Blackwater USA
Countries have military forces that are used when they wish to inflict violence upon their enemies. These military forces are supposed to follow certain rules and guidelines for warfare such as the Geneva Convention. The rules of warfare are in place to limit the violent inhumane treatment that these forces are allowed to inflict upon each other and innocent civilians in times of war. When these rules are broken, sanctions are sometimes placed against the offending country. When countries/governments want to do violence against another entity but do not want any legal ties that could result in negative consequences for the actions performed, they use mercenaries.
When people think of mercenaries they usually think of individuals who wage war for monetary gain. Some people think of the gunslinger of the Wild West who could be hired to participate in a gunfight. The gunslinger is a good example of a mercenary, but the scale is altogether different. Today's mercenaries do not walk around with pistols. They carry automatic weapons, hand grenades and rocket launchers. They are better equipped than government soldiers, better paid than government soldiers and they are not tied to any government. They don't have to follow the rules. The only oversight they have is Senate oversight committees and frankly, I am not very impressed with ANYONE in Washington DC at the moment, I haven't seen a hero since JFK, and we are all aware of what happened to him.
Blackwater USA is a corporation of Mercenaries. Hired killers. They are not government troops, so they do not have to worry about being punished under military law. What I wonder is why they aren't being dragged into court and tried for murder. When I was growing up, I was told that no one is above the law. As I have grown up, I watched OJ get away with murder, I saw Martha Stewart get slapped on the hand for a conviction which would have gotten less famous people years in prison, now corporations are allowed to create weapons caches that the ATF would and have raided private property to confiscate if owned by private citizens....
Our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, sons, and daughters have enlisted to protect us. They all volunteered for this and if we have all this money to spend on mercenaries, then maybe we should arrest the mercenaries and prosecute them for crimes against humanity and start paying our own military more, and maybe we should be providing them with better equipment. My personal feeling on this is that we should bring all of our military home and the leaders of Blackwater USA should be tried for murder for every death that occurred involving Blackwater USA operatives. The government officials who created the government contracts that were given to Blackwater USA should all be removed from office and prosecuted. I hope you all realize that the jobs that Blackwater "officially" admits to doing are all jobs that were done by our men and women in the military. They are jobs that should continue to be accomplished by our men and women in the military, not guns for hire.