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As the post Iranian election protests continue in Iran, I recently asked how long will it be before the Mullahs take the gloves off? Apparently that time is not far off. Sunni terrorist group from the Palestinian Authority, Shi’ite mullahs of Iran join to crush street protests

When Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg announced a new antismoking campaign the other day, they put their money in line with their mouths. The former Microsoft chairman and the mayor of New York together pledged $500 million to target what Mr. Gates called "one of the greatest health challenges facing developing countries." AP This Blackwater helicopter could become an angel of hope. The same day they were announcing their campaign, the president of Sudan was on a visit to Darfur. Presumably it was his way of responding to news that the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court is seeking an...

I have been troubled for a long time about our use of contract soldiers such as those in Blackwater. While they haven't been in the news for some time, we've all heard the stories of them shooting at random civilians, getting obscenely high salaries, and escaping legal immunity (whether true or not the stories are out there). What do you all think of the US using mercenaries? I'm particularly interested in soldiers' and veterans' opinions, but all are welcome to share.

Agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have confiscated nearly two dozen automatic rifles from Blackwater Worldwide, the private security contractor and firearms training company in Moyock, N.C. The move came two days after a story in The News & Observer raised questions about the legality of Blackwater's deals to buy the guns for the Camden County Sheriff's Department. The security firm kept the rifles at its giant firearms training facility, and used them in training law enforcement officers and members of the military. All told, Blackwater bought 17 Romanian-made AK-47 assault rifles and 17 Bushmaster...

The state, Max Weber wrote in his classic essay "Politics as a Vocation," "is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." Our government is struggling to create such a state in Iraq, one strong enough to monopolize the use of force within its territory. To achieve this, we are using the physical force of the U.S. military against (some of) the private militias that have sprung up since the fall of Saddam Hussein. There can't be an effective Iraqi state until these militias are disarmed or incorporated into...

Focusing on Blackwater while neglecting MPRI is like investigating Ivan Demjanjuk for years on end, but allowing Adolf Eichmann to live peacefully in Buenos Aires. Up to 17 Iraqis were killed on September 16 by mercenaries working for the security company Blackwater USA, in what Iraqi and some U.S. officials say was unprovoked murder. Earlier this week two Armenian Christian women were killed by Unity Resources Group hired guns. A devastating report by the House Oversight Committee accused Blackwater of acting like murderous cowboys, but the firm still operates with impunity—unaccountable under either U.S. or Iraqi law. Yet while exposing...

Due to lag time between writing this article and posting on the internet, I’ll have to assume Washington Post columnist William M. Arkin is on his way out of town, covered with tar and feathers and suspended from a rail. So I’ll being by crediting him with the courage to publicly proclaim the true liberal position of contempt for members of the military, rather than hiding behind disingenuous claims to "support the troops" while denigrating their mission, their tactics, their performance and their motives. In a 30 January column, Mr. Arkin commented on an NBC Nightly News report in which...

Drug mafia's threat to armed forces October 1, 2006 NEW threat to Australian forces in Afghanistan is emerging as cashed-up opium lords employ highly trained European mercenaries to protect their booming drug trade. Australian special forces have been given orders to shoot the Europeans first if they get into a firefight, a source close to the military said. The hired guns are said to have the latest American-made weapons, including 50-calibre sniper rifles that can kill at a range of 2.5 kilometres. The mercenaries honed their deadly trade in the Balkans, former Soviet states, the Middle East and Africa. Their...

IT IS the axis of evil most feared by the security services - veteran, cool-headed Irish terrorists teaming up with Islamic extremists. Now, in the wake of the failed bid to blow up 10 transatlantic aircraft, the Sunday Express has pieced together the links between the two groups that signal a new era of terror. There is also a further potent mix to the pot - former special forces' soldiers-turned-mercenaries from Britain and the US who are willing to sell their deadly expertise to the highest bidder. The Sunday Express has learned: Continuity IRA terrorists have visited Iran and Syria...

