Obama expands mercenary armies

[Dan74]

Green Change : Obama quietly expands army of mercenaries, outsourcing of wars

Without much notice or debate, the Obama administration has greatly expanded the outsourcing of key parts of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency wars in the Middle East and Africa, and as a result, for its secretive air war and special operations missions around the world, the U.S. has become increasingly reliant on a new breed of specialized companies that are virtually unknown to the American public, yet carry out vital U.S. missions abroad.
Companies such as Blackbird Technologies, Glevum Associates, K2 Solutions, and others have won hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military and intelligence contracts in recent years to provide technology, information on insurgents, Special Forces training, and personnel rescue. They win their work through the large, established prime contractors, but are tasked with missions only companies with specific skills and background in covert and counterinsurgency can accomplish.

[Mr. Mxyzptlk]

Green Change : Obama quietly expands army of mercenaries, outsourcing of wars

“Without much notice or debate…“ And for what reason should there be “much notice or debate?“ Should there be much debate where democracy and freedom beckons? Should there be much debate where the champion of peace is involved? Should there be any opposition even to such a humanitarian gesture? Are there not plenty of other {evil} dictators with mercenaries to worry about? Are there not enough stories of these on which the individual can feast the eyes upon? Take the “evil Mr. Ghaddafi” for instance Mr. Dan: Is it so that the individual does not feed on enough reports about he and his mercenaries that they should need any other?


I. Has Gaddafi unleashed a mercenary force on Libya?

Extract = Article
There are widespread reports that Muammar Gaddafi has unleashed numerous foreign mercenaries on his people, in a desperate gamble to crush dissent and quell the current uprising.Their origins vary according to speculation: Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Mali, Sudan and possibly even Asia and eastern Europe.The claims are hard to pin down but persistent. Ali al-Essawi, the Libyan ambassador to India, who resigned in the wake of the crackdown, told Reuters on Tuesday: "They are from Africa, and speak French and other languages."


II. Libyan UN Diplomat: Gaddafi's Army of Mercenaries on Verge of Massacre

Extract = Article
A defected Libyan ambassador pleaded for military action against Gaddafi today, as the UN hinted it may soon adopt a no-fly zone -- or something stronger.Gaddafi, however, is not waiting around for that. Reports out of Libya suggest that he promised to "cleanse" rebel cities in the coming hours.

"Gaddafi today has lost his mind," Ibrahim Debbashi, Libya's deputy UN ambassador said today outside the UN Security Council. According to him, Benghazi would resist the regime's forces, but a mercenary army of 400 vehicles was moving in Ajdabiya and likely to massacre every resident. "We will see a real genocide in Ajdabiya if the international community does not move quickly," he said. "The information we get is that they have clear instructions: destroy everything, and kill whoever you find."


III. Tuaregs 'join Gaddafi's mercenaries'

Extract = Article
Ever since the start of the uprising in Libya there have been reports of Colonel Gaddafi using "mercenaries" to put down the protesters.Eyewitnesses have talked of Africans of darker skin firing on protesters, speculating that they might be coming from countries such as Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Mali and Sudan. Some of these black African fighters have been in Libya for many years, however. Some have been in the armed forces for much of that time and some have taken on Libyan nationality.


IV. Libya: Gaddafi's army of mercenaries face backlash

Extract = Article
The building, like almost every other government facility in town had been ransacked and abandoned. Three huge sacks of rice sat amid broken glass, an empty weapons crate and strewn green uniforms. A sign on the wall said: "God, Muammar and Libya only."But there was little else left to prove this place was what many in town believe it to have been – a processing centre for mercenaries, who threw in their lot with a dictator.


V. Libya: Belarus mercenary 'paid £1,900 a month to help Gaddafi forces'

Extract = Article
The mercenary, who only gave his name as Mikhail, said he and his colleagues did not take part in the actual fighting but acted as advisers and were always present on the frontline. He told Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda that many of his fellow Belarusians were veterans of the Soviet Union's 1979-89 war in Afghanistan and often had Special Forces backgrounds.


Secondly, is there any Law against the formation of such an army? And if not, then again, why would there be a need for “notice and debate?”


Thirdly, what about job creation? Are there not the unemployed who need work? Should you be so selfish as to be of those who would complain about this effort to stimulate the economy? Should you be so selfish as to be of those who would oppose this effort at job creation?

[Zeebadee]

Thirdly, what about job creation? Are there not the unemployed who need work? Should you be so selfish as to be of those who would complain about this effort to stimulate the economy? Should you be so selfish as to be of those who would oppose this effort at job creation?

The draft of the 60's pretty much targeted the poor and unconnected. Those without the proper connections found themselves in Canada or Vietnam. The current military similarly targets the same groups by buying them with taxpayer money into military service. Coming out of high school or college with no prospect of a job makes the $40,000 enlistment bonus look pretty good. Finish an enlistment and you're enticed with a $90,000 reenlistment bonus. Add free or almost free medical care for life, and it seems to me that our current military is almost exclusively an army of mercenaries.

