Is it okay to say “Yankee Go Home” now? (Pt.2)
by Will, 18 September 2007
Well — as far as certain fucking Yanks are concerned — yes — it most certainly is okay to tell them to fuck off yem.
Private security firm Blackwater USA and the rest of the shitebags should certainly fuck right off — and now, and be quick about it.
And that’s without wishing to rush to judgement - and without wishing to confer specific character traits upon a whole nation — but — THICK USELESS YANK BASTARDS!
And, without wishing to rush to judgement - and without wishing to confer specific attributes upon a whole policy — but — fucking privatisation and greedy bastards who want to make vast sums of moola by employing thick psychos who wish to live out a macho fantasy without a fucking clue as to what they are doing — well — really — they can also fuck right off!!
Can we have a proper army please?
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 0:23
The US Department of State maintains a list of security firms in Baghdad, presumably if you are a businessman you can’t automatically get the proper army to ferry you about at short notice given they are fighting a war.
Also, there are UK private security firms in Iraq, like Armor Group, so you could say “Fuck off Limeys” for balance.
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 0:28
Why? — have UK security ‘firms’ shot the shit out of any civilians of late?
Proper soldiers in — stupid rambo cunts out.
Privatisation — another success! The free market! What a glorious thing it is!
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 0:44
If the principle is one of being anti-privatisation, then the country of origin should be of little consequence.
Are there “no stupid rambo cunts” in the ex-British army groups?
None of this should be construed as a defense of Black Water if they have shot civilians, or the idiotic policy of the US using security firms on contract to do the army’s job.
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 0:55
We’ll withdrawal our scrappy minutemen if you have enough redcoats to police the planet and the will to use them through to the end.
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 1:38
Can we have a proper army please?
Yes. But proper armies are used to fight proper wars. Proper armies have a fetish for flash tanks and zillion mph fighter jets and trillion dollar research facilities and command staffs planning minutae for Armaggeddon. Proper armies expect to take casualties against real enemies and in a fluid high tec battle.
Proper armies are crap at escorting convoys or protecting diplomats - because convoy protection is totally unsexy to proper generals slow, boring, repetitive. All the flash Harry kit for racing around being heroic is worthless. You need slow, cheap, reliable, plentiful, safety to do the job. The generals do not sacrifice their toys and so soldiers ride slowly in fast jeeps getting blown apart on mines and in ambushes.
So yes you can have a proper army, but it’ll cost you much more defence spending to buy MRAP vehicles or mean more troops in body bags.
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 4:10
Will’s right. Blackwater and the whole sorry escapade in private armies is a disgrace. They’re not proper soldiers, and they’re not “scrappy minutemen,” and they’re even crap at escorting convoys.
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 10:40
“And there are no “stupid rambo cunts” in the ex-British army groups”
I’m sure there are although none that have cold bloodedly murdered civilians en masse yet.
Will’s point remains though…outsourcing the war is just making a bad situation worse.
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 11:37
Clearly the problem is that the market does not have all the information it needs in order to be effective. Privatization has not gone far enough and this is the result of continuing state competition in this sector. The solution is obvious. State provision of military services must be replaced with more effective market based solutions. If state militaries were to be privatized this would lead to reduced costs and improved performance.
Market in operational risk futures and derivatives of objectival realization will more than offset the impact of any inefficiencies, and will incentivize the kind of creativity in military markets that is desperately needed. Personnel and asset insurance can be factored into this, as can stakes in regeneration and recovery value.
This is a blueprint for a more prosperous, safer tomorrow for the army of consultants, executives and accountants who will get rich off of it. We cannot fight this, it is the will of the market.
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 17:36
As for stupid rambo British groups- there were those mercenaries who Thatcher’s son tried to overthrow an African gov’t with. And Blackwater has plenty of international personnel.
The real fun bit, all that money the US budget funnels into high tech war machines, the first ones off the line go to… you guessed it, Blackwater.
And as for proper armies. A modern day proper army consists only of special forces - grunts should be maintained as ‘peace-keeping’ forces, like they were in former Yugoslavia. The intense combat is done by small groups of elite fighting forces, because in modern warfare, occupation is the most stupidest tactical decision possible.
There’s some great former SAS stories about what they did from the 50s-80s. Mostly illegal, mostly still unprovable to this day, and mostly accomplished the mission.