The crisis has taken another turn for the worse in the Darfur region of western Sudan. On April 26, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned that the security situation has so deteriorated that international aid agencies are no longer able to gain access to some 700,000 internally displaced people who thought they were "safe" because they had managed to get inside UN-managed camps. The latest attacks by government forces, Human Rights Watch reports, occurred on April 24 on a village in South Darfur state called Joghana, which is about 6 miles from the town of Gereida, where about 80,000...

Swiss Guards begin commemorative march to Rome Apr. 07 (CWNews.com) - Members of the Swiss Guard today began a ceremonial march from Switzerland to Rome, retracing the route followed by the original members of the Vatican corps when they were recruited by Pope Julius II 500 years ago. A group of Swiss Guards left Bellinzona, Switzerland, on April 7, beginning a 440-mile hike that will take them across the Alps to Italy. They will arrive in Rome for the annual ceremonies at which new recruits are sworn in to the Swiss Guard at the Vatican on May 6. The Vatican...

Blackwater USA, one of the major providers of security personnel in Iraq, has offered to provide a brigade of peacekeepers for any operation, anywhere in the world. In particular, Blackwater said that it could provide a brigade in a place like Darfur for much less money than it would cost NATO to provide the same number of troops. Blackwater is proposing providing peacekeepers, not conventional combat troops. This proposal is based on Blackwaters two years experience in Iraq, where it provides thousands of foreign and Iraqi security personnel. Blackwater hires former military personnel, especially those who have been in Special...

AMMAN — A leading U.S. security firm has offered to provide forces for any counter-insurgency mission around the world. J. Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA told the Special Operations Forces Exhibition (Sofex-2006), that his company could supply private soldiers to any country. Black, a former U.S. State Department counter-terrorism coordinator, said Blackwater has been marketing the concept of private armies for low-intensity conflicts. "About a year ago, we realized we could do it," Black said. Blackwater has been a leading private security firm in Iraq. The company provides thousands of foreign and Iraqi personnel for government and private...

BOMBERS are being paid hard cash to launch attacks on British troops in southern Iraq, according to military commanders. Officers say British soldiers are facing a new wave of roadside bomb attacks as a result of the financial incentives. Yesterday, the commanding officer of the Royal Scots, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Bruce, said soldiers in and around Basra were facing an increasing danger from roadside bombings. He said high levels of unemployment meant that the offer of cash from insurgents to mount attacks was proving attractive to some parts of the population. "For the people who are planting the bombs there may...

Sarajevo - Police of the central Bosnian town of Vitez arrested a British citizen who was walking through the town armed with an automatic weapon and threatening to open fire on anybody who tried to approach him, media reported Saturday. Head of the Vitez police Ivo Pocrnja confirmed that the British citizen identified himself as Chris Wilson from London, but without any identification document that would prove his identity. Following the arrest some eight days ago, police raided on Friday Wilson's house in Vitez and discovered guns, ammunition, TNT explosives and several hand-grenades. The local court in Vitez decided to...

NEW YORK -- NBC News has sent private security personnel to the increasingly dicey Gulf Coast region to help keep its employees safe while covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The private security officers, usually former soldiers or police, are licensed to carry firearms and are trained to keep the situation under control so that journalists can do their jobs safely. That's becoming increasingly difficult in New Orleans and in Gulfport, Miss., where there aren't enough police or National Guardsmen to keep the streets safe. News crews have witnessed looting and other crimes as well as lots of gunfire in...

Where in the world is Osama bin Laden? Let's face it. He shouldn't be hard to find, especially from a Predator, an aerial reconnaissance vehicle that can read the minute hand of a wristwatch from an altitude of 26,000 feet. Bin Laden is very tall – slightly over 6'6" – and incredibly thin, less than 150 pounds. He wears shalwart kameez – the loose-fitting tunics and baggy pants of al-Qaida and Taliban soldiers – and, when the weather is cold, he dons a camouflage jacket. Although he was born in 1957 and far from retirement age, the al-Qaida chieftain appears...

