc mercenaries all up- I don't care. They're there for a. blood-lust, b. greed , and c. of their own free Bush-loving will.

We wouldn't need a draft were it not for war enablers and idiots who eagerly fell for the Village Idiot's transparent lies would we now? But now that you ask, sure- reinstate the draft if we must have a war and make sure that every Bush-lover is shipped off to die for oil, mercenaries, Radical Christianity, Radical Zionism or whatever flips their little ass.

3. I am not here to earn votes for the Democratic Party by rolling over on my beliefs. Maybe if members of the Democratic Party, since you seem so concerned about it, hadn't collaborated with the idiot-in-chief they wouldn't have to worry so much about 'garnering' votes to make up for all the ones they lost.

4. Sen. Kerry, Gen. Clark & Mr.Clarke have never been at the top of my list as guiding beacons of light. Rather the opposite. I have quite a bit of revulsion at their own cruel, cynical attitudes.

5. Yeah. I'm an angry "GOP agent provaocatureeur" out to destroy "us Democrats" with my callousness :eyes:

Btw, there is no need to keep saying "us Democrats" (3 times! everytime!)- it's not something we normally do here. It makes one look like an agent 'provocateur' ;)

Tinoire
USA, Retired

[RapidCreek]

28. Yes I would prefer that the draft be reinstated.

If it were we'd be out of Iraq in ten minutes and we'd not be using our military as low paid mercenaries to serve corporations who believe they shouldn't have to be subject to the taxes which pay a soldiers meager salary. For Christs fucking sakes the goddamn military IS being used to protect these corporations. It was used to create the frigging market they are now profiting so handsomely in. Are you blind?

RC
USN Veteran

[RapidCreek]

24. Tell you what pal

I don't give a rats ass if they are Americans. Fact is, being an American doesn't make you're actions impervious to criticism. Being a former US military man doesn't either. You claim those profiting from our destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure need protection. Why do they need protection? They need it because they aren't Iraqis. Why are Iraqi firms not handling the reconstruction of their infrastructure? Are you suggesting that they aren't able to? They built the mother fucker...they are the most educated population in the Mid East. I hardly think they require American carpet baggers to do that which they are capable themselves. Then again they are brown people so they need us to take care of them, right?

The fact is, is that if this bunch of carpet bagging American thieves weren't in Iraq right now the only protection they would require is protection from the US judicial system and the SEC. Why are these corporations paying such high wages? Well I imagine it has something to do with the fact that their carpet bagging is getting them a fairly significant chunk of the 87 billion in US tax payer money which they make sure they don't contribute too.

If I were ever to witness the rape of your wife and I knew the perps pals were swing voters....and the perp was American, I guess you'd recommend I be sure not to take his head off with a ball bat....After all, we wouldn't want to loose those swing votes.

Imus is a drugged out right wing pussy...not to far removed from Rush "I got a carbuncle on my butthole" Limbaugh. Don't bother to tell me he endorses John Kerry because it's a disingenuous lame assed endorsement.

As far as I'm concerned the troops should come home tomorrow. Bechtel, Haliburton and the rest of the carpetbaggers can higher guys like you to cover their asses while they engage in piracy. While you're at it you can furl up my flag and send that home to. Fly the corporate logo of the carpetbaggers you're working for...you know...put the target on the back of AWOLS sponsors...those who are truly behind the occupation of Iraq.

Fuck your High Paid hitmen mercenaries and pitty the poor grunt whose expected to bail his whoring ass out when he get's it into trouble...bail it out for pennies on the dollar.

RC

USN Veteran

[thebigidea]

34. These "Security men" sure sound "simular" to mercs to me.

[Tinoire]

19. Some info on the mercenaries, their status & their companies

<snip>

Business has been booming for Blackwater, which now owns, as its press release boasts, "the largest privately-owned firearms training facility in the nation." Jackson told the Guardian, "We have grown 300 percent over each of the past three years and we are small compared to the big ones. We have a very small niche market, we work towards putting out the cream of the crop, the best."

The practice of using mercenaries to fight wars is hardly new, but it is becoming increasingly popular in recent years. During the first Gulf War, one out of every 50 soldiers on the battlefield was a mercenary. The number had climbed up to one in ten during the Bosnian conflict. Currently there are thousands of Bosnian, Filipino and American soldiers under contract with private companies serving in Iraq. Their duties range from airport security to protecting Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Apart from Chile, the other popular source for military recruits is South Africa. The United Nations recently reported that South Africa "is already among the top three suppliers of personnel for private military companies, along with the UK and the US." There are more than 1,500 South Africans in Iraq today, most of whom are former members of the South African Defense Force and South African Police.

According to the Cape Times, among the South African companies under contract with the Pentagon are Meteoric Tactical Solutions, which "is providing protection and is also training new Iraqi police and security units," and Erinys, a joint South African-British company, which "has received a multimillion-dollar contract to protect Iraq's oil industry," the Cape Times reported.

