1) These gentlemen weren't mercenaries, they were civilians providing security for food shipments. They don't meet the definition (at least, the U.S. legal definition) of mercenaries.

2) Mentioning moral praiseworthiness in the context of this murder and what happened to the corpses is pretty much a non sequitur.

The alternative is saying that these should have been military troops instead of civilians, and that if there isn't sufficient manpower, that job should be left undone. Or we could have found some Iraqis to provide security. That sounds like a good idea.

I maintain that the definition of "mercenary" involves serving a foreign country. While these unfortunate gentlemen were certainly working to benefit Iraq, they were doing so under the auspices of the U.S. government. I'm sorry, in my opinion, if you call a government contractor a "mercenary," regardless of what their assignment was, you're just flat out wrong. Period.

I wouldn't normally take such a strong stance on what may appear to be a semantic difference, but I do so now because so many folks are using the term to detract from the honor or legitimacy of what these men were doing, and I just can't let that stand without rebuttal.

Apparently this group were escorting one truck to a base on the outskirts. They changed their mind about the route and decided to make a run across the bridge with that truck. They had made that route before a day or so before and figured it would not be too bad. This was an alternate route and all routes were known to the iraqi secuirty liasons.

It was the wrong decision. In the ambush, they were hit first since the iraqis probably(?) realized these were the armed force. the truck they were escorting turned and scrammed for safer areas. They were hit by multiple RPGs and it was likely they were dead immediately. Apparently the escaping truck gave the information that a rescue would not do any good.

So whether blackwater normally supplies protection to the lords of hell or not is immaterial to what happened on the road on that day.

As to the definition of a mercenary
According to Article 47:

2. A mercenary is any person who:

(a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;

(b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;

(c) 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;

(d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;

(e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and

(f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

It looks to me that, from definitions a, b, and d (and maybe c), the men murdered at Fallujah were not mercenaries.

http://www.jayreding.com/archives/004440.php#004440

let stop trying to read evil motives into them.

After gulf war one, some friends and I fresh out of the military went to kuwait to help remove the mines that Saddam had left behind. I had a few too many close calls to want to do that again, but the other guys went on to other countries to do similar things. One of them actually went to do Personal Security Detail work which means guarding convoys and installations. A lot of it was for aid organizations where Un peace keepers were not available.

So what he did and what I believe these guys were doing is very similiar. This is not mercenary work. This isn't death squad work.

capt joe: I'm not using a legalistic definition, just the common one of "soldiers for hire." My point is that Blackwater is a mercenary outfit that meets all those definitions. They do indeed hire their services foreign governments for direct combat.

I don't think Jim or I are imputing evil motives into them. Kos may have been, although I gather his judgement on the issue is colored by having lived in a place where mercenaries were commiting atrocities among his own people.

Regardless of any of the above, people don't deserve to die, let alone in such a brutal manner, let alone be desecrated after their deaths. There are people whose deaths aren't worthy of mourning--the Hussein boys come to mind--but these guys aren't among them.

Sure people are serving their country but make it a VOLUNTEER force and see how the recruiting office does.

To go back to the original part of the post (writing without a net) the Kos blowout was not (exactly) about what was said. (God knows DU is way worse.) It was a case of WHO said it (he has earned a position of respect in the blogosphere) and more importantly, his actions afterward.

When he deleted the post and generally acted like a worm rather than saying "ooops" he sealed his fate. Had he just come out and said "Hey, I'm human" it would have gone away.

When you get to his position, hubris will bite you in the hindquarter quickly.

James, from my reading of Kos -- and from my reading of Tacitus' criticisms of Kos -- it seems as if he was claiming that Communist guerillas and paramilitaries were the same as mercenaries, which is not true.

I had my own reasons for staying away from this story, but what's been lost in most of the shuffle is that PMCs can be an effective security force in regions where the penetration of government power is limited (see Sierra Leone) or where national governments are afraid to send peacekeepers. Imagine, for example, if PMCs could've been sent to Rwanda to protect enclaves of Tutsis from attack by interahamwe; a humanitarian military operation that is not in, say, America's national interest could be undertaken by a PMC, provided that we supervise the PMC properly.

Paul: What distinguishes a professional military from mercs is that the former serves only their nation, not anyone who hires them. I think that's a big difference. It's the difference between a wife and a prostitute.

Matthew: Clearly, PMCs as they've evolved in recent years are different from traditional mercs--it's a strange, gray area.

What distinguishes a professional military from mercs is that the former serves only their nation, not anyone who hires them. I think that's a big difference. It's the difference between a wife and a prostitute.

With due respect, you're making it worse and less clear.

The connotation of the word "mercenary" — like the connotation of the word "prostitute" — is of someone who does what he/she does only for money, and for anyone who will pay it. The connotation is of someone who is amoral and completely without motivations of (respectively) patriotism/humanitarianism or love — and who will do for money that which is unpleasant or dangerous solely because of greed.

But soldiers are paid (if less). Husbands regularly (in conventional households) give money to their wives. On the converse side, ex-US military men who hire on to work security in Iraq's reconstruction are almost certainly likely to have refused to provide security for, say, Columbian drug lords. And of course, there's the old joke about, "Madam, would you sleep with me for $10 million? How about for $10? We know what you are now, but we're just haggling over the price." I always thought this was pretty funny; my ex-wife, much less so.

You're insisting upon using, and defending overvigorously, a term that many people (myself included) find to be offensive, as well as technically inaccurate when applied to these men. My own annoyance with you is nowhere near what it was with Mr. Zuniga's "screw you" comment, and I don't think you have any malice in using the term — just stubbornness that's misplaced here.

I respectfully submit that at some point, it's best simply to recognize that the language you're choosing to use is offensive, whether you think it should be or not, and thereafter your choice to use it and to defend it becomes a decision that you don't care about offending the people you've offended. Unless I misread you very badly, that's not a choice you'd deliberately make here. I hope you'll rethink the subject.