When Newsweek published the inflammatory article about interrogators at Guantanamo flushing a Koran down the toilet, this writer believes that both the reporter and the editor knew precisely what they were doing. Tragically, it was intentional that they wrote the story and in the business sense it was a “mistake” to publish it but otherwise, the story itself was a lie. It is actually comical to watch the leftist “spin machine” working overtime to “control” the damage. Sadly, that once reputable magazine is now worth little more than for use in a sleazy restroom. Part of the problem is that...

A Bulgarian who was, by his description, a Kosovo freedom fighter (KLA-Kosovo Liberation Army) or, as he now calls himself, a paid mafia mercenary, tells HUGH FRASER about his experiences during the 1999 conflict. IVAN, 39, is a well-dressed, war-scarred Bulgarian national who is no longer in the country. He seldom smiles; he gave this interview because he wants to purge himself of his deep and dark secrets. Ivan is not his real name; he is being sought, he says, for war crimes against humanity. His dark brown eyes seem to reflect images of death; some of his secrets will...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Harrier jets screamed over-head. Cobra gunships armed with rockets circled the city. Sea Knight helicopters lumbered through billowing columns of yellow smoke marking the landing sites where U.S. Marines alighted last week to seize control of war-torn Monrovia. THEY WERE WELCOMED as heroes. Shouting crowds cheered and clasped the soldiers’ hands. Women sang gospel songs, grateful for a sign that the fighting that has claimed more than 1,000 lives over the past two months might finally be over. An orgy of looting ensued as hordes of hungry people broke into the port in search of food and medicine after two...

'Mercenaries? Just shoot 'em' 06/10/2004 09:52  - (SA)   Harare - Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday suggested that the easiest way to deal with mercenaries in Africa was to shoot them. "Mercenaries, you just shoot them. This is a simple matter, it's not a big problem," he said in response to a question at a news conference. Sixty-eight men were convicted and sentenced in Zimbabwe last month over an alleged plot to overthrow the government in Equatorial Guinea in a coup. Playing down the threat that mercenaries could pose to governments in Africa, he said even if the mercenaries had succeeded...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- An Afghan court has found three Americans guilty of torturing Afghans in a private jail, a case that comes on the heels of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq. Jonathan K. "Jack" Idema, a former Green Beret and the alleged ringleader of the operation, received a 10-year jail term on Wednesday. Brent Bennett, an Idema associate, got a 10-year jail term and Edward Caraballo, a journalist, received an eight-year-term. The court sentenced four Afghan accomplices to lesser terms. .......... They had denied the charges, saying they were operating in Afghanistan with the approval of the...

Within a first term as president, Kerry thinks he could attract enough international help in Iraq to make it a "reasonable" goal to replace most U.S. troops stationed there with foreign forces, he told The Los Angeles Times in an interview.

Once called mercenaries, highly trained killers have offered their deadly services for a price--from ancient Rome to the War on Terror. Today, they've marched from the back pages of "Soldier of Fortune" to form vast corporations with the power of the most advanced militaries. The payday for these private soldiers has reached $100-billion annually! Unregulated by governing forces, they wage war for those who can afford it. Find out if they are the future of conflict resolution in our 2-hour special.

Contractors' status in Iraq hits gray area By James Rosen -- Bee Washington BureauPublished 2:15 am PDT Sunday, May 23, 2004 WASHINGTON - Less than three weeks after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal exploded, Army Spc. Jeremy Sivits has been convicted of wrongdoing, and six other soldiers face courts-martial. All seven soldiers were cited by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in his report on Abu Ghraib, but two others named and harshly criticized as likely playing key roles in the scandal have yet to be charged. Steven Stefanowicz and John Israel are civilian contractors, part of a growing trend of nonmilitary...