<snip>

It is also only a matter of time before U.S. soldiers grow unhappy with the presence of mercenaries in their midst. The high salaries and shorter terms of employment offered to mercenaries will inevitably make a serious dent on the military's budget. As Blackwater's Jackson acknowledged in the Guardian, "If they are going to outsource tasks that were once held by active-duty military and are now using private contractors, those guys are looking and asking, 'Where is the money?'"

<snip>

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18193


==============

In a brief but intense firefight, Thomas hit one of the attackers with a single shot from his M4 carbine at a distance he estimates was 100 to 110 yards.

He hit the man in the buttocks, a wound that typically is not fatal. But this round appeared to kill the assailant instantly.

“It entered his butt and completely destroyed everything in the lower left section of his stomach ... everything was torn apart,” Thomas said.

Thomas, a security consultant with a private company contracted by the government, recorded the first known enemy kill using a new — and controversial — bullet.

The bullet is so controversial that if Thomas, a former SEAL, had been on active duty, he would have been court-martialed for using it. The ammunition is “nonstandard” and hasn’t passed the military’s approval process.

<snip>

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2426405.php

You can watch a Streaming video of this blended-metal bullet technology taken at the 2003 Shoot-out at Blackwater on the manufacturer's site here:
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/bullets/


The ammo that Thomas used was a so-called “blended-metal-technology” round, manufactured by RBCD of San Antonio and distributed by LeMas Ltd. of Little Rock, Ark. For the past four years, RBCD has been featured during AFJ’s annual “Shoot-out at Blackwater” training center (August AFJ), where the ammo’s unique performance has impressed most of the special operators observing its effects. Designed to release maximum energy in soft tissue, the “armor-piercing limited penetration” ammo will bore through hard targets, such as steel and glass, but will not pass through a person or even several layers of drywall. ((watch the video to see what they mean by "will not pass through a person))

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/bullets/
====================


I've been in Falluja when the entire city has been under collective punishment, which occurs nearly everytime someone attacks a U.S. patrol there. People are enraged, and rightly so. So when one of those white, shiny SUV's with the big black antenna drives by with guys with crew cuts in them wearing body armor holding guns (yes, it is THAT obvious and easy to see), what do you think might happen to them?

The other reason I bring this up is because of this: Last night I'm going through customs at the airport in Amman, and I find myself standing in line behind five men with crewcuts and their 'handler', a little bit older fellow from Turkey (I saw his passport). The men were all in their late 20s, to late 30s I'd say, and from their discussion had all been in Iraq before.

They wouldn't tell me who they were working for, but when they were lugging huge plastic boxes with locks on them off the baggage belt, then went and hopped into their nice, white SUV, it was pretty much a no-brainer.

Blackwater Security Consulting won a $35.7 million contract to train over 10,000 soldiers from several states in the U.S. in the art of 'force protection,' according to Mother Jones magazine. They also hire mercenaries from South Africa and other countries as well, and the pay in Iraq is $1,000 per day. Wonder how that makes our soldiers feel, who make barely over that each month?

http://electroniciraq.net/news/1435.shtml

Blackwater signed a $35.7 million contract with the Pentagon to train more than 10,000 sailors from Virginia, Texas, and California each year in "force protection." Other contracts are so secret, says Blackwater president Gary Jackson, that he can't tell one federal agency about the business he's doing with another.

<snip>

In recent months, private military companies have also played a key role in preparing for a war with Iraq. They supply essential support to military bases throughout the Persian Gulf, from operating mess halls to furnishing security. They provide armed guards at a U.S. Army base in Qatar, and they use live ammunition to train soldiers at Camp Doha in Kuwait, where a contractor, whose company ran a computer system that tracks soldiers in the field, was killed by terrorists last January. They also maintain an array of weapons systems vital to an invasion of Iraq, including the B-2 bomber, F-117 stealth fighter, Apache helicopter, KC-10 refueling tanker, U-2 reconnaissance plane, and the unmanned Global Hawk reconnaissance unit. In an all-out war against Saddam Hussein, the military was expected to use as many as 20,000 private contractors in the Persian Gulf That would be 1 civilian for every 10 soldiers-a 10-fold increase over the first Gulf War.

Indeed, the Bush administration's push to privatize war is swiftly turning the military-industrial complex of old into something even more far-reaching: a complex of military industries that do everything but fire weapons. For-profit military companies now enjoy an estimated $100 billion in business worldwide each year, with much of the money going to Fortune 500 firms like Halliburton, DynCorp, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon. Secretary of the Army Thomas White, a former vice chairman of Enron, "has really put a mark on the wall for getting government employees out of certain functions in the military," says retired Colonel Tom Sweeney, professor of strategic logistics at the U.S. Army War College. "It allows you to focus your manpower on the battlefield kinds of missions."

