Under what circumstances would you become a Mercenary?

[Zyst]

-Red Herring-

The thing is, you've made this all very condescending. The nature of your arguments is hinged upon knowing how ALL of humanity will react and then throwing it in our faces. And now, you have just said that anyone saying no is, essentially, childish and stupid. Well, tough. You're going to have to face the reality that you don't know everything, and that there will always be reasons not to do a thing. Sorry if this has upset your lofty comfortable assurance that everyone is absolutely reduceable to scum, but that opinion was never realistic to begin with. Now, you will cease arguing with me about it, because I'm very certain you get only more abusive as this unfolds, and I don't think you can afford it.

You seriously need to chill out. And yes, I wasn't exactly discreet about me thinking that anyone who posts no to this question/scenario/post is pretty childish. But hey, whatever rolls your boat. Still, it's quite pointless to come in to a topic asking something just to say you wouldn't do it. Why would you answer in the first place? Is it to increase your post count or something? Or do you enjoy complaining?

 

[funguy2121]

Killing and murder are not the same thing. Killing in war (under orders, not unnecessary killing), and killing in self defense or in the defense of others, is not murder.

I find it curious that you form your argument around a scenario that is not real-world. Even in your hypothetical zombie scenario, there would be no mercs, as everyone would be simply trying to survive. And since the understood definition of zombie, be it a chemical/biological agent-induced zomb-osis or one of the other varieties, is an UN-dead monster, killing a zombie would be no different morally from killing a tiger that threatened your life. So I reject your binary assertion that we are either MURDERERS or lemmings. The world exists in three dimensions.

Also, there's a great deal of difference between, say, Seal Team Six and Blackwater. Since you seem to be putting mercs on a pedastle and only using imaginary scenarios, let's look at some real-life private soldier and espionage groups.

Ask a soldier who's been to Iraq, and they'll likely tell you that the mercs they met over there were total assholes. They constantly got in trouble for human rights violations, only to be bailed out because Bush Jr. saw to it. They do what they do for money. They don't kill for their country, or to protect innocent life. They kill to get rich. Fuck 'em. I wouldn't lose sleep over hearing that a Blackwater agent got his legs blown off; rather, I'd be happy that he wasn't killing/maiming innocent civilians with relative impunity.

I would recommend to any person over the age of 12 that they read Dr. Phillip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect. It focuses on the Stanford Prison Experiment, but he spends a lot of time on the Abu Gharib debacle, and points out that those leading tortu-I mean interrogations, who never saw the inside of a courtroom, were privately contracted spies.

The Mad Max-esque heroes you seem to be envisioning in your little fantasy world who save the day by slaughtering all of the (fictitious) zombies - for a price - are nothing at all like real-world mercs. The real thing is really more like pre-911 movie terrorists - they slaughter innocents to get rich.

I am putting up mad-esque scenarios because I find people usually find themselves sympathizing a lot more with a scenario when a short story helps them imagine themselves in said situation.

I do not believe Mercenaries are some sort of super-heroes, that's stupid as hell. I'm merely siding with them to further expand the discussion value of this thread, seeing as most people who are pro-PMC/Mercenaries are just saying they WOULD join, while people against are being a bit more vocal about it. Trying to even the scale up.

And hey, war isn't a pretty fairy tale, nowadays there's a lot of ground rules and such. But when it comes down to it you are fighting for some reason, I can assure you that not everyone, hell, probably not even half of the people in the actual army are patriots or such. Many people just join for a steady paycheck and even having nothing better to do. So ripping on Mercenaries because "They kill to get rich." Is not only insulting to Mercenaries, it's also insulting to the army. Because at the end of the day, it's still their job.

What, do you think the army doesn't kill anyone? Mercenaries just usually prioritize their lives and their purse more than loyalty, and if that includes killing civilians which often hid or even helped terrorists in an array of ways, specially if they had genuine reasons to believe they were a threat (For instance had weapons?). So I wouldn't bat an eye if I heard that a mercenary got his balls blown off, but I don't react like a major outrage has happened when an innocent life is lost in a WAR. Besides, more civilians died in one day when the US carpet bombed entire cities than the whole mercenary innocent-kill count for the whole war.

Well, since you prefaced all of that with a big ol' "I don't actually believe any of this," I'll take it as you playing devil's advocate. So here we go:

If you truly believe that the murderers for hire we call mercenaries are on the same moral level as the troops who stormed Normandy, then we have to include all hitmen and in fact all murderers. That means that William Wallace, George Washington and Alexander were on the same level as John Wayne Gacy, which is preposterous.

The carpet bombing example refers to the US government carpet bombing cities. It was not necessary or just and there are numerous groups attempting to outlaw carpet bombing and cluster munitions and mines. George W. Bush, or more to the point his bosses, are murderers. The soldiers were doing what they were told. Innocent life was lost, but that kind of collateral damage isn't the same as the human rights violations that occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan and here at home - The Patriot Act, Abu Gharib, Gitmo, FISA expansions, et al. The comparison is broken. Mercs don't just disregard what collateral human toll is taken during their murder, they HAVE no governing authority except their bosses, who are mercs themselves. So again: fuck 'em. Oh, and you can't buy me.

"Everybody has a price."

No, just every cynic.

 

[Hitokiri_Gensai]

*looks at the wall of weapons and large stacks of cash on her shelf* wait, i had to have a circumstance? Well, considering that the government still has the ability to grant a "letter of marque and reprisal" which gives the right of privateering, maybe if it was a government type circumstance.

For anyone who doesnt know, privateering is essentially state sponsored piracy. During the Revolutionary War, it was extremely common for both sides to have privateers under their command. New London, Connecticut was one of the major ports for privateers under the Colonies, while Halifax, Nova Scotia was the main port of privateering for the British. After the revolution, privateers continued to thrive all the way to the Civil War. A somewhat less known privateer, or atleast privateer sponsor, was Benjamin Franklin, who owned a ship known as the Black Prince, which he bought while he was the Ambassador to France.

Although the government sill has the right to issue a letter of marque, the United States signed the Declaration of Paris in 1856 which outlawed the use of Privateers. So while the US has it still listed as a power of Congress, its a war crime in both US law and International Law.