When the mercenary media perceives a kindred spirit

A few friends have tried to draw me into discussing issues surrounding the U.S. mid-term elections, and I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I have had to shrug and sit quietly on the sidelines. You see, not only do I not understand most of the core issues, but I am completely baffled by the vocabulary being used to discuss the issues.

I'm sure part of my confusion can be blamed on the fact that I've been away for so long. But I can't help but feel that people with a vested interested in having the public remain fuzzy on the issues are quite pleased with the obfuscating affect that their 'newspeak' has on public debate.

A good example of this is the term 'contractor' which has been all over the news recently.

I don't know about you, but when I see the term 'contractor', I think of a stubbly-faced guy in a plaid flannel shirt and hard hat who you hire to arrange for cement guys, framers, brick masons, electricians, sheet-rockers, roofers, painters, etc., to rotate through a job-site until the dust settles to reveal a new house. Doing some home improvement or adding on? The same guy and his crews will do the heavy lifting... you just write the checks.

But when I was reading an article in the Times over the weekend about 'Contractors' in Iraq and Afghanistan... I have to admit I was completely baffled. I couldn't understand how a bunch of guys who were hired to build stuff could be blamed for the ongoing chaos and bedlam holding sway in those places.

And then I started noticing that the word 'contractor' was frequently used interchangeably with the term 'Private Security Firm'... and I got even more confused.

Private security firms are rent-a-cops. They're the guys you see at shopping malls and universities. They have barely enough authority to hold a shoplifter or a rowdy teenager until the real cops arrive, so what the hell would a 'Private Security Firm' be doing in a war zone?

As I read more it finally dawned on me. 'Contractors' and 'Private Security Firms' are the current newspeak for 'mercenaries'.

Think I'm wrong?

Here's a working deinition of a mercenary:

A mercenary is a person who takes part in an armed conflict, who is not a national or a party to the conflict, and is "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party". [the quoted text above is taken directly from Protocol I of the Geneva Convention]

According to the Times article, the U.S., U.K. and many other countries have (pretty much from the start) supplemented their armed presence in Iraq and Afghanistan with huge numbers of mercenaries; far more, in fact than their official military deployments.

What's worse, even though they are paying these mercenaries, the coalition governments and their official military forces have absolutely no control over the actions of these so-called 'contractors'. There is absolutely no enforcement of rules of engagement, no chain of command, and most importantly, no consequences for the countless atrocities that, if committed by one of the official uniformed forces, would quite correctly be labeled war crimes.

After reading about how these so-called 'contractors' had been allowed by the U.S. and U.K. (and their other coalition partners), to ride around Iraq and Afghanistan as an authority unto themselves, gunning down civilians and even killing members of the coalitions forces, all the while getting paid far more then even the most senior of the official military forces (see the definition above)... my blood began to boil.

How dare the American and European governments sit in judgement of Israel's military?

How dare they hire mercenaries and allow them to commit the most unspeakable war crimes... and then hold us responsible for the regrettable-but-justifiable civilian casualties in our defensive military operations?

How dare they lecture us about safeguarding civilians when they deploy unaccountable mercenaries in civilian areas who routinely shoot first and ask questions later (if at all).

The media may be willing to play along with the governments and avoid the distasteful term 'mercenary' in favor of the more polite 'Contractors' and 'Private Security Firms'. But that kind of window-dressing doesn't change the terrible facts on the ground or hide the hypocrisy.

If the US and European electorates/media aren't willing to hold their own governments responsible for countless honest-to-goodness war crimes being committed by their hired mercenaries, they had better get used to having us call bullsh*t on their kneejerk condemnations of the Israeli government and the the IDF.

/rant