<snip>

The use of private military companies, which gained considerable momentum under President Clinton, has escalated under the Bush administration. "There has been a dramatic increase in the military's reliance on contractor personnel to provide a wide range of support services for overseas operations," one Washington law firm advises its defense-company clients in a recent briefing paper. "In addition, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, resulted in a rapid expansion of U.S. military activity in many areas of the globe, and President Bush's ongoing war on terrorism will likely require even greater contractor support for military operations in the future."

<snip>

http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/article_05_05_03soldiers.html

===

The current business boom is in Iraq. Blackwater charges its clients $1,500 to $2,000 a day for each hired gun. Most security contractors, like Blackwater's teams, live a comfortable if exhausting existence in Baghdad, staying at the Sheraton or Palestine hotels, which are not plush but at least have running water. Locals often mistake the guards for special forces or CIA personnel, which makes active-duty military troops a bit edgy. "Those Blackwater guys," says an intelligence officer in Iraq, ]"they drive around wearing Oakley sunglasses and pointing their guns out of car windows. They have pointed their guns at me, and it pissed me off. Imagine what a guy in Fallujah thinks." Adds an Army officer who just returned from Baghdad, "They are a subculture."

<snip>

At the Pentagon, which has encouraged the outsourcing of security work, there are widespread misgivings about the use of hired guns. A Pentagon official says the outsourcing of security work means the government no longer has any real control over the training and capabilities of thousands of U.S. and foreign contractors who are packing weapons every bit as powerful as those belonging to the average G.I. "These firms are hiring anyone they can get. Sure, some of them are special forces, but some of them are good, and some are not. Some are too old for this work, and some are too young. But they are not on the U.S. payroll. And so they are not our responsibility."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040412-607775,00.html?
===========

Because the Geneva Convention expressly bans the use of mercenaries -- individual soldiers of fortune who fight solely for personal gain -- private military companies are careful to distance themselves from any associations with such hired guns. To emphasize their experience and professionalism, many firms maintain websites brimming with colorful PR material; the industry even funds an advocacy group, the International Peace Operations Association, which portrays military firms as more capable and accountable than the Pentagon. "These companies want to run a professional operation," says the group's director, Doug Brooks. "Their incentive is to make money. How do you make money? You make sure you don't screw up."

When the companies do screw up, however, their status as private entities often shields them -- and the government -- from public scrutiny. In 2001, an Alabama-based firm called Aviation Development Corp. that provided reconnaissance for the CIA in South America misidentified an errant plane as possibly belonging to cocaine traffickers. Based on the company's information, the Peruvian air force shot down the aircraft, killing a U.S. missionary and her seven-month-old daughter. Afterward, when members of Congress tried to investigate, the State Department and the CIA refused to provide any information, citing privacy concerns. "We can't talk about it," administration officials told Congress, according to a source familiar with the incident. "It's a private entity. Call the company."

The lack of oversight alarms some members of Congress. "Under a shroud of secrecy, the United States is carrying out military missions with people who don't have the same level of accountability," says Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a leading congressional critic of privatized war. "We have individuals who are not obligated to follow orders or follow the Military Code of Conduct. Their main obligation is to their employer, not to their country."

Private military companies emphasize their patriotism and expertise, positioning themselves as a sort of corporate battalion staffed by ex-soldiers who remain eager to serve their country. Military Professional Resources Inc., one of the largest and most prestigious firms, boasts that it can call on 12,500 veterans with expertise in everything from nuclear operations to submarine attacks. MPRI deploys its private troops to run Army recruitment centers across the country, train soldiers to serve as key staff officers in the field, beef up security at U.S. military bases in Korea, and train foreign armies from Kuwait to South Africa. At the highest echelons, the Virginia-based firm is led by retired General Carl Vuono, who served as Army chief of staff during the Gulf War and the U.S. invasion of Panama. Assisting him are General Crosbie Saint, former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe; Lt. General Harry Soyster, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency; and General Ron Griffith, former Army vice chief of staff.