Firms seek to sell U.N. on privatized peacekeeping By Traci Hukill, National Journal Last month, thinking that peace talks in Nairobi, Kenya, might finally yield an end to Sudan's 20-year civil war, Doug Brooks got on the telephone and started calling his contacts at private military companies. What would it cost, he wanted to know, to stage an effective peacekeeping operation in Sudan, a vast African country that is one-quarter the size of the United States? The answer came back: for one year, taking advantage of the treeless terrain to use a combination of high-tech aerial surveillance equipment and...

Edward Sanchez Jr., 35, of Silver City, said he wasn't trying to be a hero when he took a job that required him to drive a truck through an Iraqi war zone, but that didn't stop fate and world events from conspiring to earn him a place in history. He said he accepted the truck-driving job with Texas-based Kellogg, Brown and Root - a subsidiary of Halliburton - partly for the money, and partly for the adventure, he said. "I took the job knowing I was going to Iraq," Sanchez told the Daily Press. "The job market here (in Silver...

The security business employs between 15000 and 20000 armed civilians to protect installations or escort convoys March 31 , the American news chains took pains to explain the four killed, charred Americans in Faludja. They had the profile of military officers and had besides gone through the army, but were employed, as civilans, by Blackwater, a security business to some, a private army to others. Blackwater currently employs 450 persons in Iraq, with a contract of 21 million dollars, to assure the security of Paul Bremer, the American administrator in Iraq, and personnel of the Coalition Provisional Authority. From protection...

Private commandos shoot back on the Iraq firing line 49 minutes ago Add Politics - AFP to My Yahoo! WASHINGTON (AFP) - Ex-military commandos armed with M4 rifles are fighting insurgents in Iraq (news - web sites) as part of a private contracting force, many of them hired by the US-led coalition, raising some deep concerns. About 15,000 personnel from private military firms (PMFs) were operating in Iraq, making them more numerous that even the biggest US ally, Britain, estimated Peter Singer, author of "Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry." At least 30 to 50 had been...

They bustle through the Palestine Hotel lobby in central Baghdad clanking with military hardware. They have a very special look. The head is crew-cut, the sunglasses wraparound. A Heckler and Koch 9mm submachine gun is de rigueur — strapped across a black Kevlar bullet-proof vest, barely hidden by a photographer’s jacket. Pockets are stuffed with radios, a hand-held global positioning system, medical trauma packs. From the webbing belt holding up ‘rip-proof’ combat trousers, a Gerber multi-tool dangles beside a Leatherman knife. Another gun, usually a Glock 9mm, is held in a black nylon holster halfway down one thigh. Spare clips...

Private security companies, which have contributed 20,000 personnel to the occupation of Iraq, formed an alliance on April 6 in the wake of the March 31 attack in Fallujah that killed four employees of Blackwater USA. This attack was apparently a set-up by real (or fake) members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. The purpose of the alliance is to share information and to help each other out when things get rough. The number of people from companies like Blackwater USA, Meyer and Associates, and Triple Canopy, Inc., is slated to increase to 30,000 after the June 30 handover of...

DURHAM, N.C. The murderous attack on four American civilians in Falluja, Iraq, brought home gruesome images of charred bodies dangling from a bridge over the Euphrates River. It also introduced Americans to a company few had heard of: Blackwater USA, which was providing security for food delivery convoys when its employees were ambushed. Blackwater, which operates from a 5,200-acre training ground in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina, is a private military firm that provides an array of services once performed solely by military personnel. The company trains soldiers in counterterrorism and urban warfare. It also provides the American...

Although the media repeatedly refers to the men killed in the recent attack in Iraq as "civilian contractors,? they were in fact mercenaries used as part of the U.S. government's outsourcing of jobs, reports the Progressive Review. Firms overseeing the specialized contractors include Blackwater, the one involved in the recent incident, as well as Dyncorp and the Steele Foundation. The Steele Foundation, the third largest supplier of mercenaries, has 500 troops in Iraq and recently distinguished itself by -- depending on who's telling the story -- failing to protect Haitian president Aristide from kidnapping by the U.S. government or participating...

