The word “mercenary” has become an ugly word, thanks to the peaceniks and supposed humanitarian organizations that cry about human rights issues perpetrated by evil contractors and soldiers when what we’re discussing is a war zone. What is mystifying is how they can ignore the human rights abuses of the real terrorists, whose torture chambers uncover victims with horrible and painful visible injuries, bloody handprints on the walls, implements they use to inflict inhumane suffering, and horrifying video documentation and sometimes.
The word “mercenary” itself has a negative connotation. It invokes pictures of paid guns for hire; perhaps images of brutality or the murders of civilians. Again, you don’t need to look far to see it; just look at today’s headlines about either the conflict in Iraq, or the conflict in Afghanistan.
It is ‘politically incorrect’ today to admit that you killed a terrorist.
Wikipedia discusses what a ‘mercenary‘ is:
A mercenary is a person who takes part in an armed conflict who is not a national of a Party to the conflict and “is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party”.
This is a person who fights for money, regardless of ideological or political considerations. But as far as I can tell, those who have served in and/or trained foreign armies throughout history didn’t do it for the money; and did it, in fact, solely because of the ideological and political considerations, in some instances, at great personal risk and cost.
We have examples of these kinds of people throughout history, although I’m not certain if they fit within that definition of doing it ‘for personal gain’ as described above. General Charles Gordon, as an example, served in the Middle East as a mercenary in the late 1800’s. He did it with British government approval, but under the Chinese Emperor as well as under orders of the Khedive of Egypt. Colonel Pulaski in 1777, the American artillery corps hero, fought under a foreign flag and got paid for it, as did Lafayette (also in the 1700’s). (Venter, 2006)
As other historical examples, you can look toward Greek mercenaries, who were used by the Persian Emperor Darius against Alexander the Great in 331 BC, or the German freelancers who’ve fought for the highest bidders for years. As an example of how far back that particular phenomenon reaches, Britain’s King George III hired battalions of Germans to subdue his rebellious American colonists in the late 1700’s. (Venter, 2006)
Then there was the infamous Admiral Cochrane of the late 1700’s/early 1800’s on whose story the British novelist C.S. Forester based the life of his fictitious character Captain Haratio Hornblower. Lord Cochrane is a dominant figure in 19th century early maritime history. He served in real life, with a distinctive, brilliant, memorable and controversial naval career. (Venter, 2006)
Thrown out of the Royal Navy for inappropriate political and financial activities, he went on to Chile, where he commanded the fleet against Spain. In 1827, he served the Greek Navy against Turkish control before returning to the Royal Navy. He returned to Britain only to be reinstated in the Royal Navy, and served as Admiral, which is the stuff of legends. (Venter, 2006)
Modern day examples are the Gurkhas, the French Foreign Legion, and the British officers and men who served in the Sultan of Oman’s armed forces. Some of them are still at it today. (Although none of these fit within the definition of ‘mercenary’, oftentimes the press characterizes them as such. People who join the French Foreign Legion, for example, are purely volunteers.) The same with Colonel Brian Robinson, former commanding officer of the Rhodesian SAS, who answers to the Abu Dhabi royal family. There were few if any of his kind in that part of the world before 9/11, but the United Arab Emirates is one of the busiest crossroads to the east of the Suez, a place where a skilled man at arms could find himself useful, not to mention well-paid. (Venter, 2006)
There are the bad ones, of course, that’s the story of most wars, but I would venture to say that those are the exception and not the rule.
This is not the case with Executive Outcomes when travelling to Sierra Leone in 1995, bringing the country back from the brink of catastrophe. Ask them today, they’re proud of what they did; lives saved, unspeakable rapes and amputations they were instrumental in preventing…should give a reasonable person pause about what the ‘mercenary’ really is.
The Mercenary role is one of the world’s oldest professions, attracting all kinds of interesting characters. The anti-war activists who demonize the military contractor would categorize them as off the beaten track; psychotic killers, murderers, society’s rejects; lone wolves; perhaps even crazy and driven by greed. But the majority of today’s freelance fighters are none of those; they are professionals and in general, they are happy with what they do. Apart from long periods away from home, they prefer what they do to anything else. So much, in fact, that the U.S. Army offered bonuses of $150,000 in 2005 to experienced men who signed on again, which says something about the attraction of freelance contract work: it is attracting a lot of professional soldiers. (Venter, 2006)
Independent contractors today serve in support roles in places like Angola, the Sudan, Nigeria, Algeria, Columbia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Their jobs usually involve protecting non-governmental organizations (NGOs), embassies, hospitals, oil drilling rigs, police stations, contract companies, etc.from harm. And they are not shy about retaliating when fired upon.
Karzai and Khalilzad in hard hats, well-protected by DynCorps personnel, posing at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Hyatt (Reuters, Zainal Abd Halim, April 17, 2004)
In some instances, you might find them protecting heads of state, lest we forget President Karzai’s Dyncorp bodyguards who quietly replaced SF soldiers after an assassination attempt in 2002.
In an ambush in Iraq’s Falluja in April 2005, a dozen contractors attached to a South African private military company drove off about sixty attackers without one of their members being hurt. It was a violent exchange of gunfire that went on for several minutes and the Iraqis who’d initiated the ambush took some serious casualties including several of their number killed. (Venter, 2006)
Most would remember the horrible fate of four Blackwater contractors of Fallujah, Iraq-
Undated family photos show the Blackwater USA contractors who were killed in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. Shown are Wesley Batalona, top left, Scott Helvenston, top right, Jerry Zovko, bottom left, and Michael Teague. (AP Photos)
who had military backgrounds, two who were displayed hanging on that bridge over the Euphrates during the same time period.