<snip>

The companies don't rely on informal networking alone, though. They also pour plenty of money into the political system -- especially into the re-election war chests of lawmakers who oversee their business. An analysis by Mother Jones shows that 17 of the nation's leading private military firms have invested more than $12.4 million in congressional and presidential campaigns since 1999.
<snip>

The firms also maintain platoons of Washington lobbyists to help keep government contracts headed their way. In 2001, according to the most recent federal disclosure forms, 10 private military companies spent more than $32 million on lobbying. DynCorp retained two lobbying firms that year to successfully block a bill that would have forced federal agencies to justify private contracts on cost-saving grounds. MPRI's parent company, L-3 Communications, had more than a dozen lobbyists working on its behalf, including Linda Daschle, wife of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. Last year L-3 won $1.7 billion in Defense Department contracts.
<snip>

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/05/ma_365_01.html



From a United Nations report to the General Assembly:

UNITED NATIONS

General Assembly
Distr.
GENERAL

A/50/390
29 August 1995
ENGLISH
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH/FRENCH/
SPANISH

Fiftieth session
Item 106 of the provisional agenda*

RIGHT OF PEOPLES TO SELF-DETERMINATION

Use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights
and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to
self-determination


72. It is the Special Rapporteur’s belief — and this view is generally shared by the first meeting of experts — that one of the new forms of mercenary activity is that which takes place through private security companies that hire out military services, using mercenaries for that purpose. The fact that international legal texts do not refer to this modality has facilitated its rapid expansion. At the same time, the proliferation of mercenaries hired by companies and their participation in armed conflicts, illegal arms traffic, drug traffic and violations of human rights bespeak the need for regulation, control, prevention and oversight of such companies. The United Nations must accordingly assist States in establishing mechanisms to regulate those companies and in harmonizing their national legislation.

<snip>

76. Clearly, international rules refer to States, not enterprises. Consequently, such enterprises can claim that they are not responsible for unlawful acts with which States alone can be charged. Thus, if an enterprise hires mercenaries who commit human rights violations, the enterprise is not responsible and the violations go unpunished.

<snip>

88. The third point concerns payment which is, without any doubt, the defining factor of mercenary status and activity. Mercenaries, particularly those who are hired to participate in combat or to train those who are to make up battalions, columns or commando units are typically individuals who have been in the military or who have received military training, and above all who are former members of special commando or parachute units and have experience in the use of sophisticated weapons. The mere fact that it is a Government that recruits mercenaries, or hires companies that recruit mercenaries, either in its own defence or to provide reinforcements in armed conflicts, does not make such acts any less illegal or illegitimate. Governments are authorized to operate solely under the Constitution and the international treaties to which they are parties. This point of view should be taken into account in a broader legal definition of mercenaries.

http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/0/3430C18B2B4A42F9C1256AD800527046/$File/N0147130.doc?OpenElement

http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1995/a-50-390.htm
=============

Report on mercenaries presented to human rights commission
United Nations press release HR/CN/764. 14 March, 1997

<snip>

The Special Rapporteur concludes in the document that mercenary activities are a form of violence used in the last 40 years to hamper the exercise the right to self-determination of peoples and to violate human rights. Mercenary activity has been increasing and has been observed in serious criminal activity, including terrorist attacks and drug and arms trafficking.

<snip>

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27a/003.html

=====================

Soldiers for Sale

By Adam Zagorin, Time magazine, Vol. 149, no. 21, 26 May 1997
The Cold War is over, but with demand for military muscle stronger than ever around the world, hired guns are going corporate.


<snip>

<snip> From the suburbs of Washington and Tel Aviv to London and Pretoria, a growing number of competitors are scrambling for contracts that run into millions of dollars, hawking their wares using everything from Websites to slick brochures.

For instance, contracts worth more than $170 million for training Saudi Arabia's national guard and air force have gone to Vinnell Corp. and a sister company, both partly owned by Washington's Carlyle merchant-banking group, whose chairman is former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci. Military Professional Resources Inc., another capital-area firm, won the business to improve the fighting skills of troops in Bosnia and Croatia. "We offer expertise from the greatest fighting force on earth, the U.S. military," says former Army General Harry Soyster, a vice president at M.P.R.I. M.P.R.I. deploys nothing more lethal than flip charts and Magic Markers. Of course, the firm will gladly show clients how to point and shoot an arsenal of weaponry, ranging from rifles to main battle tanks.

The hard guys are currently employing the hard sell. At a recent arms show in Abu Dhabi, an Executive Outcomes booth quietly competed for business with mercenaries from Britain, France and the U.S. Topflight mercenaries and military consultants, many recruited from elite military units like the U.S. Special Forces, Britain's S.A.S. and Scots Guards and South Africa's 32 Battalion, can command anywhere from about $3,500 a month for enlisted men to $13,000 a month for officers or fighter pilots. That is far more than most of those involved could make wearing a regular-army uniform, and the package is usually topped off with free death-and-disability insurance.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27a/064.html
===

THE TOP HIRED GUNS

Here are some of the outfits that sell their men and arms to companies and governments around the world

EXECUTIVE OUTCOMES
A leader in its field, the firm is mainly staffed by apartheid-era, former South African military officers

VINNELL CORP.
Partly owned by a banking group whose chairman is a former U.S. Secretary of Defense, the Virginia-based firm trains Saudi Arabia's national guard

LEVDAN
The low-key Israeli firm trained troops and bodyguards for Congolese President Pascal Lissouba, who then purchased $10 million worth of Israeli weapons and military equipment

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27a/064.html


===========

Vinnell Corporation (Northrop Grumman)
12150 East Monument Drive
Suite 800
Fairfax, VA 22033
Phone: [phone]
http://www.vinnell.com Profile
Company Principals
Board of Directors
Contract History
Political Contributions


Background
Founded in the early 1930s, Vinnell worked on the Los Angeles highway system before it started to expand into military construction during World War II. During the Vietnam War, the company built bases in South Vietnam that it later had to blow up after the United States withdrew from the country. According to The Boston Herald, a Pentagon official called Vinnell "our own little mercenary army" in a 1975 interview with The Village Voice.

