Robert Gates Confirms Blackwater In Pakistan

Winning hearts and minds! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Seriously, the privatization (i.e. commercialization) of war and intelligence is perhaps the most potent threat against our national security.

The genie has been out of the bottle since the start of round two of the Iraq war and the situation won't be changing anytime soon. Indeed, I've heard rumors that certain PSF's are providing security for government VIPs and a few NGOs in Haiti.

It's going to take a massive screw up by one of these organizations, with an equally large body count attached, that can't be conveniently explained away by "miscommunication" or "emotionally unstable employees" in order for any type of regulation to be even considered by those who control their respective purse strings.

I dislike this. I'd rather the military handle such things... Primarily because Mercenaries don't have to follow the same rules of engagement that the military needs to follow.

they don't have to obey the Geneva Convention. (Like our troops and politicians follow that rule....)

Mercenaries have never had a good reputation. In all the books I've red with mercenaries in them, they were bad guys. Granted, all but three of the books I've read with mercenaries in them were fiction, but I can't help but feel as though the books were right. I've never met one, so if someone out there is an employee of Blackwater, please share your side of the story, but so far I've only talked to one person who didn't have anything bad to say about them. A soldier who said a Blackwater employee fixed his computer for free. But I've heard a lot of very disturbing things from soldiers who've had to work with these contractors in several different areas but I won't say what I heard because I can't prove anything and as much as I like men in uniform, I don't want them craving blood. But there are things that I do know are true, not just about Blackwater but KBR and Haliburton. Like how they charge $45 for a case of soda, or $100 for a 15lb of laundry. Or what about the cars they burn? You've seen the HUGE tank-like SUVs that a military will generally use, right? They burn those big ass SUVs because they have a flat, or there's something in the carb or they need a new alternator. These are all little problems, but the car get's burned anyway.
There are over 154 open criminal investigations on KBR. And did you know that if you work for KBR when you sign their contract, they can rape you and you can't sue them because there is a hidden jewel in there that totally fucks you over, and I am speaking literally. They have a "rape clause" written into their contracts. Even the GAO can't stand these assholes saying stuff the the Army improperly awarded $105 billion dollar contracts to KBR. Eh... The GAO doesn't like anyone. I wrote too much...

This means we are at war with Pakistan , right? I thought that the semantics game we were playing was that 'we are not at war with Pakistan because we we are bombing with unmanned drones and we were not sending in ground troops'. If we are sending in Black water (XE) in place of our troops, what's the difference? Does it NOT count as war if we pay a private US company to fight it for us?

Not again...

Oh yea we have to feed the corporate pigs, and pay the pigs 3 and 4 times what a well trained, accountable, and patriotic soldier makes.
The ruling about corporations is nothing but a way to take every last taxpayer cent and give it to these parasites.
I would feel safer with American soldiers who pledge alligence to the flag and are accountable than these corporate swine.

It wouldn't be the first country that Blackwater is banned from. It's my humble opinion that the united states shouldn't use mercenaries just so shit like this doesn't become an issue. When our military becomes a corporation it makes it harder for us (the little people) to hold our government accountable for the things they do because they can just say it was the contractors fault and the contractor will blame someone else. Soon it will come to the point where the only people able to make accusations will be lawyers who will just confuse us so much that we'll finally just give in and sign a piece of paper, which after some clever interpretation translates into something like: I don't want my balls. You just hold on to them for me, OK?

We can already see it at play.

well, nothing gets by this guy, huh? who signed the contract?

Private Security firms will be afforded to operate with impunity so long as our govt wishes to secretly influence countries politically, financially, and militarily without consequences.

Private Security firms will always be afforded to operate under the radar so long as our government wishes to influence the outcome of other countries for its own personal gain.