Mercenaries Set Off for Afghanistan

The Obama administration has not indicated its intentions with respect to the privatization of the war. In Iraq in 2007, the number of contractors, mercenaries and others compared to soldiers in uniform had reached a one to one ratio. Something that had never been seen before in the history of warfare. And a problem for democracy, since the contracts are often opaque and these men elude both national and military justice. It's not just the law of the jungle, but also war with complete impunity.

"The more war there is, the more mercenary activity there is," rejoices "Bob," a British mercenary speaking under the cover of anonymity. "The novelty is that after September 11, our activities became super-legal. We've never made so much money. It's a golden age." He acknowledges that the "arrival of the guys from Iraq poses a problem, because, here, we have to be more discreet, not machine-gun civilians like they did over there." "Bob" concedes that his employers' interests differ from those of NATO: "The American and British and other armies are here to win a war. For us, the more the security situation deteriorates, the better it is."

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