You should watch a documentary called ...Iraq for sale :) http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-66214867273921...

If I recall the mid-seventies correctly - mercenaries were stopped going to Angola by the British govt!!!

If my memory serves me right that was a 'Labour' govt too!!!!

So, the question is, has British society become sanitised towards violence, or is the present govt the most corrupt, morally bankrupt and downright criminal, that this tired old Union, has ever had!!!????

"the Tory homeland security spokesman, ex-army
Col. Patrick Mercer, said "it makes no sense" to make hugh payments to private firms while the regular forces were undergoing cuts".....i have read many posters on these threads complaining of the
neglect of the British forces, in not supplying them w/the proper "kit", & the way they are treated in hospital. i now know why. PM Blair & Co. should be horse-whipped for using the funds, needed for the regular forces, in payment to private co's. will there be outrage by the British people over this? i hope so...........

Sandy, ma auld pal,

There is a lot to "horse whip" Blair over! Where do you start? The guy's writing himself into the history books, as the worst and most criminal PM ever!!

So, since there were no weapons of mass destruction, what is their excuse now for the continued occupation of another people's country? They have caused only mayhem and misery for the Iraqi people whose resources they seek to steal. We are a rogue state and an international pariah just as Nazi Germany was.

profit profit profit. that is a goal in itself. the mercenary companies make profit by protecting the regime that's established in Iraq now so that it can facilitate the oil companie' profits. and of course make certain that Iraqi oil is sold in terms of US dollars only so that the dollar can be propped up. Saddam was selling his oil for euros in 2002. And Saddam hired oil companies from around the world to exploit his oil fields. Bad Saddam!! hire US & UK companies only! profit profit

So, is this the privatisation of the British Army by the back door?

I was under the impression that the English (Labour) government had made mercenaries illegal, quite a few years ago. Can anyone confirm that?

Guga in #9: our experience in the US is that mercenaries were illegal for a long time. The US started using mercenaries in the early 1990's. and it was illegal all the way up until around 2000 or so. They legalized it years after they started using them. In the 1999 war over Kosovo they used a lot of mercenaries and it was illegal at the time. The law means nothing to the people that rule us, nobody should be shocked.

Mercenaries cost more money. But you can nurture the evil side of your troops better with mercenaries. Mercenaries have less institutional inhibitions, less legal limits.

#8. Britain is Belgium of old and the hiring of flemish mercenaries. This Labour Government has pretty much treated the Army as guns for hire.

#9. I believe that it is illegal for private citizens to recruit mercenaries in the UK, but when you're the Government...

Why are we considering mercenaries when we have thousands of top class, expensivly trained Gurkhas kicking their heels in poverty in Nepal who would dearly jump at the chance of getting back into uniform again.
The insurgents wouldn't mess with the Gurkhas !
I have fought alongside them in Borneo

The use of mercenaries is obviously a way of continuing Blair's wars off budget, but a dramatically more serious issue is the command and control of the private companies involved. Who do they report to? What disciplinary code applies to their activities? Who enforces it? What structure ensures they do not become private armies controlled by other interests thus hog-tying UK policy and strategy? What form of parliamentary control is exercised over their day-to-day activities?
The use of mercenaries is also a way of *subcontracting* paramilitary power that can easily be turned against UK citizens within the UK and elsewhere? This is a further example of the steady loss and abuse of our civil rights and another step towards a Blairite dictatorship.

Nope,Ive read and re read the item and I cant find anywhere the UK Government talking about hiring mercenaries.How about all the Aid agencys in Iraq who use private security,are they using mercenaries?Still I suppose the word "mercenaries" makes for better headlines than "private security"

If the Iraq War and wider conflict is about global corporations manipulating government for their own profit then it makes perfect sense to have the wars fought by PSCs. Does anybody still imagine that the 'insurgents' are fanatically misguided savages? They're as much professional soldiers - if not more so - than the poor saps the government sends out on 'our' behalf. Let Halliburton and Gazprom get on with it.

It may have been better to simply have the headline as

'Mercenaries' to fill Iraq

And write an article on Western Business Scams in the country !

The wars will be more and more privatised according to the current globalisation system, so eventually anyone from all over the World will be able to join the hiring party in war.

The danger is that 1. the mercenaries are not tied down in the military legal framework.. and they tend to become more criminal (as some of them probably already are criminals... thugs) .. so expect more rapes, murders, etc. 2. the mercenaries may also be used for extensive covert operations 3. they may be used eventually in the "homeland" to secure domestic uprisings, which is very bad because foreign soldiers are unlikely to understand or join the protesters, while native troops may disobey orders in favour of the protesters (similar to what happened during the Vietnam war) . ...We're slowly creeping into a new epoch of the "Dark Ages".

