Is being a hired killer an honorable profession?

[Jonathan50]

Here is what Machiavelli had to say about mercenaries..


"If one holds his state on the basis of mercenary arms, he will never be firm or secure; because they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, unfaithful; gallant among friends, vile among enemies; no fear of God, no faith with men; and one defers ruin insofar as one defers the attack; and in peace you are despoiled by them, in war by the enemy."

"The Prince" -Niccolò Machiavelli

I think this book important enough that I have a leather bound copy in my library, along with Sun Tzu and Von Clausewitz.

On edit: put the e in Clausewitz :)

[uppityperson]

1. If this was a poll, I'd vote no. Since it's not a poll, I'll have to just say no.

[Jonathan50]

3. I started to repost as a poll and then just lost interest

No one seems to care..

[uppityperson]

4. I think people are polarized and not very evenly either, thank goodness.

putzing around here tonight, wasting time 'til tired enough to sleep, between movie and a book, ho hum.

[Bluebear]

2. >>>>>

[tech3149]

5. It really depends on the person

A couple of decades ago, my ex had a regular at the bookstore she ran. He was a quiet, unassuming sort that was friendly to everyone he met, but kept to himself and didn't freely talk about himself. It took almost a year for him to share any pertinent facts about his life. His parents had died a couple of years before and he stayed in the house after that and adopted every stray cat in the area. He'd walk 10 miles to get to the bookstore and back again. It took a few month's more before he admitted to being a mercenary. He called himself an ethical merc and would research any potential job. Judging by his gentle and caring demeanor, I'd expect his self-evaluation was accurate. I think it was 1983 or so when he didn't come home. There were a lot of cats to find a new home.

[uppityperson]

7. Your definition of this guy makes me change my rigid stance.

I can see doing what he did, and having it be ok. Sounds like a decent person.

[tech3149]

30. Thx uppity, I've been around long enough to have no rigid position

on most subjects. There are too many grey areas and too many viewpoints to say what is right and wrong. The only thing I can say for sure is what is right and wrong for me. I could see myself being a merc, but things would have to get a bit worse than they are right now.

God Speed to Larry and Heaven help the rest of us. I hate when posting something brings me to tears.

[Journeyman]

6. Ever since I read Martin van Creveld. . .

The Transformation of War, I haven't thought the same about Sun Tzu or von Clausewitz, or tripartite war, for that matter. And now, I see increasing cracks in the concept of the State, as well.

The world is changing. And not always in ways we expect.

[Jonathan50]

10. I'm not familiar with that work

Could you elaborate?

[Journeyman]

15. Impossible to do van Creveld justice in an internet post. . .

he's one of the more original thinkers of our day. He's the only living foreign writer who's required reading at all US service academies (though unfortunately, none of the underclassmen seem to remember him once they're commissioned).

Do a Google search, you'll find quite a few articles about him. Definitely seek out Transformation of War, as well as Rise and Decline of the State, two of his most important works. When I can find them, I'll PM you some links to a few of his recent articles. In the meantime, here's some excerpts and a link for an interview he granted recently to Sonshi.com (a site you'll undoubtedly enjoy).

http://www.sonshi.com/vancreveld.html

<snip>

When you talk about military history and strategy, you can't help but cite Dr. Martin van Creveld, author of such notable works as The Transformation of War and Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. He has written 17 books so far and is a professor at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, where he has been teaching since 1971.

His book The Transformation of War tells us of fourth generation warfare (4GW) -- not the term he used but that’s what it is. Richards wrote, "Van Creveld has seen the future, and you won't like it: It's non-trinitarian, non-Clausewitzian, and probably not winnable by organized state armies." In other words, more like the world Sun Tzu competed in. Martin van Creveld, then, is not only a foremost thinker of warfare's history but also of its future.

As you will see in our interview with him, he did not mince words with us. And we wouldn't want it any other way. When we informed him of a news article about how Bush officials bristle at the suggestion the war in Iraq looks like Vietnam, he replied, "Well, let them do some bristling. These people should be impeached, tried and punished for misleading the American people into a senseless war. They can then spend their time in prison reading Clausewitz and Sun Tzu." Whether you agree or disagree, Martin van Creveld's words have substance and are not mere conjecture. Dismiss them at our nation's peril.

<snip>

I hope your experience with van Creveld's thought proves as enlightening to you as it's been for me.

[Selatius]

17. A chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials has also said they should be impeached.

Yes, Benjamin Ferencz is still alive.

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/62/21050

"The United Nations charter has a provision which was agreed to by the United States formulated by the United States in fact, after World War II. Its says that from now on, no nation can use armed force without the permission of the U.N. Security Council. They can use force in connection with self-defense, but a country can't use force in anticipation of self-defense. Regarding Iraq, the last Security Council resolution essentially said, 'Look, send the weapons inspectors out to Iraq, have them come back and tell us what they've found - then we'll figure out what we're going to do. The U.S. was impatient, and decided to invade Iraq - which was all pre-arranged of course. So, the United States went to war, in violation of the charter."

[Journeyman]

16. Some more articles by Dr Creveld. . .

Dangers of a Drawn-out War
http://www.forward.com/articles/dangers-of-a-drawn-out-war/

Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War
http://www.forward.com/articles/costly-withdrawal-is-the-price-to-be-paid-for-a-fo/

Why Iraq Will End as Vietnam Did
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/crevald1.html

Nowhere to run
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1653454,00.html

Knowing Why Not To Bomb Iran Is Half the Battle
http://www.forward.com/articles/knowing-why-not-to-bomb-iran-is-half-the-battle/

An Interview with Martin van Creveld
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s511530.htm


Don't have time to explain them, but there all fairly short and well worth the time. . .

