Mercenaries....

... an affront to us all.

Jeremy Scahill delivers yet another report of American-paid mercenary crime...

Two former Blackwater operatives were arrested by US federal agents on murder charges, stemming from their alleged involvement in the shooting deaths of two Afghan civilians in Kabul in May. They have been identified as Justin Cannon, 27, of Corpus Christi, Texas, and Christopher Drotleff, 29, of Virginia Beach, Va. They have been charged with “crimes including second-degree murder, attempted murder and firearms offenses while working as contractors for the U.S. Department of Defense in Afghanistan,” according to the Justice Department. The 13-count indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 6 and unsealed today.
RebelReports - Two Blackwater Guards Arrested by FBI on Murder Charges

Mercenaries were suppressed after Europe's devastating Thirty Years War... for good reason. Mercenaries are not bound to states or their citizens; they are only bound to their next paycheck, and when that paycheck stops or the wars end, then what? Britain's use of mercenaries in North America during the 1770s was a significant part of why the colonists formed their own army and fought to free themselves. And the return of these unlawful combatants to our modern scene is yet another indication that the world of states that monopolize the use of lethal force within their established borders is in decline (perhaps terminal decline).

But who will control them? I once thought the plot lines underlying such popular series as "24" (Starkwood) and "Jericho" (Jennings & Rall) was far-out Hollywood writing that was impossible in my country today. But with the tentacles of private corporations spread across the entire national security establishment, one has to wonder exactly who these companies, and their mercenaries, are loyal too?

Once again, wisdom can be found in the actions of our republic's founders. Or, in the case of the wingnuts, from one of their historic stars, Machiavelli:

...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.