Blair should be leaving Downing Street by the back door with his head hanging in shame. What a legacy he has left. Worst PM ever?? Yes by far (even Maggie had some good points). Roll on May

#14 The private security companies mentioned here are not the elderly guys who wander about the checkout tills making sure no-one absconds with a free chocolate bar.

These "security people" are hired killers, ex military, from all over the world, who are paid lots of tax-free dollars to protect the obscenely rich and famous and start coups in obscure parts of the planet. They've been around for ever and good luck to them - they risk their lives for money. I don't want my taxes to pay for them.

Considering that most 'wars' are staged for the benefit of wealth and that 'privatisation' (joke) is the current economists' flavour of the month, it makes perfect sense to 'privatise' the forces. (some aspects are already so). Sell advertising space on the uniforms, install cameras in the helmets of grunts and sell the transport stream to the media (ad breaks with 'happy' kids at McD's "I'm Loving it") Horrific, yes, but at least there would be a degree of honesty about it.

PSC & mercs are obviously different in Tony Bliars eye's. I've got a mate working as a merc in Afghanistan making a small pile o cash, enough to pay off his mortgage, if he stays alive. Typical of this right wing labour movement in the UK to find cash for PSC's but cutting back military budgets, no one in the Labour govt has much military experience.
#6 no WMD's , but were there to promote democracy now, laughable as new labour can't even let an 80 year man have his say without being bullied & bundled out the door. Who knows what excuse Tony & George will come up with next to protect the big oil interests.
But remember they only hate us because we're free !

#10--wally--there are thousands of "private security"- x-military, used by coalition companies in Iraq & Afghanistan & world wide. the difference is those used by the American Co's, are paid by the individual Co's, not w/our tax$. that is a fact........

Mecenaries allow a mercenary population, with a mercenary moral fabric, to pay for dirty work to be done while they go about their affairs. As with the CIA, an organization that hires private contractors to skirt US laws, while a callow public wallows in its twisted info-tainment world of bald Brittanys and shaved privates and the rotting corpse of yesterday's sex goddess...

Any dog that would serve the corporatists in their occupation and murder of Iraq, need not come home. Any government that would try to still public anger over the policy of abominations that has given us the Stupid People's War, should be voted out. Any population that would be appeased by the actions of such a government does not deserve freedom...and, as moral cowards, will not have it, such as it is, for very long.

#21 so where do blackwater & others get the cash to pay the mercs, from Haliburton & others, where does Haliburton get the cash, the US Govt, who get the cash from ?......you & other taxpayers with multi billion $$$$ no bid contracts.

Just in the last 2 weeks there was an article circulating in the US saying that the number of private contractor soldiers killed in Iraq in this war was 800. Some (likely the large majority) of these soldiers do nothing but provide guard services for private contractors, that is true. but some of them do in fact do much more than that. They have elite units that are mercenaries who do very violent assaults. When they need a lot of violence from crazy men they call on special elite mercenaries who are paid a lot of money. these guys are very elite soldiers. I happen to know the US has been nurturing such private soldiers for decades.

Consider the 4 mercenaries killed at Fallujah 3 years ago or so, with their bodies being mutilated and displayed on world-wide tv. Those were mercenary-soldiers, not guards. One of those guys did an interview with a journalist just weeks before his death. He was telling in detail how he loved combat and killing. He said that his favorite way to kill was in hand-to-hand action close-up.

Consider this:
the 'mercenaries' work in the most dangerous high target arena, yet their death loss is 20% of the military. It makes me wonder if it is attributable to committment and experience, with better training and gear.

I live where Seal Team One deploys so I've met a few. Seals do a tour or two then go to work contractually. Seals are very intelligent, some have PHds- and they're damed committed to doing the job right the first time. If they make a mistake they have the brains and wherewithall to fix it.
SOmething to think about: would the war be won sooner, if the best of the best were the ones fighting it?
Dunno- but it has me thinking.

All part and parcel of Dick Cheneys reconstruction programme with taxpayers footing the bill.

As in the Balkans and Afghanistan, he flattens it then rebuilds it...at a cost.

BACK TO CAPTAIN MANNERING AND DADS ARMY.YOU ONLY FIND THESE STORIES IN BAIRNS BOOKS.WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE WEE MAN HAS THIS GOVERNMENT AND THE BLUNDERING MOD DONE TO THIS COUNTRY AND OUR ARMED SERVICES.WE ARE ACTING LIKE A BANANA REPUBLIC MAYBE WE ARE ONE.THE REST OF THE WORLD ARE LAUGHING AT US AND NOT WITH US.I SEE OUR RUGBY TEAM BROKE ANOTHER RECORD YESTERDAY.I THINK WE NEED INDEPENDENCE TO MOVE US UP A GEAR AND GET US OUT OF NEUTRAL.

