Mercenary

One more announcement from our government this week gave me yet more to fear. Our highly educated government ministers have the good sense to sack SAS soldiers. For financial reasons.  These men form an exceptional fighting force. The SAS soldiers are elite involved in everything from wars, to releasing hostages held during the Iranian Embassy Siege and that at Peterhead Prison within the UK.  We've all grown up with the idea of the SAS soldiers being the most capable, tough, invincible humans on the face of the earth able to achieve anything.  Soldiers, let's be frank, have killing as their primary skill; we train them to fight and to win. 

For perhaps twenty years, a small handful of ex-SAS have made a very good living by publishing their stories in one form or another, some true accounts, some fictional although always focusing on their unique skills and amazing experiences.  How many books can the general public read?  Our economy is in dire straits as the government takes the axe to every part of the country, so that won't improve prospects for any of the redundant soldiers to earn a banker's bonus from publishing.

What other opportunities are available to them?  Well, we know a fair number of soldiers struggle when they leave the army and many eventually find themselves behind bars, as they struggle with adapting to the nightmare of their past and the nightmare of being unwanted by employers. 

One employer may find the unique skills of the SAS valuable.  Very valuable.  That should be a terrifying prospect for each and everyone of us.  Soldiers and soldiering skills should only ever be used in the defence of a nation from aggressors, not some trumped up businessman who thinks those farmers who refuse to pay a fine 'because mother nature' blew some seeds from one farm to the next must be dealt with.  Soldiers and soldiering skills should only ever be used in the protection and the perhaps rare rescue of citizens not as a tool for some silly little spoilt kid finding it difficult to operate his business because the elected leaders of the country where he wants to operate insist on fair taxation, fair license fees for natural resources and laws to protect the human rights and dignity of citizens.  Will we have newspaper magnates attempting to hire our soon-to-be redundant elite troops conduct political coups? 

We need laws to ensure no British, and no ex British forces are ever involved in incidents such as the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea that involved Mark Thatcher reported in Bolivia in April 2009 on the BBC for example.

Mercenary armies undermine democracy because a government can fight a war without the support of the electorate.  The government can simply hire people from other countries.

'In October 2007, the United Nations released a two-year study that stated, that although hired as "security guards", private contractors were performing military duties. The report found that the use of contractors such as Blackwater was a "new form of mercenary activity" and illegal under International law. Many countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, are not signatories to the 1989 United Nations Mercenary Convention banning the use of mercenaries. (see wiki)

Security guards are doing the same job as soldiers in occupied countries.  Now why aren't we signatories to this UN Convention?  What problem could my government have with the Convention?  Do we really want to have our forces facing down former colleagues one day?  Can you imagine, two groups of soldiers, both groups trained at our expense facing one another, one group armed and financed by the tax payer and the other armed and financed by another nation or even a global soldier agency?

Are we to have wars played out before our eyes as businesses battle over fertile farmland, using hired soldiers to do the fighting, soldiers that we have educated, and trained in the art of warfare.  At taxpayers expense?  With no accountability? With no democratic means of the population stopping the fighting?

If Machiavelli grasped the problems with mercenaries, then why not us? 
While investigative journalists beaver away, studying organisations such as Blackwater, I can't help but feel a terrible chill running through me.  Who will hold mercenary armies or groups to account?  Is this yet another nightmare that has crept up on us while students studied and worked, some of us worked too hard with no time for anything else, and others had their minds numbed with Big Brother?

This week we have further revelations, revelations that are nightmarish, but hardly surprising.  There is evidence to suggest mercenary groups have been travelling to the African continent on business.  Large corporations in the US and the EU have been paying for the services of mercenary organisations.  Why?  http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/16/the_nation__docs_reveals_blackwater

They aren't covered by the Geneva Conventions; no business or corporation has signed it.  Indeed they should never sign it - they aren't sovereign quite yet. 

These mercenary organisations simply should not be allowed to operate anywhere on the face of the earth.  Will my government, a government determined to wipe out at least 40% of the public sector while it kneels and prays to their gods that the supreme god of the private sector for showers and bounty act to inhibit any form of business?

For now, we hope that each of our soldiers has a stronger backbone, and a greater sense of democracy, of decency than the likes of Michael Mann & company or anyone employed at the American Empire agencies using mercenaries. 

Let's hope that any soldier made redundant, whether from the SAS or any other regiment, that their values are far healthier than the motives of vast wealth we've seen with too many politicians.  Decent jobs would be more reliable than hope.