One can hardly call any of these men, all of whom were viciously attacked, beaten, set on fire and dragged from their car, opportunists, even if you consider they were well-paid for their efforts.
When considering the history of the mercenary up to that of the modern day ‘gun for hire’, there can be little argument that there is a demand for people who do this important work. It’s called capitalism; where there is a need, the free marketplace fills it. (As an aside, that should also give you an idea of where the detractors sit ideologically; opposing capitalism.) Skilled in the art of war, these men, many of whom are trained and experienced soldiers, are paid well for work that most people wouldn’t know how to do, let alone volunteer for. Men like these have throughout history accomplished good and noble things at great personal risk and personal cost, where regular men fear to tread.
However, as a footnote and addition to what I’ve previously written on the PMC subject: Jack Idema does not qualify as a mercenary, according to the Geneva Conventions definition. In Robert Young Pelton’s book, Licensed to Kill, Pelton’s personal views on war and capitalism are glaringly obvious. He looks down with contempt and disdain on the mercenary phenomenon and private military contractor, while completely ignoring history on the subject. He sneers at people with a long history of serving with the Military, first with his interview with Billy Waugh, and then later in a chapter on Jack Idema, based on the opinions of the same little cabal of detractors we’ve seen quoted before in pieces like Stacy Sullivan’s “Operation Desert Fraud” and Mariah Blake’s “Tin Soldier”. But Pelton doesn’t explain what a chapter on Idema is doing in a book on PMC’s. Neither does he discuss the history of the mercenary or private military contractor throughout the world. All of this makes Pelton’s book a laughable imitation of something noteworthy on the subject, more of a political screed against a phenomenon which has been going on (as noted above) since at least the days of the American Revolution, and in numerous other countries, for more than 230 years.
The only faint similarity I can find between that of a paid mercenary and Jack Idema, is that he trains foreign armies. But that is more the definition of a Green Beret than that of a mercenary. Idema’s history in doing this goes back a great number of years before 9/11 and he was a counterterrorism and human intelligence expert long before it became fashionable. His adventure in Afghanistan where he served as a commander in Massoud’s United Front Military Forces, only demonstrates that he follows a long line of historical figures who’ve done the same thing; although there is no evidence, to my knowledge, that he was ‘paid’. He did, in fact, lose everything while he was in Afghanistan. There is evidence if you look for it, that he has been serving in a more clandestine role. (Stich, 2005)
Categorizing Idema as a mercenary is only as accurate as depicting the Foreign Legion of being mercenaries, or gurkhas, when they don’t fit the legal definition. It’s not only misleading; it’s painting a negative picture of someone killing for financial gain, which is apart from the truth and reality. And if you knew the guy, you’d know he’s very altruistic. In interviews, he’s said that his whole life turned when he saw the planes hit those towers in New York. You can also see how long it took him to leave Afghanistan, primarily because he wasn’t going to leave without Nina, the Afghan dog, who he had raised since she was a puppy at Pulacharke. When considering the history Idema has with Afghanistan’s orphans and puppy dogs, it certainly is amazing that the detractors are so determined to depict him as a selfish torturer or bountyhunter motivated purely for financial gain.
Indeed, in today’s world of the anti-war, anti-violence, anti-American polemic, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, but those who would categorize a mercenary as a terrorist still demonstrate, in my opinion, an obtuse ignorance of warfare and history. They haven’t, for example, taken a good look at beheading pictures or video, Saddam’s torture chambers, Halabja or the Anfal Campaign, and seem slow to object to or recognize REAL human rights abuses such as those detailed in beheading videos, cutting of hands and feet, eye removal, disemboweling and rape of women, etc.. Take, for example, the genocide in Darfur which is led by Islamic fundamentalists who want to ‘liberate sacred ground from the Zionist enemy,” and to “fight the infidel”. When people see themselves as oppressed, they call upon the expertise of the war dog because they’ve recognized they need outside help to counter injustice. Thank God there are still rare and courageous men who are willing to answer that call and make the personal sacrifice.
So many of the people who do this work never get paid for what they do; it is their convictions about what is right that drive them, and little else. Granted, opportunists like a Pelton, Cafasso or Artis wouldn’t understand that mentality. Artis is someone who would stuff his face with food, even though there are starving children around him, hiding candy bars for himself in his pocket, whereas Idema, as Fahim said, was very affectionate with the orphans of Afghanistan.
Reference War Dog: Fighting Other People’s Wars by Al J. Venter if you really want to know about the mercenary in combat. The specific pages in the book referring to the content above are in the Prologue, pages 5&6.
Footnote: Interesting how Bob Morris, who should know better, doesn’t seem to have any inkling about the history of the mercenary, either. If I’m not mistaken, Bob Morris has his own NGO, Partners International, and should at the bare minimum- be cognizant of PMCs who protect them. But instead, he, like Kathryn Cramer, falls all over himself giving accolades to Pelton’s book. A shame, that. This fellow in comments denies he’s the Bob Morris we all think it is, so I am making the notation here: Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
amir shah may have shaven his beard and cropped his hair, but there is no mistaking, according to my sources, that the amir shah of the ap is the amir shah in this photograph. he is hazara, and he is a former member of the taliban ministry. people claim he’s ‘former taliban’. okay, i’ll bite. just like there were “former nazis”. Although the Nazis were considered war criminals throughout the world, and no matter how lowly your job was with the SS at the labor camps, the Jews set out to find them and destroy them all, even though the war was long over.
look at the timing of this. the ap put up their 
