Private Military Contractors and Private Security Firms

With all of the past negative media coverage about Blackwater Contractors and their blatantly illegal activities overseas, it would be very easy to consider all privately owned militia's and security groups to be a bad thing. What are your thoughts on these groups, and whether or not they are beneficial or harmful to the Middle East/UAE/Asia?

 

Its tough to classify them as "good or bad", because they are operating on a somewhat undefined territory. They are not part of the regular armed forces, and as such do not fall under the UCMJ. They are not citizens of the country they are in, so obviously do not fall under their code of conduct. The problem is, they really have no type of governing body or authority that they are responsible to. This allows them to be able to do things that regular armies couldnt get away with. Increased regulation would be a good start.

 

This can sometimes be a good thing. If your enemy knows your limitations, they will work around that. A [loosely relevant] example would be if an undercover agent was making a deal to buy drugs/counterfeit goods and the seller required a down payment. The agent might only be able to access, say, $50,000 of funds for such purposes, and the seller knowing this about government organizations asks for a $80,000 down payment.

My example of course doesn't fit into the context, but the meaning is still there. If a person with sensitive information allows themselves to be captured because they know you aren't going to torture it out of them, they are abusing the same kind of knowledge from above.

Furthermore, government organizations around the world conduct illegal activities, during times of war or not. Sure, when people are found out they are punished, but often they are acting from orders above. So, in a sense, they get hung out high and dry for something they were told to do by the people punishing them.

There is ALWAYS a scapegoat, no matter what you are doing, where ever you are doing it. People will deny and blame, anything to protect themselves. Especially politicians.

 

It's not fair to group them all in one basket and say that they are all unfair. That would be extreme bias.

I don't know too much about Blackwater besides they were used by the American government to guard shit overseas in the middle east.

Unless they are violating human civil liberties, why should anyone tell them what to do elsewhere ?

 

I hate the fact they they really don't have any rules to follow. I don't understand how someone can be so immoral to do the things some of these people do daily. I'm not going to get specific, but someone or some group needs to put a stop to this shit for the best of our civilization. It's only a short time away before someone fucks up or has an "accident" that can kill billions.