Vietnam almost led Vinnell to bankruptcy, but a 1975 contract worth $77 million to train the Saudi Arabian National Guard started a long and lucrative history of involvement in the Middle East.

<snip>

The Vinnell-Brown&Root joint venture had at least six contracts worth nearly $200 million from 1998 to 2002. In addition to the United States, Vinnell and VBR performed work in Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Northrop Grumman, the current parent company, had nearly 4,000 contracts worth close to $42.5 billion from 1990 through 2002.

Iraq contracts

Vinnell is responsible for training the New Iraqi Army (NIA). Work on the $48 million one-year contract began July 1, 2003, and is expected to be completed by June 30, 2004. The contract includes a feature called "Not-To-Exceed Cost Ceiling," meaning that Vinnell's total contract invoices for the first six months cannot exceed 50 percent of the contract estimate, or $24,037,221.

<snip>

<snip> Vinnell is using five subcontractors: Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI), Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Eagle Group International Inc., Omega Training Group, and Worldwide Language Resources Inc. As opposed to Afghanistan, where coalition forces conducted much of the training, the decision to outsource military training in Iraq reportedly was made because U.S. troops are spread too thin.

<snip>

Government ties

Former Democratic congressman Vic Fazio is a senior partner in Clark & Weinstock, a consulting firm. During his time on Capitol Hill, he was a member of the Appropriations Committee, Budget and Ethics Committee and the Armed Services Committee. Fazio was part of the Democratic leadership from 1991 to 1998, rising to the party's third-ranking position as chair of the Democratic Caucus. Fazio has contributed more than $110,000 to mostly Democratic candidates since 1980.
<snip>

http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=64


===

ALTHOUGH the media repeatedly refers to the men killed in the recent attack in Iraq as 'civilian contractors' they were in fact mercenaries used as part of the US government's outsourcing of jobs too messy, too dull, or too questionable to be carried out by standard troops for whom the president and his aides might be held responsible. These firms include Blackwater, the one involved in the recent incident as well as Dyncorp and the Steele Foundation. The Steele Foundation, the third largest supplier of mercenaries, has 500 troops in Iraq and recently distinguished itself by - depending on who's telling the story - failing to protect Haitian president Aristide from kidnapping by the U.S. government or participating in the act.



=======

The US government is the major holdout to these international agreements:

(see references for 29 of the 38 listed)

1. Ottawa Treaty (the land-mine ban)
   
2. Treaty on the Rights of the Child (only holdouts are the U.S. and Somalia)
   
3. Protocol to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (vote was 178-1, the US the only holdout)
   
4. United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
   
5. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
   
6. Convention on Biological Diversity
   
7. International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families
   
8. Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)
   
9. International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings
   
10. International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.
    
11. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
    
12. Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes Against Humanity
    
13. Forced Labor Convention
    
14. Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention
    
15. Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention
    
16. Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age to Marriage and Registration of Marriages
    
17. Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
    
18. Convention on the International Right of Correction
    
19. International Criminal Court
    
20. Kyoto Accords (greenhouse gas reductions)
    
21. UN Convention on Biological Diversity (regulating genetic engineering)
    
22. UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
    Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (prohibiting programs like "Stars Wars")
    
23. Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal
    
24. Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes
    
25. International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries
    
26. International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid
    
27. Convention concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment
    Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
    
28. Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers (prohibiting sale of arms to human rights violators & aggressors)
    
29. Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
    
30. Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, and Other Related Materials
    
31. UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (bans toxic waste dumping, etc.)
    
32. UN Moon Treaty
    
33. Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
    
34. UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
    
35. Protocol to enforce the Convention Against Torture
    
36. United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
    

http://www.vote.org/list.htm

=====

International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, 4 December 1989.

The States Parties to the present Convention,

Reaffirming the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and in the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations,

Being aware of the recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries for activities which violate principles of international law, such as those of sovereign equality, political independence, territorial integrity of States and self-determination of peoples,

Affirming that the recruitment, use, financing and training of mercenaries should be considered as offences of grave concern to all States and that any person committing any of these-offences should be either prosecuted or extradited,

<snip / on on it goes for ye of legal minds & more morality which the US refused to sign in the last 25 years! >

http://www.ilrg.com/subject/lawofwar/15conv-mercenaries.html

[Indiana_Dem]

21. Bingo bonanza! Yowza!

Forgive me. It must've taken some time to collect all that information! Good work.