Our military has been infiltrated by new labour and its love of bean counters and shifting responsibility from individuals to commitees that are not even involved in field operations. Formerly the MoD were an example of effciency despite successive governments ignoring them labour being by far the worset perpatrator.

The armed forces are an insurance policy and we neglect them at our peril ...

They need three times the budget they currently get and that is easily done by cutting back the civil service, dhss and other large insultingly inefficient public bodies.

19. Finnking, Finland

Like I mentioned earlier, holding that photo of Condi with one hand is turning your brain to Mush. You need to focus on the issues at hand, not what's in your hand when commenting on these threads :)

#23
The estimate was 600 deaths of hired contractors over the span of the war.

Carolyn in 29

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070223/ap_on_re_us/iraq_cont...

perhaps different stories had different info.

so we have 800 of the contractors working for the pentagon killed. and this does not count the contractor-soldiers serving private corporations as someone above said the number primarilly represents. So these are soldiers whose job it is to be soldiers, not security guards.

and then we still don't know how many non-Americans serving in the US forces were killed, according to US newspaper Army Times from 10-20% of US forces are non-American and not counted in the official American death toll.

Back around 2000 there was a Kosovo Liberation Army military force that invaded Macedonia and was marauding around the country village to village and terrorizing citizens. They told non-muslim people they must leave their homes or be killed. They were doing standard ethnic cleansing work. The Macedonian government was initially unable to challenge them militarilly. But the Macedonians pulled together military resources using their own people and military hardware they quickly purchased including helicopters. Then they confronted this KLA force of muslim terrorists. They surrounded this group and had them beaten militarilly. They could've killed them all, about 100 men. But instead they negotiated and arranged for them to slip out of the country safely. Many Macedonians wanted them to kill the invaders. But under pressure from US government they decided to let the invaders go.

Newspapers in southeast Europe published the facts that among these 100 or so KLA terrorists were about 25 American mercenaries paid for by the US government. That is why they were let go.

What about the mercenaries at Fallujah a few years ago? With their indiscriminate killing they enraged the people of Fallujah and this led to huge military conflict. and today in Anbar province where Fallujah is the US does not have control, the US has retreated from some areas as a result. There are whole cities controlled by insurgents in Anbar province. Those mercenaries rea

Maggie Thatcher would have loved this kind of war! Not only could she wage murderous wars on less powerful, second rate countries whose posessions she wanted... in the name of the 'British' flag and 'British' queen...but now the whole scene can be privatised and the direct cost to the taxpayer hidden.

Tony...you could go further!...why not franchise the whole thing with a clever, snappy logo like say 'Britkill'...yes, you could get a royalty (no pun intended) to ease your very much desired retirement... and perhaps if old Georgie gave the nod...a pretty valuable patent and brand name.

Just imagine the line up of corrupt dictators who love to wreak havoc on mankind, queuing up to buy this kind of product. It's safe, sanitized from national disgrace, comes with a good old 'Empire Made' tag, just like the old days, to guarantee quality.

There you go Tony... a brand new career for you with Gordon V.P. of finance.

34. Graham Simpson

Yeah: "WarsRUs"! Queue friendly soft spoken male voice: "Are you finding it difficult to subdue your herd? Speak to the experts, WarsRUs! We have hundreds of years of experience in subduing herds in all types of ways. From simple, but costly, shoot at the bug*ers til they stop moaning all the way up to corporate control of the media; a much cheaper method with the workers becoming subdued consumers too. We have the method to suit your needs. WarsRUs, experts in herd control that you can rely on!" Fade out to image to brain dead moron in front of TV.

American saying......An honest politician is one that stays bought.

Many countries have found to their cost that mecenaries are just as honest!!

MALTA, mercenaries are legitimate targets anywhere; no tears shed for those who sell their souls.

#35 Finnking:
Excellent, You'd get at least heavily discounted rates from Fox Network at least.

A job is a job...
A paid soldier job comes with a license to kill which probably appeals to a lot more people than I would like to think.

I think the US is recruiting worldwide for new forces. Israel will produce results, no doubt.

FinnKing in 35: speaking of WarsRUs - here is a link for you.

http://www.afn.org/~govern/pa10005.html

There are people who profit from wars. They want to lend money to the governments that wage wars.

Finnking #35...

WarsRUs... Great brand name! It's the one thing that Orwell didn't predict. 'Corporate war'. You no Finnking we shouldn't really joke about this, it's so very close to the truth.

Thanks for the complementary wrap to my cameo.

41 Wally: From a tax zone of 5 million: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article...

42_ Graham: "we shouldn't really joke....", yes, but what else can we do?

FinnKing - here's the link I should've given you.

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=301242007