Burqa Clad Mercenaries Implicated in Sex Slave Ring
I read a good article today on my beloved Sabawoon Online about the only female detective in Kandahar. This Burqa Clad Bombshell fights crime incogneto, and gained fame when she killed 3 "would be assassins" in a shootout.
This is pretty impressive stuff. It might not seem like a huge deal to people in the USA, who always see female detectives and hot ass actresses playing highly skilled asskicking operatives on TV every night, but here this is like major progress. Talk about blending in - she's like the ultimate undercover agent.
I've been reading a lot of articles about the privatization of "troops," i,e. "mercenaries." In an article entitled "Support Our Mercenaries," the author delivers a scathing report on all the horrible things that these "mercenaries" do. I'm actually surprised that more people haven't jumped on this bandwagon, and I'm waiting for for people to create a scenario that says that soon, private companies will be dispatching armies and gaining control of stuff and generally tearing shit up. Allow me to dispell this myth before it is started.
"Private Companies" are not enormous vacuums of indepently controlled cash. They're not militias run by powerful, brutal warlords (like me). They have to get paid from somewhere, which is from the US government in some form or another. The employees of these companies also require pay/food/shelter, so if the gravy train from the US Government stops, these companies will cease to be able to function.
A huge salary is nice, but if workers of these companies think that they are being put into harm's way unnecessarily, they simply quit. I've seen this happen many times. The "employees" are [generally] former military and, in my opinion, often times more professional and experienced than your run of the mill US Military soldier, and they won't put up with it.
Being a private company, their reputation is always at stake. These companies will do anything to avoid public scrutiny of any type, and try to remain low-key and out of the media. It doesn't look good to have a bunch of your people get ambushed, or for people in the company to be implicted in any crimes. As a private company, they typically have a "Zero Tolerance" policy towards any sort of "unacceptable" behavior, and will not hesistate to put someone on a plane the next day, which I've also seen happen a few times. They don't play around - even if you are pretty much in the "right" in a questionable incident, they reserve the right to terminate you for pretty much anything they see fit. For instance, if some guy runs up with an RPG and I whack him, I'm still going home. It's just policy.
To improve quality control, large contractors will often employ smaller, more specialized sub contracting companies to come out and check out how things are going. This provides the "higher ups" who aren't on the ground with a non-biased assessment of situations, so they can get a better idea of how things are going without being worried about people sweeping things under the carpet.
I'm not saying that certain things are "acceptable under the circumstances," but we must be realistic when assessing certain bad situations. Anytime coercive force or action is used in military actions, people will get hurt. However, it is not the policy of the companies or the US Military to support torture, maiming, etc of the local populace. People who aren't in the military or working for contracting companies do stuff like that all the time, but they're blamed generally on an individual basis and not for who they're affiliated with. Why should US Military personnel or contractors be any different? (By the way, the whole "I was just following orders" thing is bullshit.) I've always found it interesting how quick people are to attribute barbaric behavior to the fact that someone was former military. For instance, if I, as a private citizen, decided to butcher someone back in the USA, I can GUARANTEE you that the newspaper headline would be something like FORMER MARINE MURDERS SAINTLY OLD GRANDMOTHER. People are more than happy to judge actions of people based on prior military service, but quick to discard any other affiliation, especially race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, etc, because for some reason society has deemed it OK.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I'd like people to be cautious with their judgements. Like I said, it's become socially acceptable to mutter comments about someone's military training contributing to some vicious behavior, but god forbid you should mutter anything about someone being gay/muslim/christian/black/ etc to simplify another action. Obviously, being in the military does get you trained up on some "barbarous behavior," but the US Military does not train sociopaths. We're not Cossacks. As someone who grew up as a military brat, I take for granted the fact that I'm not completely ignorant on military matters. However, I've found most often that the most outspoken people against the military are the people who know the least about it, and for some reason that too has become A-OK.
Just to clarify: I am saying that it is NOT OK to judge individual actions based on a larger group affiliation. I'm sure there are people mis-reading this and thinking that I'm lamenting the fact that maybe I can't call someone a "fag" because they buggered a boy. If you think that, you are stupid and I ask that you never read my blog again. All I'm asking is that people take greater care when assessing the root of actions, and not to be such simpletons and take the easier road, attributing it to some sort of sociopathic brainwashing that takes place during military bootcamp. This is no different than dismissing an action someone does because they're gay/black/a muslim, so have a care and squash that shit if you hear it. Contracting companies and the US Military do not support torture/sex slave rings as doctrine, but I guess for most people, assuming that they do is a lot easier than actually educating one's self. God forbid they should have to trade in their preconceived notions with things they wish weren't so.
More later--
This is pretty impressive stuff. It might not seem like a huge deal to people in the USA, who always see female detectives and hot ass actresses playing highly skilled asskicking operatives on TV every night, but here this is like major progress. Talk about blending in - she's like the ultimate undercover agent.
I've been reading a lot of articles about the privatization of "troops," i,e. "mercenaries." In an article entitled "Support Our Mercenaries," the author delivers a scathing report on all the horrible things that these "mercenaries" do. I'm actually surprised that more people haven't jumped on this bandwagon, and I'm waiting for for people to create a scenario that says that soon, private companies will be dispatching armies and gaining control of stuff and generally tearing shit up. Allow me to dispell this myth before it is started.
I'm not saying that certain things are "acceptable under the circumstances," but we must be realistic when assessing certain bad situations. Anytime coercive force or action is used in military actions, people will get hurt. However, it is not the policy of the companies or the US Military to support torture, maiming, etc of the local populace. People who aren't in the military or working for contracting companies do stuff like that all the time, but they're blamed generally on an individual basis and not for who they're affiliated with. Why should US Military personnel or contractors be any different? (By the way, the whole "I was just following orders" thing is bullshit.) I've always found it interesting how quick people are to attribute barbaric behavior to the fact that someone was former military. For instance, if I, as a private citizen, decided to butcher someone back in the USA, I can GUARANTEE you that the newspaper headline would be something like FORMER MARINE MURDERS SAINTLY OLD GRANDMOTHER. People are more than happy to judge actions of people based on prior military service, but quick to discard any other affiliation, especially race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, etc, because for some reason society has deemed it OK.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I'd like people to be cautious with their judgements. Like I said, it's become socially acceptable to mutter comments about someone's military training contributing to some vicious behavior, but god forbid you should mutter anything about someone being gay/muslim/christian/black/ etc to simplify another action. Obviously, being in the military does get you trained up on some "barbarous behavior," but the US Military does not train sociopaths. We're not Cossacks. As someone who grew up as a military brat, I take for granted the fact that I'm not completely ignorant on military matters. However, I've found most often that the most outspoken people against the military are the people who know the least about it, and for some reason that too has become A-OK.
Just to clarify: I am saying that it is NOT OK to judge individual actions based on a larger group affiliation. I'm sure there are people mis-reading this and thinking that I'm lamenting the fact that maybe I can't call someone a "fag" because they buggered a boy. If you think that, you are stupid and I ask that you never read my blog again. All I'm asking is that people take greater care when assessing the root of actions, and not to be such simpletons and take the easier road, attributing it to some sort of sociopathic brainwashing that takes place during military bootcamp. This is no different than dismissing an action someone does because they're gay/black/a muslim, so have a care and squash that shit if you hear it. Contracting companies and the US Military do not support torture/sex slave rings as doctrine, but I guess for most people, assuming that they do is a lot easier than actually educating one's self. God forbid they should have to trade in their preconceived notions with things they wish weren't so.
More later--
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