Blackwater aviation.....why not use military pilots

[CitationLover]

And this wrong? Whether private company or military, it is all still a business with budgets and politics.
Mercenaries have been in use since 12BC or thereabouts. It will never change.

Why can't the military do the jobs you speak of? Because, bottom line, it is cheaper to use PMC's (or whatever you want to call them). For every combat soldier, there are dozens of other military personel in the role of support. Mercs are much more efficient...plus, they WANT to be over there.

so expanding on your logic, why have a military at all? simply outsource it all since it is cheaper. this is a goal of blackwater with regards to darfur. cofer black lobbied for a private army to go in there when he spoke in jordan.

it's questionable whether it is cheaper too. Blackwater has married itself to the current establishment and hired lots of ex admin officials to guarantee it's contracts. cronyism doesn't guarantee cheaper, quite the opposite. but hey, no bid contracts were loved by rumsfeld.

erik prince and joseph schmitz are radical catholics with their own holy agenda. they love their Sovereign Military Order of Malta. thankfully god has a sense of humor and mary kay letourneau, with her love of 15yr olds, is schmitz's sister showing what happens to these ultra fundamentalist families.

 

[T-prop]

erik prince and joseph schmitz are radical catholics with their own holy agenda. they love their Sovereign Military Order of Malta. thankfully god has a sense of humor and mary kay letourneau, with her love of 15yr olds, is schmitz's sister showing what happens to these ultra fundamentalist families.

Wow CL, time to log off for a while. Go somewhere... like Alaska for a week, do some fishing.

Either that, or convince FI to start your own section on here so you can argue with yourself for the next 1500 posts.

 

[avbug]

can we not call them contractors, but what they really are: mercenaries.

No, not at all. You haven't a clue whence you speak.

Is a contractor a mercenary because he or she gets paid to haul garbage from A to B? That's what contractors do. Is a contractor a mercenary because he or she gets paid to dismantle explosives? Because that's what contractors do. Is a contractor a mercenary because he or she gets paid to provide airlift support? Because that's what contractors do. Is a contractor a mercenary because he or she gets paid to carry a firearm in the pursuit of his or her duties? Because that's what some contractors do.

Is a soldier a mercenary when he or she draws a paycheck for hauling garbage from A to B? Soldiers do that, you know. Is a soldier a mercenary because he or she gets paid to dismantle explosives? Soldiers do that, you know. Is a soldier a mercenary because he or she gets paid to provide airlift support? Soldiers do that, you know. Is a soldier a mercenary becausehe r she ets pid to carry a firarm in the performance of his or her duties? Soldiers do that. You know that.

The same organization pays both; the government of the United States of America. Both are funded by taxpayer dollars. Both wear protective gear, uniforms of different sorts. Both face the same risks, the same dangers, both take pay for doing the same job. You'd have to be a bloody idiot to suggest that one is a mercenary and one isn't; standing side by side, being wounded side by side, serving the same country, the same mission, in the same sand and mud.

You in your absolute arrogance don't have a clue wht you're talking about. You read a washington post article and consider yourself informed. We've been running missions for decades, centuries even, in and out of uniform in all forms. You might even try to suggest that it's only noble to die draped in the flag or in a uniform, but you must not know that when one dies in the service of one's country, when one draw's one's last breath...dead is dead. Serving the same master, the same mission, with the same citizenship, awnsering a call put out by the government, is not acting as a mercenary. A soldier lives under a contract as an employee of the government. A contacor lives under a conract to the government too.

We as a nation employed contractors to fight native Americans, we fought as a rag-tag civil guerilla force in the defense of what became our country. We employed privateers and the merchant marine, and contractors in nearly every aspect of building our country from the earliest days until now. We are limited in what we can field for military force. Money isn't being diverted to contractors so we can downsize the military; contractors are employed as force multipliers in order to maximize the effort that can be made by the military. Does the military need to squander it's resources hauling shipments cross country when a contractor can do that just as easily and not tie up military vehicles and personnel? Does the military need to use it's resources to do everything the contractor does today? No, and it doesn't. Take away the contractors, and you don't have an army to fight with because the army would be completely absorbed into the menial tasks and labor taken over by the contractor (and historically, far less efficiently). You see, the army can waste and doesn't need to turn a profit. The contractor must, and is bound by very strict contracting requirements. I can vouch for that.

