Eliminatus said:

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aTmAg said:

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Eliminatus said:

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aTmAg said:

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Nothing "sobering" about it. If CIA is ordered by the president to kill an enemy combatant, then it's no different than the president ordering the army to kill that same combatant. Whether or not the people doing the killing are full time employees with benefits or contract employees makes ZERO difference.

Foreigners in other countries are not granted ANY Constitutional protection by the US government. We pay the American government a crapload of taxes to protect AMERICANS. Not to protect foreigners and certainly not foreign combatants trying to kill Americans.

The US government should do whatever it takes to best protect Americans. If torture did work, then we should ABSOLUTELY torture, and I would order the torture 1000 Al Queda fighters to save the life of one American. Lucky for you, torture doesn't work, so you don't have to clutch pearls anymore.

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Simmer down, lad. Didn't mean to spin you into a tizzy. And you clearly misunderstood my post.

My point is the government finally legalized to have PMCs imbued with the full powers of the US government. If you can't tell the difference between that and sworn US government officers then we are at a fundamental standoff.

My issue is the lack of accountability grows stronger and strengthens the "shadow army" that many are uncomfortable with. The guardrails on these companies and their actions to date was already paper thin as it were and only were enforced when it blew up spectacularly on camera. And these companies are responsible for so much more than enacting out your fantasy of torturing AQ fighters. Well, they were in that time frame but took a back seat after all the controversies they were in. They have been steadily creeping back into power though and with this new ruling, gives them even more power that they, ostensibly at least, ever had.

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Lad? I'm probably older than you.

The difference between PMCs and "sworn US government officers" is that PMCs are easy to fire. Government employees are nearly impossible. There was a room full of slackers at CIA who did nothing but read the paper (or browse the internet) all day because they were so hard to fire. There is a good reason PMCs exist.

Your "sobering" concern is bogus.

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This is such an incredibly narrow and simplistic view that I am not going to bother trying to dispute it. It's one of those times you see someone say something and you just stare at them, knowing they are just flat out wrong and ignorant about it but shrugging it off because it's not worth the energy or care.

We have fundamentally different bases here it seems, so agree to disagree.

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aTmAg said:

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Eliminatus said:

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aTmAg said:

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Eliminatus said:

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aTmAg said:

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Nothing "sobering" about it. If CIA is ordered by the president to kill an enemy combatant, then it's no different than the president ordering the army to kill that same combatant. Whether or not the people doing the killing are full time employees with benefits or contract employees makes ZERO difference.

Foreigners in other countries are not granted ANY Constitutional protection by the US government. We pay the American government a crapload of taxes to protect AMERICANS. Not to protect foreigners and certainly not foreign combatants trying to kill Americans.

The US government should do whatever it takes to best protect Americans. If torture did work, then we should ABSOLUTELY torture, and I would order the torture 1000 Al Queda fighters to save the life of one American. Lucky for you, torture doesn't work, so you don't have to clutch pearls anymore.

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Simmer down, lad. Didn't mean to spin you into a tizzy. And you clearly misunderstood my post.

My point is the government finally legalized to have PMCs imbued with the full powers of the US government. If you can't tell the difference between that and sworn US government officers then we are at a fundamental standoff.

My issue is the lack of accountability grows stronger and strengthens the "shadow army" that many are uncomfortable with. The guardrails on these companies and their actions to date was already paper thin as it were and only were enforced when it blew up spectacularly on camera. And these companies are responsible for so much more than enacting out your fantasy of torturing AQ fighters. Well, they were in that time frame but took a back seat after all the controversies they were in. They have been steadily creeping back into power though and with this new ruling, gives them even more power that they, ostensibly at least, ever had.

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Lad? I'm probably older than you.

The difference between PMCs and "sworn US government officers" is that PMCs are easy to fire. Government employees are nearly impossible. There was a room full of slackers at CIA who did nothing but read the paper (or browse the internet) all day because they were so hard to fire. There is a good reason PMCs exist.

Your "sobering" concern is bogus.

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This is such an incredibly narrow and simplistic view that I am not going to bother trying to dispute it. It's one of those times you see someone say something and you just stare at them, knowing they are just flat out wrong and ignorant about it but shrugging it off because it's not worth the energy or care.

We have fundamentally different bases here it seems, so agree to disagree.

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Well I worked at CIA so there's that. You simply don't know what you are talking about.

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