UN Panel Warns Of Rise In "New Forms Of Mercenarism"

New York Times:

"A lot of people call us mercenaries," complained Erik D. Prince, chief of Blackwater USA, at a House committee hearing last month.

Today, a United Nations panel joined the club, proclaiming in a news release that "a number of private security companies operating in zones of armed conflict are engaging in new forms of mercenarism."

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[mydogshakespeare]

06:35 AM on 11/07/2007

Mr. Prince claims "You know, the definition of a mercenary is a professional soldier that works in the pay of a foreign army," and concludes he is no mercenary because "I am an American working for an American company."

Now, imagine that you are an Iraqi citizen living in your war-torn country occupied by (no surprise) A FOREIGN ARMY! Who do I think the professional soldiers employed by those security companies like Blackwater work for? Why YES, Mr. Disingenuous, they are professional soldiers working in the pay of a foreign army. They are mercenaries by your own definition, and so are you.

You may parse language for your own self-comfort, but you and your hired guns are no different from any other mercenary army in the history of the world.

[GrouchoMarxist]

04:54 AM on 11/07/2007

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck....well, you do the math.

[Norge]

12:39 AM on 11/07/2007

They are a serious threat to civilized societies freedoms, liberties and peace.

[wndrwrthg]

11:45 PM on 11/06/2007

By any definition of the term these are mercanaries. They are slay for pay, gun toting cowboys who do not follow any of the laws or rules that govern armies. Their bottom line is exactly that, their bottom line-money. There is no alligiance to anything but the coin they will be paid. Soldiers swear an oath to uphold their respective countries constitutions, these murderers are beholding to nothing but the gleaming coinage they will recieve no matter who they kill.

[realitytrumpsbull]

09:46 PM on 11/06/2007

Um, maybe because that's what it is? How
many tens, no, HUNDREDS of billions have been
urinated away on this middle eastern
misadventure? There does come a point...
and as far as the UN goes, now that they've
got designs on trying to run the USA, we should
stop paying for it.