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 20:45
For those with an interest in actually increasing their knowledge on the subject of ‘corporate warriors’, instead of leaving ignorant, thick and completely retarded comments here , this is a canny byook on the subject.
Dirigible, your comment isn’t that far off from what the loonytunes actually do think. The creepy wingnut fuckers.
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 20:49
‘We’ll withdrawal our scrappy minutemen if you have enough redcoats to police the planet and the will to use them through to the end.’
John, get this straight. The problem is not Americans, but dodgy mercs in outfits like Blackwater.
If the Bush administration wasn’t so bent on outsourcing war and on following free-market ideology, they would have sent more troops (US Army and USMC) and given them better equipment, rather than paying sums of money to hookey private armies that just gets pissed up the wall. After all, we now have professional US troops who know how to do counter-insurgency and how to operate amongst the civil populace. They have a doctrine, and they have talented leaders. They are miles ahead in professionalism and training than some of the Walter Mitty outfits working at the Coalition’s behest in Iraq.
I’ve seen these guys at work. Some of them are OK, because they only recruit ex-servicemen with proven elite forces background (SAS, SBS, Para, Royal Marines and their equivalents in other national forces). Others are just shit - it’s like giving scoutmasters guns. The private security firms can do specific tasks (e.g. guarding diplomats, aid workers, journalists), but that’s all they’re capable of.
One other fact for the record. Private firms working in South-Eastern Iraq under British authority had to work to British rules of engagement. I’m not sure what the rules are in the US zone of responsibility, but these guys - whatever their nationality - have to be held accountable. And hopefully as a consequence of this those bastards in Blackwater will never do business again. Good riddance to total shit.
I also disagree with the argument that ‘grunts’ cannot do combat ops. British soldiers have done it in Basra and Al-Amarah (read Richard Holmes’ ‘Dusty Warriors’ if you have any doubts), and are doing it in Helmand. The Canadians are doing it in Kandahar. American soldiers and marines have done the same, although press reports tend not to give them the credit. You cannot do every task in modern warfare with SF.
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 20:55
Thanks for that comment Sandbasher — as usual - you are completely and totally correct in everything you’ve said. Make sure you read Sandbasher all of you tits who talked out their arses.
The funny thing is, I was just reading that book I’ve linked to in the comments just ahead of you leaving that comment of yours, and you have summed it all up in a less verbose way and more astutely than the clever academic did in over 300 fucking pages! :)
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 21:05
Cheers, Will. Bit more background here:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2609308.ece
http://www.rusi.org/news/ref:N44DC7CAE9CF33
The main point here is that there are some niche jobs which some of these firms (the more professional ones who employ reliable and disciplined ex-servicemen) can do, but they should stay the fuck away from combat operations.
Tuesday 18 September 2007 at 22:11
On a related point to the call for “Can we have a proper army please” this is fair comment:
“Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld came to power in 2001 publicly pledging to restructure the U.S. Army and make it lean and mean. He fought the 2003 second Gulf War with less than one-third the number of ground troops that Gens. Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf used to smash the earlier — admittedly far more massive — Iraqi army in the first Gulf War of 1991.
But Rumsfeld entirely neglected doctrines and preparations for counterinsurgency war. The U.S. Army started its occupation mission in Iraq woefully unprepared for the improvised-explosive device offensive that inflicted growing casualties on it during the next few years. The Army’s Humvees could hardly stop a conventional bullet. They were useless against IEDs.
As we have noted in previous columns, Rumsfeld’s 1,500 Defense Department planners did not find armor and protection sexy or “aggressive” subjects, though they are central to minimizing casualties and to operational effectiveness in any war. Limitless funds were devoted not just to practical ballistic-missile defense and space orbiting systems, but to research and development in any arcane concept, even if it could not realistically be developed into a useful weapon or surveillance system for a decade or more.
Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers were dying by the day because there weren’t even enough funds to buy zero-tech steel plates for the sides and bottoms of their Humvees.”
http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Industry/Analysis/2007/09/12/defense_focus_ready_for_all_wars/9380/
Thursday 20 September 2007 at 17:05
It might not have been clear, but I wasn’t saying the grunts can’t and don’t do a great job. What I was trying to say is that any occupation-type of warfare is a really really bad idea for modern warfare. Course I am talking out my arse, but it seems to be evident to me. Thus, if the majority of military actions are secretive surgical strikes, you wind up only using the grunts as support and peacekeeping - and hopefully, less people die all around.