The exclusive reliance by the U.S. and its "coalition of the willing" on force without legal legitimacy or redress, and their increasing use of unaccountable mercenaries (now referred to as "private military contractors") rather than regular armed forces to project this force, make it very difficult for the West to condemn the actions of lawless and morally corrupt regimes like Mugabe's, al-Bashir's, etc.
The insistence by U.S. and British mercenaries like Blackwater, KBR and Aegis (and by extension the governments that use them) that there's a difference because they employ former U.S. and British military personnel and are therefore the good guys is in this regard (a) factually false because they also employ former military personnel from other countries, including Chile and South Africa; and (b) a prime example of circular reasoning: we believe we're the good guys and therefore we are the good guys who deserve the benefit of the doubt. And this belief is shared by the people who employ them. As U.S. Brigadier General Karl Horst put it in a recent interview with Salon.com about mercenaries that are employed by the U.S. in Iraq:
"These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force."It's high time that we put the use of mercenaries back on the list of morally repugnant acts that includes piracy, using cluster bombs, and scattering land mines.
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