[MichaelHarris]

8. Dunno

ask Blackwater

[MichaelHarris]

9. Dunno

ask Blackwater

[shadowknows69]

11. Most of the soldiers I've talked to about it who are active duty

don't hold them in very high regard. Whether or not that changes after they're out and that money starts looking really good, who knows? I'd rather see an ex soldier use his college money and become something far from what he had to go through. I think I would.

[originalpckelly]

12. I read it all wrong.

sorry!

[Lasher]

13. It depends.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. - Voltaire

[Contrary1]

14. Sure it is!

Just ask Cheney & Co.

You can earn 10 times more than the enlisted!
You will be able to shoot brown folks that don't look like you.
You can earn your citizenship in Amurka, the greatest country on earth!
You can fight the terrorists over there, so they won't come over here.
If you're real lucky, you will get to meet a genuine American General!

I could go on and on...the honorable benefits are endless.

[GeorgeGist]

18. That would depend on who ...

they have been hired to kill and why.

[Jonathan50]

21. Hey...

We ain't talkin' Paladin here.

[Philosoraptor]

19. Mercenaries Suck

[cassiepriam]

20. It is not the money that makes it immoral, it is the intent.

If you are killing just for money it is bad.

If you are killing because you truly believe you are defending self,
family or country that is different.

[seemslikeadream]

22. No

on my way to work, will elaborate when I get home.

[alcibiades_mystery]

23. The Gift and the Profit...or, Against War as Commodity Exchange

Military service is a GIFT to the people of the nation. That's why we call it a "sacrifice," and that's why you ostensibly should have accolades heaped upon you. But you can't have it both ways. We pay soldiers because we understand that to provide that gift, other necessities must be taken into account and provided for. But you are not paid to fight. You are paid so that your capacity to provide the GIFT of service is not blocked by other necessities. The military is a gift economy; it is pre-capitalist (or, better, NON-capitalist) in essence. We often misconstrue the GIFT relationship as an exchange relationship between contracting persons, because we have been bamboozled by general equivalence through capitalism ("What! I got her a new iPod, and she only got me a T-Shirt! What a rip!" -- as if the gift relationship is an exchange relationship on the model of commodity exchange, a grave misunderstanding).

The same goes for the military: the gift is only worth mentioning because it is immeasurable...it cannot be compared with a recompense. Who would get their balls blown off for $35,000 a year? The gratitude of the people is the only real recompense, and that is qualitative rather than quantitative: no sane person measures their wartime service against the thanks they've received from the citizenry as a matter of QUANTITIES. It is immeasurable. Blackwater robs the military of the gift relationship with the citizenry. When you take a gift relationship and turn it into a relationship of commodity exchange, you deprive it of its essence. The complete saturation of capitalist commodity exchange in our everyday life mystifies this simple point, so we get non-theoretical accusations of "Mercenary!" when people don't even understand what is really wrong with the mercenary. But what is wrong should be obvious enough to those not utterly mystified by capitalist commodity exchange: The mercenary provides NO GIFT to the people. The mercenary acts in bald self-interest. Any residual "sacrifice" is a cruel hoax, like the people that give you the vacation to sell you a timeshare. Anyone who believes it is a sucker.

But this is what is really wrong with Blackwater. They make a joke of the GIFT. They make it a deal, a commodity exchange. They thus dishonor military SERVICE itself.

[Jonathan50]

24. Excellent post, thank you..

You put into words a concept which has been floating around in my mind for a long time but which has never completely gelled.

Absolutely correct, military service is indeed a gift.

And I agree that outfits like Blackwater dishonor military service.

[alcibiades_mystery]

26. Consider "Saving Private Ryan," which is a meditation on this issue

Apart from everything else, SPR is an extended contemplation of the difference between an commodity exchange and a gift relationship. It's all about, in other words, the inability to measure or quantify, to draw out an equivalence; the relationships are utterly qualitative. This is Edward Burns role in the film: he's the capitalist pragmatist who constantly comes back to the question of numbers: "How many? How many? What is our return on investment here? All this for one man? In the midst of all this?" This problem pops up throughout the film, as when the group comes upon the plane crash: All this for one man...Yeah, there's a lot of that going around...Jeremy Davies is the romantic...a purely qualitative thinker, a gift economy guy (he totally understands the mission, and cannot kill the German prisoner).

Disturbingly, the film takes all this back in the end. That's what makes it an essentially fascist film, for rather than contemplating the gift as without recompense, it transforms the gift into infinite debt: the infinite debt of the citizenry to the soldiers. This is our ruling ideology, even if it goes by the wayside in practice. That's the frame. Tom Hanks tells Ryan that he must "Earn this," that he must labor, in other words, to make payment for the debt (live the good life, etc.). Old Man Ryan's uncertainty at the Normandy cemetery shows us how devious this tactic is: when the gift turns into a qualitative exchange, you never know how much you're supposed to "pay back" (infinite debt). The instruction is really for the audience: EARN THIS. And we're suddenly locked into an ambiguous relationship of obligation with history. All fascism works this way.

[mmonk]

25. If It's privitization, sure.

Privitization is going to save us all from "big government".:sarcasm:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

27. They haven't been known as the scum of the earth for centuries for no reason.

[aikoaiko]

28. Depends on the specifics of the people involved and context

[Edweird]

29. No. But... do what you love, and do it well enough to get paid for it.

If that is fighting, then, hey, answer your calling.
For what it's worth, the French Foreign Legion has always lent a veneer of respectability to the mercenary profession.