Could the USAF continue to fly without the heavy support of contractors that maintain aircraft and do so much of what gets done today to keep the USAF airborne? Not on your life, and the USAF doesn't have the size or capability to do it...nor should the USAF tie up it's resources doing it. The military has a mission to do.

You may not see what often amounts to an opaque support structure that's not on center stage, but every aspect of what makes the military mission possible is civillian, from the making of the uniform to the design and production of the weapons, vehicles, and aircraft, to the production, distribution, and even serving of the food. Where do you suppose the ammunition comes from? Then again, where do you think soldiers come from? Civillians.

Is a woman sewing a uniform, getting paid for her job, a mercenary? Of course not. Not even you are that dense. Neither is the contractor, serving at risk of loss of life in the same sand as the uniformed soldier, any more a mercenary. That same contractor, present at behest of the same government (civillian government, mind you) that put the soldier there...both employees of the same employer, both getting paid to do the job.

You push your luck when you speak of things you don't understand. Perhaps you should go bury yourself in Washington Post and leave reality to those who understand it a little better. When you're ready to crawl out from under that paper, you might try it with a little more respect.

 

[CitationLover]

No, not at all. You haven't a clue whence you speak.

Is a contractor a mercenary because he or she gets paid to haul garbage from A to B? That's what contractors do. Is a contractor a mercenary because he or she gets paid to dismantle explosives? Because that's what contractors do. Is a contractor a mercenary because he or she gets paid to provide airlift support? Because that's what contractors do. Is a contractor a mercenary because he or she gets paid to carry a firearm in the pursuit of his or her duties? Because that's what some contractors do.

Is a soldier a mercenary when he or she draws a paycheck for hauling garbage from A to B? Soldiers do that, you know. Is a soldier a mercenary because he or she gets paid to dismantle explosives? Soldiers do that, you know. Is a soldier a mercenary because he or she gets paid to provide airlift support? Soldiers do that, you know. Is a soldier a mercenary becausehe r she ets pid to carry a firarm in the performance of his or her duties? Soldiers do that. You know that.

The same organization pays both; the government of the United States of America. Both are funded by taxpayer dollars. Both wear protective gear, uniforms of different sorts. Both face the same risks, the same dangers, both take pay for doing the same job. You'd have to be a bloody idiot to suggest that one is a mercenary and one isn't; standing side by side, being wounded side by side, serving the same country, the same mission, in the same sand and mud.

You in your absolute arrogance don't have a clue wht you're talking about. You read a washington post article and consider yourself informed. We've been running missions for decades, centuries even, in and out of uniform in all forms. You might even try to suggest that it's only noble to die draped in the flag or in a uniform, but you must not know that when one dies in the service of one's country, when one draw's one's last breath...dead is dead. Serving the same master, the same mission, with the same citizenship, awnsering a call put out by the government, is not acting as a mercenary. A soldier lives under a contract as an employee of the government. A contacor lives under a conract to the government too.

We as a nation employed contractors to fight native Americans, we fought as a rag-tag civil guerilla force in the defense of what became our country. We employed privateers and the merchant marine, and contractors in nearly every aspect of building our country from the earliest days until now. We are limited in what we can field for military force. Money isn't being diverted to contractors so we can downsize the military; contractors are employed as force multipliers in order to maximize the effort that can be made by the military. Does the military need to squander it's resources hauling shipments cross country when a contractor can do that just as easily and not tie up military vehicles and personnel? Does the military need to use it's resources to do everything the contractor does today? No, and it doesn't. Take away the contractors, and you don't have an army to fight with because the army would be completely absorbed into the menial tasks and labor taken over by the contractor (and historically, far less efficiently). You see, the army can waste and doesn't need to turn a profit. The contractor must, and is bound by very strict contracting requirements. I can vouch for that.