Dear Family and Friends, Events in Zimbabwe this week have left us all open mouthed and shaking our heads in disbelief, surprise and shock. Every day and every hour the talk has been of mercenaries, conspiracies, terrorists and coup plots. No one seems to be able to explain why an aeroplane landed in Harare with people, described by local television as "burly, heavily built men" of assorted nationalities. At first the talk was of 64 mercenaries, later in the week it became 67. Reports as to what these men were doing here varied from collecting mining equipment to guard mines...

The alleged mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe are believed to have been on their way to a covert military training camp in Cameroon. The men were remnants of South Africa's defunct mercenary company Executive Outcomes. They were planning to join another former Executives Outcomes operative in Equatorial Guinea in an elaborate plot to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, which was supposed to have taken place next week. The coup plot has been denied by the British-based company Logo Logistics, which employs the suspected mercenaries. The company claims they were going to provide security for mining operations in the Democratic...

Harare accuses ex-SAS man of links to detained 'mercenaries' By Tim Butcher in Johannesburg and Peta Thornycroft in Harare (Filed: 10/03/2004) Zimbabwe yesterday accused a former SAS officer from Britain of being involved with an aircraft detained at Harare airport allegedly carrying military equipment and 64 "suspected mercenaries". Kembo Mohadi, Zimbabwe's home affairs minister, alleged that Simon Mann, a former SAS officer living in Cape Town, where he is in the security business, had travelled earlier to Zimbabwe and went to Harare airport to meet the aircraft. But when the authorities searched the aircraft it was found to have filed...

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe has seized a U.S.-registered cargo plane with 64 suspected mercenaries of various nationalities and a cargo of "military material", Home Affairs (Interior) Minister Kembo Mohadi said on Monday. "A United States of America-registered Boeing 727-100 cargo plane was detained last night at about 19:30 hours at Harare International Airport after its owners had made a false declaration of its cargo and crew," Mohadi said in a statement.

Hired Guns by Tucker Carlson | Mar 01 '04 Never before in a war zone has the United States relied so much on private citizens to perform military functions. Security firms such as DynCorp and Kroll, retained on State Department and Pentagon contracts worth billions of dollars, have sent thousands of civilian contractors to do the work that the undermanned U. S. military can't. Here, for the first time, the inside story of the private armies of Operation Iraqi Freedom. About a hundred yards into Iraq, we stopped to pick up weapons. A half dozen Kurds in white Citroëns met...

  For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.     Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!   ANCIENT WARFAREPart III: Ancient Greek Military:  Mercenaries Struggle for Hegemony MercenariesMercenaries were very important in the ancient history. The Greek armies did not need them at first, but later on they were even used in Hellas. Mercenaries were normally used because they were capable of doing something which the army could not do. That is why the Greeks hired Scythic archers, why the Persians used Greek...

DAMASCUS, Syria, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- An Arab mercenary leader has released a videotape threatening attacks on military facilities in "Russia's Islamic republics," a report said Wednesday. Abu al-Valid made the threats on the tape, which was delivered to, and aired by the Al Jazeera television network in Qatar, the Novosti news agency said. The leader of Arab mercenaries who operate in Chechnya, al-Valid says terrorist acts will be conducted in other Russian regions as well. Al Jazeera claims al-Valid made the speech at a session of a council of Chechen militants even before the beginning of Muslim holy month...

<p>War has a way of turning the tangential and the ill-regarded into the vital and successful. Submarines, aircraft, tanks &#8212; all endured decades of derision and dismissal before proving their worth.</p> <p>The reason they were able to prove their worth is that, when the moment came, serious military thinkers had already created effective "concepts of operation" and great leaders knew how to adapt concepts to situations.</p>

NBC loves its "Fleecing of America" segment, but when Tom Brokaw interviewed former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik - responsible for rebuilding Iraq law enforcement - Brokaw saw Kerik's U.S.-taxpayer funded South African personal security team as a footnote, instead of the outrageous ripoff and affront that it is...

