Blair withdrawing army from Iraq and sending in mercenaries instead

[Caligula]

You remember that announcement about withdrawing troops from Basra? Like we'd solved the problems in Iraq? Well guess what, surprise surprise, the problems are still there, only our government doesn't want to continue to account for them to us, so instead of using the army, which has some accountability to the public, they're going to use mercenaries instead. How is this possible or legal? I am gobsmacked by it, and also by the lack of reporting of it.

mercenaries report

my friends dh is doing this at the moment

he is an ex-marine.

most of this work is private security work anyway caligula - do we really want our army to be doing that?

Don't know what I want the army to be doing tbh, but tax-payers money is going to be spent on this and the govt is presenting it as if we no longer need troops in Iraq because we've solved the security problems there (which we created in the first place). Which we patently haven't.

It's also a good way of ensuring that we can forget about casualties in Iraq - if a soldier dies, then there's reporting of it and if too many do, it has political implications, but if a mercenary dies, it doesn't matter. (I have a cousin who is doing this in Afghanistan as well (ex British army) so have a more than normal interest.)

Plus of course, it frees up troops to go and destroy Iran

This is outrageous! But unfortunately typical Anglo-American approach to privitising everything and sod the consequences for core services. It's happening in education, health, energy, social housing, transport and the military.

Why not privatise parliament? The country might as well hire a dictator. How about that Venezuelan fella. He's already fuelling the London buses!