Could the USAF continue to fly without the heavy support of contractors that maintain aircraft and do so much of what gets done today to keep the USAF airborne? Not on your life, and the USAF doesn't have the size or capability to do it...nor should the USAF tie up it's resources doing it. The military has a mission to do.

You may not see what often amounts to an opaque support structure that's not on center stage, but every aspect of what makes the military mission possible is civillian, from the making of the uniform to the design and production of the weapons, vehicles, and aircraft, to the production, distribution, and even serving of the food. Where do you suppose the ammunition comes from? Then again, where do you think soldiers come from? Civillians.

Is a woman sewing a uniform, getting paid for her job, a mercenary? Of course not. Not even you are that dense. Neither is the contractor, serving at risk of loss of life in the same sand as the uniformed soldier, any more a mercenary. That same contractor, present at behest of the same government (civillian government, mind you) that put the soldier there...both employees of the same employer, both getting paid to do the job.

You push your luck when you speak of things you don't understand. Perhaps you should go bury yourself in Washington Post and leave reality to those who understand it a little better. When you're ready to crawl out from under that paper, you might try it with a little more respect.

thank god civilians tell you what to do.

the thread is primarily regarding Blackwater and yes most of them are mercs. the chileans, bolivians, hondurans, etc they employ that walk around in their oakleys. the ones cofer black wants to send to darfur. the ones who shot up 15 civilians in iraq.

mercenaries.

btw, you forgot flying people (sometimes innocent people) to uzbekistan so they can be tortured as a "mission".

 

[CitationLover]

Wow CL, time to log off for a while. Go somewhere... like Alaska for a week, do some fishing.

Either that, or convince FI to start your own section on here so you can argue with yourself for the next 1500 posts.

yes instead of arguing about the factual information contained in there, go on the offensive. chesty puller would be proud.

 

[avbug]

You don't sound like you have any experience in the middle east, so you might want to tread carefully until you have some ground to stand on.

I have been there.

Shot up fifteen civillians, you say.

Not all the rounds in that firefight were outgoing, were they, now.

The clean little liberal yuppie scum larvae world in which you live is a little more muddied when it's hard to tell who's on your side. You don't believe civillians have died at the hands of soldiers? Here's a newsflash for you, brightspark: everyboy shooting back over there is civillian. They're insurgents...which is a fancy media word for criminals. In violation of the law of the land, in violation of rules of engagement on numerous fronts; the bad guys don't have rules, and the're doing the shooting. Soldiers, contractors, citizens, police, foriegn interested parties, and a lot of other folks are shooting back. Where one begins and the other ends...well that's not nearly so important as being the one who's left standing at the end.

Tell you what; you go there, get your ass shot off, then shoot your mouth off. How's that for a starting point? When the shooting starts, poke that big liberal brain of yours up there, pick out the innocent parties, then shoot all around them while you do your job. Once you've done that, once you've proven you can do better, then you can flaap your gums. Until then, you haven't much to offer, have you?

By your definitions, each soldier serving in the armed forces is a mercenary. Nothing but a mercenary. That soldier gets paid to fight, to serve, and too often, to be wounded or die. Does that make a soldier a mercenary? Draw a paycheck to fight a war? No...let's hope you said no (because right now your credibility rating is right about even with whale********************). How about the contractor doing the same job? Pretty blurry lines, aren't they? (You don't need to answer; just dumbly nod your head, if you have any sense about you). The lines are blurred; they're blurred because there's no difference. People serving their country, under contract to their country, to carry out the mission they're assigned. Period.

That's what they do. And then there's you. Reading the Washington Post.

Your mother must be proud. Why don't you go read another paragraph; make yourself feel better.

 

[CitationLover]

You don't sound like you have any experience in the middle east, so you might want to tread carefully until you have some ground to stand on.

I have been there.

Shot up fifteen civillians, you say.