Hezbollah's leader implicitly suggested Thursday that his guerrillas who fought Israeli forces in southern Lebanon may help Iraqis if they decide to battle U.S. forces controlling their country and if conditions permit. "It is a matter first for the Iraqi people to decide (on resistance)," Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said on the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera. "All Arabs, Muslims and honorable people in the world should support a people that decides to resist the occupation. Hezbollah is part of the Arabs and Muslims," he said. Nasrallah added that the time, place and circumstances are factors and that Hezbollah should...

They run the mess halls. They program the weapons. They even recruit soldiers. And if America goes to war against Iraq, private military companies will play a bigger role than ever before.By Nelson D. SchwartzAmerican tanks move down a narrow street as explosions rattle the ramshackle town. Behind them, infantrymen outfitted in the latest high-tech gear creep forward, looking out for snipers, as well as for refugees and other civilians who could end up in the middle of a firefight. The brass has told the commanders in the field to keep collateral damage to a minimum, and headquarters is monitoring...

THE VAMPIRE NURSE OF VUKOVAR VESNA BOSANAC http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/politics/war_crimes/vukovar/vukovar9d.html Involuntary blood taking from Vukovar Serbs In the Vukovar Hospital, which was between 30 July and 19 November 1991 managed by Dr. Vesna BOSANAC, many serious abuses of medical ethics and international law of war have been committed - from refusal to provide adequate medical treatment to wounded Serb civilians and members of the Serb territorial defense to physical liquidation. Among the gravest crimes committed in the Vukovar Hospital, which are that more serious since some perpetrators were physicians, is involuntary blood taking from Serb civilians, who were for this particular...

24.01.2003 15:10 Chechnyafree.ru SQUAD OF FOREIGN MERCENARIES ELIMINATED IN CHECHNYA A group of foreign mercenaries has been eliminated during a special operation by federal forces near the Duba-Urt village in the Shaloi district. According to the ITAR-TASS quoting Friday the spokesman for the Russian antiterrorist command in the North Caucasus, Ilya Shabalkin, among the militants there were three Arabs and one Georgian resident. The other militants managed to escape in forests. Their belongings, arms and a large number of cartridges remained on the site of the clash. The operation was launched after the local residents informed federal forces that they...

Saddam Hussein of Iraq hired mercenaries from Baluchistan for his war on terror against the US even before the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam’s Baluchi mercenaries have been very successful in attacking American targets and killing innocent American citizens in the 9/11, OKC and 1993 WTC Attacks. Khalid Mohammed and his nephew Ramzi Yousef were Saddam’s Baluchi mercenaries who attacked America for Saddam and Iraq. Middle East expert Lorie Mylroie has given eloquent proofs over the years of Saddam’s involvement in the 1993 WTC attack. The FBI and DOJ publicly say Khalid Mohammed was a mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and...

Reports of mercenary casualties on both sides in civil war Renewed fighting in the civil war in the Ivory Coast could develop into a South African "battlefield", with mercenaries from the country fighting on the side of both the government and the rebels. A truce that lasted only six weeks was broken last week, and unconfirmed reports have it that there have already been South African casualties. A Russian Mi-24 helicopter, with some South Africans on board, crashed during clashes with rebel forces. It is not clear if the chopper was shot down, or what happened to the occupants. Fighting...

ABIDJAN, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast angrily denied on Thursday that it had hired dozens of South African mercenaries to help the government fight rebels who hold half the territory of the world's largest cocoa producer. In a strongly worded statement, President Laurent Gbagbo's adviser in Paris, Toussaint Alain, said "absolutely no credit should be given to reports that South African mercenaries are in Ivory Coast". "These fantasy allegations, obligingly peddled by a Western military source and armed rebels, are aimed at torpedoing peace negotiations in Lome," the statement said. Reports that the mercenaries had arrived in Abidjan...