Mercenaries

[Centurion1]

Hore tore you are wrong on multiple accounts.

first-
They are not all ex us army. You do not understand the united states military system or you were making a general statement. There are ex marines, swat, navy, air force, commercial pilots......

There are also foreigners, sas from Britain, Mossad from Israel, locals from the middle east to translate and the like, South Africans, French Foreign Legionnaires, etc....

Second- The us army could just train more troops.

Incorrect the military is not allowed to have unlimited numbers of men. The marine corps has 175000 maximum troops for example. Also there is no draft and therefore a smaller pool of recruits.

Third-

They do free up troops for the front lines. and they have skills in high value protection that most regular soldiers do not have the training for.

fourth-

The united states government pays ZERO benefits to private contractors. They pay a lump sum (400 million i think for a few years in Iraq, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of training and hiring new soldiers) and the legitimate COMPANY Blackwater, INC., gives them bonuses, health care plans, etc. and a salary. They are not payed by the hour.


fifth and finally-
I would prefer you do put words in my mouth about an organization i want to join.

[Husar]

This site seems to be bugged somehow in every browser I tried(you can mark the text or copy it into wordpad or something), but here is this old story about a mercenary who is actually useful to the population of his workplace.

Just to show that it also depends on the person I guess. Just because they are not bound to law does not have to mean they're bad people just like some soldiers rape and pillage despite it not being allowed.

I generally wouldn't say that mercenaries are a great idea for civilized countries though, the cost argument never made sense to me either, usually a mercenary gets pretty good pay and as HoreTore pointed out it's not like they don't have insurances, bureaucracy etc. like the army does, they might even pay a cleaning service to clean their offices while the army can just have some recruits do it for free.

[HoreTore]

All of them?

"Of the 987 contractors Xe(blackwater) provides, 744 are U.S. citizens."

Blackwater doesn't train their personnel. They hire ex-spec ops personnel.

Hardly. Of course you contribute to their benefits, but you don't have to pay for all of them. Other companies or countries hiring Blackwater personnel also contribute, meaning you may not have to pay as much in a roundabout fashion I suppose. Do Blackwater personnel also get things like funerals paid for by the US Army (directly, not through the hiring fee)?

"At least 90 percent of the company's revenue comes from government contracts, of which two-thirds are no-bid contracts."

You misread my post - my point was that the government would not need to have the bureaucracy to deal with it, making it Blackwater's problem.

But it would cost the exact same ammount, thus being an irrelevant point.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

"Of the 987 contractors Xe(blackwater) provides, 744 are U.S. citizens."

Blackwater doesn't train their personnel. They hire ex-spec ops personnel.

So, firstly, not all of them are US citizens. Secondly, they're former military personnel, meaning they left for one reason or another and are probably not coming back.

"At least 90 percent of the company's revenue comes from government contracts, of which two-thirds are no-bid contracts."

Does it specify the United States government? Either way, it isn't 100%.

But it would cost the exact same ammount, thus being an irrelevant point.

It would cost Blackwater the same amount, not necessarily the taxpayer.

[Centurion1]

Hore tore.

They are not even all ex- spec ops. They are most definitely not all ex army.

[rory_20_uk]

Personally I think mercenaries are a great idea.

Get all nutters into a war zone in someone else's country. If they're registered in the UK all teh better as we can tax thecompany at least.

On a tangent I think that the Uk army should spend more effort on training friendly armies and less on getting shot at themselves as well as on the more specialist areas. We've not got the manpower for wars of attrition, so teh locals should fight for themselves.

[Tribesman]

Personally I think mercenaries are a great idea.

Get all nutters into a war zone in someone else's country.

You missed the important piece out .
Put a wall around the place and let the scum rot there

If they're registered in the UK all teh better as we can tax thecompany at least.

You think too small, once they are stuck there sieze all their money in the now dormant accounts.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Mercs are great. Personally, I'm in to the whole fight and die for your loved ones approach, but if you are good at it you may as well benefit from your skills in the free market.

The pendulum might swing back one day and killing for sport and money could become fashionable again. We are human after all.

[Mooks]

Mercs are great. Personally, I'm in to the whole fight and die for your loved ones approach, but if you are good at it you may as well benefit from your skills in the free market.

The pendulum might swing back one day and killing for sport and money could become fashionable again. We are human after all.

I agree with this. Being a good soldier/killer is a skill, might as well make money off of it if your excessively good at it. Plus countries dont have to record death of mercenaries, who knows how many blackwater troops died in Iraq. Id rather have them dead then U.S military.

[Louis VI the Fat]

You missed the important piece out .
Put a wall around the place and let the scum rot there

You think too small, once they are stuck there sieze all their money in the now dormant accounts.

You can be so lucid and clear at times!