Not all the rounds in that firefight were outgoing, were they, now.

The clean little liberal yuppie scum larvae world in which you live is a little more muddied when it's hard to tell who's on your side. You don't believe civillians have died at the hands of soldiers? Here's a newsflash for you, brightspark: everyboy shooting back over there is civillian. They're insurgents...which is a fancy media word for criminals. In violation of the law of the land, in violation of rules of engagement on numerous fronts; the bad guys don't have rules, and the're doing the shooting. Soldiers, contractors, citizens, police, foriegn interested parties, and a lot of other folks are shooting back. Where one begins and the other ends...well that's not nearly so important as being the one who's left standing at the end.

Tell you what; you go there, get your ass shot off, then shoot your mouth off. How's that for a starting point? When the shooting starts, poke that big liberal brain of yours up there, pick out the innocent parties, then shoot all around them while you do your job. Once you've done that, once you've proven you can do better, then you can flaap your gums. Until then, you haven't much to offer, have you?

By your definitions, each soldier serving in the armed forces is a mercenary. Nothing but a mercenary. That soldier gets paid to fight, to serve, and too often, to be wounded or die. Does that make a soldier a mercenary? Draw a paycheck to fight a war? No...let's hope you said no (because right now your credibility rating is right about even with whale********************). How about the contractor doing the same job? Pretty blurry lines, aren't they? (You don't need to answer; just dumbly nod your head, if you have any sense about you). The lines are blurred; they're blurred because there's no difference. People serving their country, under contract to their country, to carry out the mission they're assigned. Period.

That's what they do. And then there's you. Reading the Washington Post.

Your mother must be proud. Why don't you go read another paragraph; make yourself feel better.

now that you've beaten your chest out in that jingoistic pride do you feel ok? you might be suffering from PTSD.

i'll let the ones who paid the ultimate price, like Scott Helvenston, speak regarding the "quality" of the contractors. what about Colin Powell saying the army is broke? i forgot they know nothing.

i'll let webster talk.

mer·ce·nar·y
1.working or acting merely for money or other reward; venal.
2.hired to serve in a foreign army, guerrilla organization, etc.
3.a professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army.
4.any hireling.

take a look at definitions 2 and 3. no US troops are not mercenaries. i realize you like to simply put down people with other opinions, but please don't simplify my positions.

just to make you happy though, Blackwater=good. you convinced me.

 

[avbug]

We've had soldiers serving in the US military for the better part of two centuries who weren't US citizens...many of whom died for the United States. Are they mercenaries?

Tread VERY lightly there.

mer·ce·nar·y
1.working or acting merely for money or other reward; venal.
2.hired to serve in a foreign army, guerrilla organization, etc.
3.a professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army.
4.any hireling.

Working or acting merely for money. What makes you think a contractor, serving his country supporting the mission assigned by the President of that country and comissioned by Congress...is only acting for money. Who are you to make that judgement? Oh, that's right, you haven't been there and done that, so you wouldn't know...I guess you're nobody, when it comes to making that judgement. Thanks for clearing that up.

How many US soldiers joined the military to draw a paycheck, get college paid for, enjoy the GI bill? You don't think they joined for the rewards, or for the training? Get a clue, mate. Everybody who serves over there, in one uniform or another, or without uniform, is a VOLUNTEER...and every single one of them draws a paycheck. Not mercenaries, of course. Just doing a job that clearly you don't understand.

As most contractors are US citizens and are required to hold a security clearance, your second definition doesn't hold water. However, the United States military has also long employed, trained, used, and included among it's ranks foriegners in a variety of programs. You're not aware of this? Are these individuals mercenaries, too? Or are they made righteous because they're in the good graces of the Dept of Defense?

You'd suggest that a pilot flying in the dead of night supporting an active millitary operation from the cockpit of his piston twin engine airplane is a mercenary...a US citizen holding DoD clearance, under control of a military unit, feeding live intel and download in support of an active armed mission, a mercenary. Of course the miltary unit to which that civillian contractor pilot is entrusted would call him a valued asset. Perhaps you just know more than everybody else because you read the Washington Post. Could it be?

