What is your opinion of Blackwater and soldiers of fortune in general?

Are paid professionals better than draftees or volunteers?

What is your opinion of Blackwater and soldiers of fortune in general?
What most of you do not realize is that the Blackwater Contractors are for the most part ex Special Forces (SF, SEAL, etc...) They are getting paid 150k a year to do what they were doing for less than 50K a year...what would you do? Plus they get many more benefits that they did not get in the Military (Six months in country, One month paid leave home {to include airfare} and then five months back in country) That is the main reason the Military has raised their Re-Enlistment Bonuses for SF to 150K...to get hired by Blackwater you have to have been at least an Infantryman, Medic, or SWAT, but they prefer SF...so at one time or another they were volunteers, who found a way to make money for their families...seeing that the Billy Bob cut many of their benefits while he was in office...
Reply:They're mercenaries. They only care about money.
Reply:They are needed and do the job
Reply:And when they return to a peace loving country, perhaps they wouldn't mind working as High School principals, it would be a nice example.
Reply:Blackwater hasn't lost a client as of yet.
Reply:I agree with Zardoz. Using mercenaries to fight our wars is just another way of getting private industry to do things that really should be done by the government.





I understand why some people might accept a job as a mercenary, but that doesn't excuse it. They are loyal only to whoever pays the highest. If Saudi Arabia, say, offered them a higher salary, they'd be working for the Saudis in a heartbeat and Blackwater could kiss them goodbye.
Reply:Superfluous money-loving killers.
Reply:Other than the cost, I don't get the liberal angst about paid professionals...ON the one hand they complain about "our boys and girls" (even though they volunteered) having to fight a war, so we hire some professionals, and that's bad too...I say do what works.
Reply:I don't think the country can afford to pay members of our mercenary "army" like blackwater $150,000 a year tax free.


I know a guy near 60 years old who was a college cop that's doing it.





If our country needs to fight a war there should be a draft. Either the people support the war or not. We shouldn't hire mercenaries.
Reply:Blackwater--and any other mercenaries--are hired killers. They are a disgrace and should be disbanded immediately.
Reply:They Sully the great reputation that the A-Team created. This would have never happened if they Had, BA, Murdoch, Faceman and Hannibal. Also aren't our Volenteer Military Paid Proffesionals. Much of the Blackwater and these other groups are just Ex Military.
Reply:They're great. They don't have the bindings that the US puts on it's military. They know if someone stands in front of an enemy, they are themselves an enemy and should be shot in order to kill the enemy and the radical Muslims we are fighting has had a very long history of human shields.