Author Topic: thoughts on using mercs? (Read 243 times)

TheDudeDVant · « **on:** May 11, 2004, 10:43:49 AM »

What are the general thoughts of our government using mercs? With all the crys of politicians not supporting our military coming from some folks, what are your thoughts of ex-elite forces making more than $20k/month?? With the average grunt making less than $100/day? Our government is supporting contractors like Haliburton to pay these mercenaries hugh sums of money that could be better invested in our real military?

I have heard that our government settled for so few actual troops because after initial hostilities were delt with, private companies were to be used for peace keeping operations in Iraqi. All this money being sent to private firms by our government that could be used for our military... What say our Bush war machine supporters??

O, and this was related to me by an ex-navy seal hired on contract to secure the oil feilds in the opening actions. He has since left the country and vowed that he could not be payed enough to go back..

dude

capt. apathy · « **Reply #1 on:** May 11, 2004, 12:51:27 PM »

I'm against it.

StabbyTheIcePic · « **Reply #2 on:** May 11, 2004, 12:52:27 PM »

Using mercs to run prisons and to fight battles is sick.

gofaster · « **Reply #3 on:** May 11, 2004, 01:07:08 PM »

When you replace army troops with mercenaries, you're giving up the battle. I wonder if we'd have as much trouble in Iraq if during the invastion, instead of using precision munitions to take out military targets, we'd simply firebombed the major cities and killed civilians to the extent we did in Germany and Japan. Instead of an Iraqi combatant simply melting into the general population, by eliminating the general population the Iraqi combatant would have no place to hide.

Sandman · « **Reply #4 on:** May 11, 2004, 02:26:11 PM »

It seems to me that the best thing to do WRT the prisons is get someone else to administer them. A soldier is probably the wrong choice.

The army is made of regular people. Regular people generally don't want to kill anyone. To get them to kill and then be able to live with it, you must dehumanize the enemy. Soldiers convinced that the enemy is less than human are the wrong people to be charged with the care of prisoners.