And don't think for a minute that any of these hired contractors wouldn't come to kill you if the government deemed necessary during a martial law scenario. You could be killed indirectly from your own tax dollars!

Now I can see where this could slow down a draft situation but I still don't think it's right because they are not held accountable or publicized all in the name of being a private company. I see now why Rumsfeld hasn't been worried about a draft as of yet. I just hate the whole privatization of everything the Republicans are always pushing for. There is then no direct accountability or primary regulation of anything. Why can't we just go back to our own troops working the kitchens and cleaning the latrines, etc.

One point I've thought of.....how is this any different from Saddam's Mujahadeen (sp?)? Reminds me of the same principle. Double standards all the time.

Boy I hate war.

[DEMVET-USMC]

22. Those 4 men were American Veterans

Whatever these companies histories are those 4 guys were American Veterans. THEY were not making huge amounts of money for providing security.You remind me of Condi Rice, you do not answer the questions I asked , but go off on some tangent that totally ignores the questions I aked re:the draft ,who the men were who were brutally butchered ,how would Sen. Kerry and Clark and Clarke respond to your statements,etc.. .....Oscar

[AZCat]

23. Your interpretation of huge amounts of money is different from mine

A couple of Tinoire's links list $1000/day as the wages for the contractors- that I feel is a huge amount of money.

[DEMVET-USMC]

25. Provide a reliable link as to these 4 men

I clicked onto those links and found nothing specific to those 4 men . If I missed one please inform me. Whatever, this is not an issue we Democrats are going to win votes with. That is what I care about, winning this election. If we fail to win this election all of our futures could be lost. Don`t think for a second that these forums are not being monitored by the Admin. and I very much believe there are agents provacatures posting here.

[Tinoire]

29. Well Oscar, I definitely agree with your last statement

;)

That we agree on something should be of some comfort to you.

[DEMVET-USMC]

35. Thank for agreeing with me about something:

And all DUers should never forget that these forums are being monitored and that there are NEOCON AGENT PROVOCATURES posting here TRYING PROVOKE them into making some post THEY CAN USE TO HARM THEM.Take care,keep your eye on the prize < winning the Presidency >and Goodnight. ....OSCAR

[Tinoire]

40. Sheesh. You think "us Dems" care about being monitored?

We're just going to get louder and louder until all the Bush-lovers hear is a deafening silence :)

Provocatures indeed. Yep, they've been out in force lately. Must be getting scared that the idiotic house of cards is coming down... Too many door handles being rattled and bones, bones, Condoleeza-Rice-bones tumbling out of all the closets as her little girl voice quivers so touchingly.

CAUGHT! Like a child lying. Makes you want to smack her neo-con ass HARD but rules dictate that instead we drag her into the corner, stoop to her game playing level and gently tell her, "Condi... Are you sure? Quite sure...? (x10)... Condi (softly), we know you're lying... You can tell us the truth..." But no truth forthcoming, just that irritating quivering voice.

[Karenina]

46. Snicker, snicker...

You GO, Tinoire!!! :loveya: :toast: :loveya:

[AZCat]

30. Fair enough- I think this one article has pretty much all we know so far..

Read it here: http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/article_4_05_04_Private_Guards.html
(It's a NY Times article, but Schakowsky's site doesn't require registration to read the article)

Here's what I got from the article:

April 2, 2004
Private U.S. Guards Take Big Risks for Right Price
By JAMES DAO
<snip>
On Wednesday, four employees of a Blackwater unit -- most of them former American military Special Operations personnel -- were killed in an ambush in the central Iraqi city of Falluja, their bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets by chanting crowds.
<snip>
The Associated Press identified three of the victims as Jerry Zovko, 32, an Army veteran from Willoughby, Ohio; Mike Teague, a 38-year-old Army veteran from Clarksville, Tenn.; and Scott Helvenston, 38, a veteran of the Navy.
<snip>
To meet the rising demand, the companies are offering yearly salaries ranging from $100,000 to nearly $200,000 to entice senior military Special Operations forces to switch careers. Assignments are paying from a few hundred dollars to as much as $1,000 a day, military officials said.
<snip>

So we don't know for sure what the four contractors were making, but we know they were Blackwater employees, and that Blackwater employees like them are making from $100,000 to nearly $200,000 a year.

I consider that to be a lot of money.