Oh yeah,
Enlistment and Reenlistment Bonuses | Military.com

[Mussolinis Head]

[QUOTE=Mr. Mxyzptlk;838412]“Without much notice or debate…“ And for what reason should there be “much notice or debate?“ Should there be much debate where democracy and freedom beckons? Should there be much debate where the champion of peace is involved? Should there be any opposition even to such a humanitarian gesture? Are there not plenty of other {evil} dictators with mercenaries to worry about? Are there not enough stories of these on which the individual can feast the eyes upon? Take the “evil Mr. Ghaddafi” for instance Mr. Dan: Is it so that the individual does not feed on enough reports about he and his mercenaries that they should need any other? [QUOTE=Mr. Mxyzptlk;838412]


Yes there should be Debate, lots of it. According to the Constitution the only reason to engage in "War" with another nation, is if they attack you or pose an emminent "Threat" to the security of the Nation. The Executive Branch has long surcumvented the Constitution ,it and the Congress has been nothing more than a puppet for Corporate interests, since the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. And the most recent Supreme Court decision , granting corporations the right of personhood,and the abilty to make unrestrained donations(payoffs), has legally sold your so called "Democracy" to the highest bidder. But as "Dick" Chaney , so callously responded to the fact that the majority of the american "public", did not want War, "So What"

Not once since WW II , has the interest of Peace or Democracy had a thing to do with the Wars we've waged.

To qoute from Chalmers Johnson's book "Nemesis,The Last Days of the American Republic"

"The United States has been continuosly engaged or mobilized for war since 1941. Using statistics compiled by the The Federation of American Scientists,
Gore Vidal has listed 201 overseas military operations between the end of WW I I and Sept. 11 ,2001, in which the U.S. struck the "first blow". Among these was Operation Urgent Fury in 1983, "Reagan's attack on the island of Grenada, a month long caper that Gen. Alexander Haig disloyally said could have been better handled by the Provincetown police dept. Exluding minor military operations, Drexel University historian and politcal scientist Michael Sullivan counts only "invasions, intervensions,and regime changes since WW 11 and comes up with thirty bloody, often clandestine. American Wars from Greece (1947-49) to Yugoslavia (1995 and 1999). Neither of these compilations include the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq.
It should be noted that since 1947, while we have used our military power for political and military gain in a long list of countries, in no instance has democratic government come about as a direct result. In some important case, on the other hand, democracy has developed in "opposition" to our "interference"-for example, after the collapse of the CIA-installed regime Greek Colonels in 1974; after the demise of the U.S. supported fascist dictatorships in Portugal in 1974 and Spain in 1975; after the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986; after the ouster of Gen.Chun Doo Hwan in S.Korea in 1987; and after the ending of thirty-eight years of martial law in the island of Tiawan in the same year. The U.S. holds the unenviable record of having helped install the and the supported such "dictators" as the Shah of Iran, Gen.Suharto in Indonesia, Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and Ses Seko Mobutu in Congo/Zaire, not to mention the series of u.S. backed militarists in S.Vietnam and Cambodia until we finally "expelled from Indochina. In addition, for decades we ran one of the most extensive terrorist operations in history against Cuba and Nicaragua because their struggles for "national independence" had produced outcomes we did not like.
The unintended result of this record of militarism is the contemporary Leviathan that dominates Washington today, threatening our nation with bankruptcy, turning many of the organs of our "free press" into Pravda like mouthpieces, and disgracing the nation by allowing our young men and women to torture prisoners picked up on the battlefields or even snatched from city streets in allied countries."

Heil Hitler , Hail to the Chief, I see no difference.(see my signature)
"Same Thing"
Same Thing - Flobots - YouTube

[Mussolinis Head]

One more from Nemesis,

"The histories of Rome and Britain suggest that imperialism and militarism are the deadly enemies of democracy. This was something the founders of the United States tried to forestall with their creation of a republican structure of government and a system of checks and balances inspired by the Roman Republic. Imperialism and militarism will ultimately breach the separation of powers created to prevent tyranny and defend liberty. The United States today, like the Roman Republic in the first century BC, is threatened by an out-of-control military-industrial complex and a huge secret government controlled exclusively by the president. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, cynical and shortsighted political leaders in the United States began to enlarge the powers of the president at the expense of the elected representatives of the people and the courts. The public went along, accepting the excuse that a little tyranny was necessary to protect the population. But, as Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1759, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Rome and Britain are archetypes of the dilemma of combining democracy at home with an empire abroad. In the Roman case, they decided to hang on to the empire and lost their democracy. In the British case, they chose the opposite: in order to remain democratic they dumped their empire and military apparatus after World War II. For us, the choice is between the Roman and British precedents."