As many contractors are US Citizens, US soldiers who have served time and are continuing to serve in other capacities, your definition #3 falls flat. US contractors aren't serving in foriegn militaries...they're serving the United States government as contractors to the US military and US agencies.

If those contractors use individuals from foriegn countries, so be it. We have a very large number of non-US citizens working in the United States, you know. Not mercenaries either, in case you didn't know. When I was last at a US embassy abroad, many of those working in the embassy at various levels were NOT US citizens. Imagine that. They weren't mercenaries, either.

As for definition 4...anybody who is hired for anything is a mercenary, you say? That would make every US soldier a mercenary. You don't really want to go there any more, do you?

please don't simplify my positions.

You don't really have "positions," so much as you have a jumble of poorly thought out, incoherent rambings. However, they couldn't be any more simple minded than they now are, so you've little to fear.

 

[CitationLover]

i'm sorry, i was wrong, they killed 17 iraqi's.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/world/middleeast/14blackwater.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 — Federal agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater security personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, according to civilian and military officials briefed on the case.

The F.B.I. investigation into the shootings in Baghdad is still under way, but the findings, which indicate that the company’s employees recklessly used lethal force, are already under review by the Justice Department.
Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek indictments, and some officials have expressed pessimism that adequate criminal laws exist to enable them to charge any Blackwater employee with criminal wrongdoing. Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the F.B.I. declined to discuss the matter.
The case could be one of the first thorny issues to be decided by Michael B. Mukasey, who was sworn in as attorney general last week. He may be faced with a decision to turn down a prosecution on legal grounds at a time when a furor has erupted in Congress about the administration’s failure to hold security contractors accountable for their misdeeds.
Representative David E. Price, a North Carolina Democrat who has sponsored legislation to extend American criminal law to contractors serving overseas, said the Justice Department must hold someone accountable for the shootings.
“Just because there are deficiencies in the law, and there certainly are,” Mr. Price said, “that can’t serve as an excuse for criminal actions like this to be unpunished. I hope the new attorney general makes this case a top priority. He needs to announce to the American people and the world that we uphold the rule of law and we intend to pursue this.”
Investigators have concluded that as many as five of the company’s guards opened fire during the shootings, at least some with automatic weapons. Investigators have focused on one guard, identified as “turret gunner No. 3,” who fired a large number of rounds and was responsible for several fatalities.
Investigators found no evidence to support assertions by Blackwater employees that they were fired upon by Iraqi civilians. That finding sharply contradicts initial assertions by Blackwater officials, who said that company employees fired in self-defense and that three company vehicles were damaged by gunfire.
Government officials said the shooting occurred when security guards fired in response to gunfire by other members of their unit in the mistaken belief that they were under attack. One official said, “I wouldn’t call it a massacre, but to say it was unwarranted is an understatement.”
Among the 17 killings, three may have been justified under rules that allow lethal force to be used in response to an imminent threat, the F.B.I. agents have concluded. They concluded that Blackwater guards might have perceived a threat when they opened fire on a white Kia sedan that moved toward Nisour Square after traffic had been stopped for a Blackwater convoy of four armored vehicles.
Two people were killed in the car, Ahmed Haithem Ahmed and his mother, Mohassin, a physician. Relatives said they were on a family errand and posed no threat to the Blackwater convoy.
Investigators said Blackwater guards might have felt endangered by a third, and unidentified, Iraqi who was killed nearby. But the investigators determined that the subsequent shootings of 14 Iraqis, some of whom were shot while fleeing the scene, were unprovoked.
Under the firearms policy governing all State Department employees and contractors, lethal force may be used “only in response to an imminent threat of deadly force or serious physical injury against the individual, those under the protection of the individual or other individuals.”
A separate military review of the Sept. 16 shootings concluded that all of the killings were unjustified and potentially criminal. One of the military investigators said the F.B.I. was being generous to Blackwater in characterizing any of the killings as justifiable.
Anne E. Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said she would have no comment until the F.B.I. released its findings.
Although investigators are confident of their overall findings, they have been frustrated by problems with evidence that hampered their inquiry. Investigators who arrived more than two weeks after the shooting could not reconstruct the crime scene, a routine step in shooting inquiries in the United States.




