"We are coming": Mattis' resignation could revive plan to privatise Afghan war - Polidicks

They have already taken over a vast majority of logistics, mostly in cargo shipping. These groups also have a reason for going into Afghanistan, and it's mostly minerals and priceless gemstones. For where it stands, Blackwater and groups akin to it will most likely be used by the Afghanistan military to deal with groups like the Red Forces of the Taliban.

Y'know, I always thought that the logos and branding of the MGS4 PMCs were over-the-top and overly aggressive https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/157/49b6687c-bfab-4160-8874-b725392b1ecc/e9be20261d50286a310b3b61ca12508d.jpg But apparently real life is dead-set on outdoing a piece of extremely corny speculative fiction.

Now I'm just imagining Trump hiring a league of mercenary furries to sweep the middle-east. And, as buttfuck crazy stupid as this administration's been, I really dunno if I could count that sorta thing out anymore.

seems like the demand for PMCs is about to skyrocket LIKE THE GOOD OL' DAYS OF 9/11

Blackpaw

I'm about an hour and 15 minutes in this. Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck is wrong with these people? Where did they find these clowns?

Private military companies are useful under certain circumstances. A reconstruction effort involves a lot of private industries working in an area. Take for instance the construction of a hospital, school, or power plant. That construction may be carried out entirely by a private entity, and things start to get ethically questionable real quick when you use government forces to specifically defend private organizations. Past that though, yeah, they are pretty much balls. They have a need to profit off of contracts, which means cutting corners and ultimately costing more than a well organized military.

The top right one is kinda cool tbh

Using mercs and PMCs as a peacekeeping force with the aim of ending a conflict is literally paying someone to put themselves out of a job. It's so stupid that it's baffling. Of course, that's the whole point. Keep the violence going so everyone involved can keep making money. Reality is literally just dystopian fiction, except it's the most boring, mundane, and soul sucking one ever written. We don't get any of the cool shit.

>Be me >Fighting for the glory of allah >be on patrol >fuckingboring.jpg >Suddenly hear a strange hymn from the distance >it fills me with a distinct sense of dread >tell NCO >group goes on-alert >the music becomes more clear >"ALL THE SINGLE FURRIES" >Suddenly 20 Humvees come from over the dunes >try to fire on them >music gets louder as they come closer >fire upon them to no avail >get run over as the last thing I hear before my death is a command to "show some tail" >tfw

Is it illegal if they get attacked by another state-sponsored PMC?

America no longer cares or understands the weight of the military industrial complex, and our politicians are all deep into its pockets

Blackwater needs to be destroyed.

to bad they don't have mooing mechs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGyM4DCN5dM

Real life mercenaries aren’t nearly as cool as comic book ones. There’s no superheroes either to stop them when they do evil shit like this. I feel this page just has one simple message, and that message is designed to make people afraid. It’s also designed to appeal to the radical gun nuts here who want to nuke the Middle East, riling them up and encouraging them to join. It’s downright disgusting. It’s terrifying. And damnit. It’s not right. Nothing is right anymore. Everything’s gone to shit and the people in charge are just shoveling more on top to make the world burn. Good fuckin grief, man. Never underestimate the power of money it seems.

Lol I just found out that Erik Prince and Betsy (Prince) DeVos are brother and sister, rotten apples don't fall far from each other it seems.

The writing in MGS4 is corny but the PMC stuff is spot on cause it was lifted from actual reality. People in general speculated that modern warfare would be dominated by PMCs years ago, not just Kojima.

Mattis resigning was such a chickenshit thing to do, the last thing we need are good guys jumping ship.

I don't think he was exerting much control in the first place. It's said Trump likes boisterous, talkative, "people person" types. Guys like him, who care a whole lot about social presence, and apparently, he's been disappointed with the reality of his military picks, since they're cold and calculating more than... uh, bold and brash. Would staying on really be the moral thing for Mattis to do, if his efforts at keeping Trump rational have failed for the past 2 years? What if it's a fruitless pursuit, and by staying on and letting the administration lean on his credibility, he'd be doing more harm than good? Only time will tell what went on (and what still may happen) behind the scenes, but his resignation has sent a much needed message

Apparently he had tried everything with trump and trump leaving kurds to be killed by turkey without any warning was the last straw for him. He fell out of favor with Trump and he wasn't listening Mattis anymore.

Why would you hire a PMC to build infrastructure. That's a recipe for disaster.

This certainly won't give terrorists new material to recruit followers, nope

They don't build, they guard the workers and supply trucks.

The idea that PMCs will deliberately extend a conflict to keep the paychecks coming is all Hollywood. It's a cutthroat industry, and companies prefer to finish a contract ahead of schedule and be able to use that as a marketing point to negotiate the next contract, rather than draw it out and guarantee that they look like buffoons incapable of delivering on their promises. Plus it's rare for just one company to be contracted in a given conflict, and they typically have specific services (eg airlift, intelligence, or armed security) rather than functioning as actual pseudo-militaries. Blackwater was the closest to that, and even they would be dwarfed by the military capability of even a small country. That's why they're only really used for providing outsourced capabilities for governments that don't want to pay for a helicopter fleet, or their own intel assets, or guards. I'm not saying any of this to defend mercenaries, but I think a lot of people have kind of the wrong idea of what they do. It's not some Metal Gear megacorporation fighting its own war, it's more like mall cops with assault rifles and little to no accountability for the crimes they inevitably commit.

Nobody is saying that mercenaries are inherently evil. What people are saying is that this situation is going to open a pandora's box that'll allow groups such as Blackwater to flourish within these war-torn regions.

I put it slightly dramatically, but I don't mean to imply that there are cackling comic book villains at the heart of the problem, who wake up each morning and jack off at the thought of destroying the lives of innocent middle easterners so they can grind up their corpses and use them to test bio weapons and make a billion dollars or whatever. It's just mundane economic incentives, a lack of oversight and accountability, and too much distance from the end results of their practices that drive corporations to cut corners, lobby government officials to affect policy, and otherwise collectively make many small decisions that have the effect of prolonging conflict and suffering while increasing profit, without any one party involved in the process directly intending for that to happen. It's a failure of the military industrial system as a whole, not of any one person or company. And it's not just PMCs. National governments, militaries, and other defense related companies are just as much a part of the problem. And it's not only the military industrial complex. The global economic system as a whole works like this, and has the same shortcomings. It's why the wealth gap is widening across the western world. It's why companies like Facebook consistently abuse the public trust to sell personal information. It's why there were almost no meaningful consequences for the businesses that caused the 2008 financial crash, and why what little reform followed it has been dismantled and neutered bit by bit ever since. It's why we're doing so little to fight climate change. I'm not saying that PMCs are always bad and that national militaries are always good. But involving more money, business, and unregulated profit-minded corporate greed to a sensitive situation rarely leads to a more positive outcome.

It's the post-truth era, proxy wars are the way to go, however macabre that statement is. They want to get paid for making their hands messy, and it's incredibly convenient. Compare it to conventional armies that try to appeal to duty and honor in service to your country (though I acknowledge being an appealing side to military service as well), and things like ethics and morales start getting in the way for most countries. But for PMCs? Hell, just flash a dollar bill at 'em and they'll do what's asked. If they get into trouble? No worries, it's just the company who could get the big dick of law, and actual military is spared from having a stain on its honor. I'm not saying mercenaries are less than human, but greed is a very strong force and motivator, and people are capable of harming people for the simplest of things.

I'm not saying I support military corporations, but the people in these groups are as diverse as those in the military, nobody should be cheering their deaths even if we hate who they're working for.

Mueller will in the end turn out to be Ocelot