On Edit: I have the link for the article from the NY Times web site, but since it is over 7 days old, you have to pay to download it. Here is the abstract link: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50C15F7395D0C718CDDAD0894DC404482

[Tinoire]

31. Here are some reliable links

All courtesy of Google.
=========================

But now it appears that the four private security contractors killed, burned and mutilated in Fallujah last week were in fact lured into a carefully planned ambush by men they thought to be friendly members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, said Patrick Toohey, a senior executive at the security firm, Blackwater USA.

The Iraqi men, Toohey said, promised the Blackwater-led convoy safe and swift passage through the dangerous city, but instead, a few kilometers later, they suddenly blocked off the road, preventing any escape from waiting gunmen.

"The truth is, we got led into this ambush," Toohey, a company vice president, said in an interview, offering the company's first detailed account of the attack.

"We were set up," he said.

Two senior Pentagon officials said yesterday that they could not independently confirm the conclusions of the Blackwater investigation, and that the military was conducting its own inquiry.

Toohey said his company's investigation, which included interviews with convoy drivers who survived, had not yet determined whether the Blackwater employees were led into Fallujah by active members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, or by impostors wearing defense corps uniforms.

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/world/8400403.htm

=====

The four were working for a security company based in North Carolina and may have been lured into an ambush by members, or people pretending to be members, of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, a company spokesman said yesterday.

The men were working for Blackwater Security when their vehicle was hit by rocket-propelled grenades in Fallujah on March 31.

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031774798562&path=!nationworld&s=1037645509161

====

From Blackwater's main page:

"We grieve today for the loss of our colleagues and we pray for their families. The names of the victims will not be released out of respect for their families.

"The graphic images of the unprovoked attack and subsequent heinous mistreatment of our friends exhibits the extraordinary conditions under which we voluntarily work to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people.

"Coalition forces and civilian contractors and administrators work side by side every day with the Iraqi people to provide essential goods and services like food, water, electricity and vital security to the Iraqi citizens and coalition members. Our tasks are dangerous and while we feel sadness for our fallen colleagues, we also feel pride and satisfaction that we are making a difference for the people of Iraq. ((oh puke))

<snip>

http://www.blackwaterusa.com/

There are a ton more stories confirming this, you can wade through them here

[charlie]

33. Here's a promotional blurb

from the improbably-named Custer Battles. It reads like pedestrian PR from a realtor announcing a satellite office:

CUSTER BATTLES BRINGS ITS EXPERTISE TO BAGHDAD

June 17, 2003 - Mansour District, Baghdad: Custer Battles, a global risk management firm with operations on five continents, announced today that it has opened a representative office in Baghdad's Mansour District. Custer Battles is expanding its support and services to humanitarian organizations, government organizations and private businesses operating in Iraq.

"In all my years of experience operating and investing in emerging and transitioning markets, I've rarely seen such opportunities," Mike Battles, Custer Battles co-founder and managing director of the Baghdad office, said. "The Iraqi workforce is well-educated, eager and anxious to continue their proud history of cultural and commercial success."

In addition Custer Battles will be providing objective investment advice and due diligence on behalf of investment funds, multinational corporations and private investors.

Custer Battles is the leading provider of tailored risk management solutions. Their suite of services is designed to allow senior management teams to understand the risk environment and identify profitable courses of action to maneuver with minimal exposure to risk. Client service offerings including business intelligence, global risk consulting, due diligence and litigation support, are designed to cover the full spectrum of risk management and mitigation, which can be applied collectively or individually to fit the client's specific needs.

http://www.custerbattles.com/press/news_061703.html

One of their own just got killed, ironically in a battle to protect other "contractors":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1189283,00.html

[Tinoire]

36. You would think with the MANY BILLIONS

they're spending on those mercenary thugs, they could at least bring home the soldiers who don't want to be there!

Custer Battles?

Amazing.. Never heard of them until now but check out the sleazeballs:

Kevwhite 09/22/2003

Just a warning to anyone considering a contract with Custer Battles LLC, of Fairfax,VA, the company currently awarded the contract to provide security at Baghdad International Airport. I was with them for the first month. The company repeatedly demonstrated signs of serious cash flow problems that effected their ability meet payrolls, both within country and also for all the Americans expecting direct deposits back home. We were all shorted on our first pay, at the end of July, and the promise to make up the difference by Aug 5 was not met. At that time the excuse was that it was easier to pay us the back wages along with our normal pay at the end of Aug. However, at least in my case, the Aug pay was also substantially light. As I had returned to the states due to a death in my family, and being owed nearly $2000, I opted to not return. There are also a number of issues, such as health and welfare concerns and generally poor management, that contributed to my decision. A number of other well qualified professionals have also left them. If you are a true professional you will not like working for them and you will not want your name associated with them.