Even the total number of fatalities remains uncertain because of the difficulty of piecing together what happened in a chaotic half-hour in a busy square. Moreover, investigators could not rely on videotapes or photographs of the scene, because they were unsure whether bodies or vehicles might have been moved.



Bodies of a number of victims could not be recovered. Metal shell casings recovered from the intersection could not be definitively tied to the shootings because, as one official described it, “The city is littered with brass.”
In addition, investigators did not have access to statements taken from Blackwater employees, who had given statements to State Department investigators on the condition that their statements would not be used in any criminal investigation like the one being conducted by the F.B.I.
An earlier case involving Blackwater points to the difficulty the Department of Justice may be facing in deciding whether and how to bring charges in relation to the Sept. 16 shootings. A Blackwater guard, Andrew J. Moonen, is the sole suspect in the shooting on Dec. 24 of a bodyguard to an Iraqi vice president.
Investigators have statements by witnesses, forensic evidence, the weapon involved and a detailed chronology of the events drawn up by military personnel and contractor employees.
But nearly 11 months later, no charges have been brought, and officials said a number of theories had been debated among prosecutors in Washington and Seattle without a resolution of how to proceed in the case.
Mr. Moonen’s lawyer, Stewart P. Riley of Seattle, said he had had no discussions about the case with federal prosecutors.
Some lawmakers and legal scholars said the Sept. 16 case dramatized the need to clarify the law governing private armed contractors in a war zone. Workers under contract to the Defense Department are subject to the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, or MEJA, but many, including top State Department officials, contend that the law does not apply to companies like Blackwater that work under contract to other government agencies, including the State Department.
Representative Price’s bill would extend the MEJA legislation to all contractors operating in war zones. The bill passed the house 389 to 30 last month and is now before the Senate.
He said it cannot be applied retroactively to the Sept. 16 case, but he said that the guards who killed the Iraqis must be brought to justice, under the War Crimes Act or some other law.

 

[LivestockTony]

You'd suggest that a pilot flying in the dead of night supporting an active millitary operation from the cockpit of his piston twin engine airplane is a mercenary...a US citizen holding DoD clearance, under control of a military unit, feeding live intel and download in support of an active armed mission, a mercenary. Of course the miltary unit to which that civillian contractor pilot is entrusted would call him a valued asset.

I've been following this thread with some interest... AvBug, you're not wrong for the most part, but the above quoted is not a strong point...

The Flying Tigers (AVG) were a mercenary group by any reasonable definition. That didn't preclude them from being a valued asset by either the Chinese or the US. On patrols in the current war, we occasionally had pathfinders and intel assets who went by a gazillion different names, but what they were were local mercenaries.. That extends to organized combat units also- there is a big difference between the mercenary Afghan Militia Force (ca 2003) and the non-mercenary Afghan National Army (ca2004 and onwards) for example. Either way, those units were valued.

We never considered _any_ of our support, local national, KBR, other DoD contractor, US military, allied millitary... none of them we considered mercenaries. (Of course, they were all still pogues!)But non-uniformed combat units, we sure as heck did. And that would (in at least one case in support of my unit did) extend to pilots as well.

Mercenaries, contractors, whatever, most certainly do fight under the same flag as soldiers, and assume the same risks. But to say that a contractor is equivalent to a uniformed serviceman is flat wrong. The infantryman standing on his patch of sand carries the whole weight of the United States behind him in a way that Blackwater contractor does not-- even if the BW guy is better equiped and trained, and even if the BW guy is doing something more high-profile and important!

That's how it felt to me anyways.

-TF
(3 deployments, both major theatres, 82d ABN Div, MOS 11B2P, got out in 2006)