[grandpa]

One more from Nemesis, "The histories of Rome and Britain
suggest that imperialism and militarism are the deadly enemies of
democracy.
This was something the founders of the United States tried
to forestall with their creation of a republican structure of
government and a system of checks and balances inspired by
the Roman Republic."

"...The collapse of the World Trade Centre surely marks the
end of the Antonine Age of American hegemony and the start of darker and more uncertain times.
Pliny (who died in the eruption that wiped out Pompeii) was perhaps a wiser
man than [author Tom] Wolfe, when he observed in his Natural History that 'this alone is certain, namely that there is no such thing as certainty, and that nothing
is more wretched and conceited than man.'"
Shades of Rome hang over Washington - Telegraph

Grandpa h.

[barts]

Obama is also increasing America's nuclear arsenal. Why, I wonder?

In an article in CounterPunch's subscription newsletter, Darwin Bond-Graham writes,

As with many aspects of the Obama presidency, expectations for drastic changes in nuclear weapons policy were high among liberals and the Left. Many wanted to believe that a program, however modest, of scaling back the military-industrial complex was commencing. Obama stoked these impressions on the campaign trail and in the earliest days of his presidency, with rhetoric such as "a world without nuclear weapons is profoundly in America's interest and the world's interest. It is our responsibility to make the commitment, and to do the hard work to make this vision a reality."

Obama's first term will go down in history, however, as containing one of the single largest spending increases on nuclear weapons ever. His administration has worked vigorously to commit the nation to a multi-hundred-billion-dollar reinvestment in nuclear weapons, mapped out over the next three-plus decades.

At the center of Obama's ambitious nuclear agenda is the expansion of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex via a multibillion-dollar construction program. Also, at the center of Obama's nuclear agenda is a commitment of tens of billions of dollars to designing and building the next generation of nuclear submarines, ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers. Stockpiled nuclear warheads will receive billions more in refurbishment and new components. All of this is now underway.

Let's be clear. Obama is a war monger and a defense industry toady, just like every modern President before him with, perhaps, the exception of Eisenhower.

Obama is making the world a more dangerous place.

[Marwood]

And in 1935, retired US Marine Major General Smedley D. Butler was making some very similar points.

Nothing changes? Discuss, I guess. It may be too depressing for words.

[Mussolinis Head]

Obama is also increasing America's nuclear arsenal. Why, I wonder?

In an article in CounterPunch's subscription newsletter, Darwin Bond-Graham writes,



Let's be clear. Obama is a war monger and a defense industry toady, just like every modern President before him with, perhaps, the exception of Eisenhower.

Obama is making the world a more dangerous place.

While I agree with your premise, I also believe Obama is nothing more than a puppet of the Oligarchy. I put it this way, the U.S. is Britains Bulldog and Israel is our pitbull. The Empire Lives, but is eating itself as we speak(type), as all empires do. This is neo-empirialism/facsism , 21st century style.

[grandpa]

While I agree with your premise, I also believe Obama
is nothing more than a puppet of the Oligarchy.
I put it this way, the U.S. is Britains Bulldog
and Israel is our pitbull.

...and North Korea is an annoying Chihuaha.

The one thing history always teaches:
Nothing is staying like it is now, yet everything's constantly changing.

Grandpa h.

[Mr. Mxyzptlk]

The draft of the 60's pretty much targeted the poor and unconnected.

…connections?

Those without the proper connections found themselves in Canada or Vietnam.

…making connections?

The current military similarly targets the same groups by buying them with taxpayer money into military service.

….relations?

Coming out of high school or college with no prospect of a job makes the $40,000 enlistment bonus look pretty good. Finish an enlistment and you're enticed with a $90,000 reenlistment bonus. Add free or almost free medical care for life, and it seems to me that our current military is almost exclusively an army of mercenaries.

….connected?

Oh yeah, Enlistment and Reenlistment Bonuses | Military.com

….has apparently allowed the military to go from a Time of:

I. Army, Marines allow more convicts to enlist

II. More felons allowed to enlist in Army, Marines

III. Army and Marine Corps Grant More Felony Waivers


…to a Time of :


IV. Down economy boosts Army recruits' quality

V. Quality of U.S. military recruits rises

VI. Down economy boosts military

VII. Economic Downturn? Not for the Military.

And Mr. Zeebadee, who should complain about bonuses and {better} quality recruits ? With a slew of nations to democratize and liberate from the grasps of “evil and unscrupulous” dictators who, with their bands of mercenaries target and kill their own citizens, why would anyone in their right mind be so “heartless” as to oppose such a dignified military build up? Who would dare be so sell fish as to mutter complaints against the world’s sole remaining altruistic mercenary expansion? Why should there not be cries for more?

[barts]

Should there be much debate where democracy and freedom beckons?

What makes you think "democracy and freedom beckons"? Do you actually believe the Pentagon's propaganda?