----


t 12/22/2003


reference custer battles,please stay clear,they are dangerous,i have just left them,they left us without body armour,ammo and weapons,we had to buy all our own equipment and scrounge it from other good companies and the military,then we were told to arrange our own transport home on leave,it was unbelievable,when these points were brought up we were ignored at all levels,from washinton to bagdad.they had in place teams of psd's from the usa who then left,then they had teams of psd's from france who then left,then they had teams of psd's from the uk who then left,does this not speak volumes.custer battles are only in it to gain as much cash as possable they definetely should not get the contract renewed in march they are dredfull in the way they conduct thier buisness,ps.to the previous "ranger" im glad you are happy mate but they are not anywhere as good as you make out,please do your research to find out whether what i have said is fact or fiction,yours T.

-----

divdoc 12/28/2003

Thanks for the heads-up. I work for ITT/Group4 in Bosnia. The same advice and avoidance should be applied.

------------ ((Here come the lawyers))

lawdoggs86

02/12/2004


Do you work for a Defense Contractor in Iraq or elswhere?

Have you been mistreated, abused, injured on the job?

Send your e-mail, (names are not necessary) and a short description of your situation to: [e-mail]

Also, if you know of other message boards, send that information as well. We will band together a network to stop these people from their sick and disgusting practices which are ruining our lives and costing our noble troops their's.

Whether you work for: Brown & Root/Haliburton

DynCorp

Custer Battles

ITT

or other corrupt contracting organization, you need to take a stand.

Don't be fooled. These people have strong lobbies in Washington and deep pockets filled, not only with tax payers fraudulently acquired dollars, but politicians and high ranking military officials as well.

This is not a joke. If we don't start standing up to these filthy thieves, nobody will.

I did not serve my country to let that happen. Nor, I believe, did you.

start here: http://www.alexanderlaw.com/

all information is strictly confidential.

We are preparing lists of personnel to mount mass torts, (class action lawsuits) against the various contracting organizations that have abused, mistreated and otherwise maligned security and other contracting professionals in this, our nation's time of crisis.

While our soldiers die in Iraq everyday, these companies only talk about greed, greed, greed.

Information will be sent to you about the various attornies and other legal organizations you can contact to put a stop to these insidious abuses.

http://www.alicp.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=363

[charlie]

37. Re: mercenaries as cover

or cutouts for spook agencies:

Vinnell's Asian adventures served as a springboard for its emergence as a global company that was more than willing to do a little intelligence work on the side if the opportunity presented itself. In his memoir Ropes of Sand, former CIA operative Wilbur Crane Eveland describes how he used his Vinnell connection as a cover during his tours of duty in Africa and the Middle East in the early 1960s, noting that company founder Albert Vinnell expressed his willingness to help the agency do whatever it needed to do (for a fee, of course). Eveland returned the favor by negotiating contracts for Vinnell to do construction services on oil fields in Iran and Libya, bribing the appropriate officials along the way.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0513-06.htm

[MiniMoog]

42. "Cut-Out"

Is indeed the correct term. I have been slightly surprised by the overwhelming acceptance of the "mercenaries" cover story.

Does the rage make sense now? Dragging them through the streets, the mutilations...burnings...this was no ordinary cut-out, hence the extraordinary killings.

MiniMoog

[charlie]

39. Geeeez

The smell of money has got everybody fucking over everybody else. And our grunts are expected to keep their wits, stay alive, and not kill the wrong guys, in the midst of those shitheads tearassing all over the place.

[Tinoire]

38. More on that Custer Battle Merc killed in Fallujah

<snip>

Michael Bloss, 38, a former special forces officer with the Parachute Regiment, was killed Wednesday while working as a security guard at the town of Hit, near Fallujah.

He sent a message to friends the previous day, saying: "I'm in serious s- - - here. We are expecting to be overrun tonight and we may have to fight our way to a safe haven.

"Unfortunately all the safe havens are already under attack. I don't wish to alarm you. We'll probably be OK. I'll e-mail when I'm safe."

<snip>

His father, Peter, 72, said his son had succeeded in getting the hydroelectric engineers he was protecting to safety, but was then shot.

<snip>

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/18577.htm

Hydroelectric engineers in Iraq helping Blair and Bush steal that oil. That's what those mercs are protecting. They're there to help steal the loot.

[TahitiNut]

43. So were Lee Harvey Oswald and Tim McVeigh

Sometimes waving the veteran's flag just isn't persuasive and sounds a lot like mindless propaganda. :shrug:

[RapidCreek]

41. That "blended metal" reminds me of an old trick

dropping mercury into non jacketed hollow points and capping them off with a dollop of lead. Don't try this at home kids.

RC

[Serenity-NOW]

27. Wonder where 'Valerie5555' went

Showed up to post a hypothetical and some ficion then came back 24 mins later to make the edit but apparently hasn't taken part in the conversation beyond that. Hunh.

[Tinoire]

32. Hopefully sleeping. I envy her

That's where we all should be now lol.

[Indiana_Dem]

45. kick for today!

:kick: