Thursday, November 6, 2008
Hardest of the Hardcore
“The Hardest of the Hardcore,” certainly opens the eyes of anyone who reads it and isn’t aware of the current situation in Iraq with the US government contracting out military jobs to private civilians. The writer, student Dylan Fujitani, does a great job of persuading, at least myself, that this is a real problem. These ‘mercenaries,’ the he calls them, are terrible for several reasons including that they don’t have to answer to anyone. Their only potential repercussions for misconduct are financial. He gives numerous reasons why these hired guns are bad for the country, the government, and our mission in Iraq. One major problem I see with his entire argument is he is painting with too broad a brush. Fujitani is basically accusing every civilian contractor in battle of being a rogue ‘cowboy’ out to do harm to the people of Iraq. Apparently they do this only because either they were discharged from the military before or simply seek monetary gains by playing shoot-em-up with innocent people. Every civilian contractor in battle is a blood-thirsty, money hungry cavalier with a shady past according to Fujitani. He pays almost no attention to the good they may doing in Iraq or possibly their necessity or the fact that they may actually be good people. I for one have a little more, potentially misplaced but still steadfast, confidence in the intention in Iraq and the heart of the men fighting there.
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2 comments:
I couldn't agree more with your statement that he fails to see all the good that they are doing over there. To me, it doesn't matter if they are organized military or hired "mercenaries" if they are helping our cause. To me, it seems that if these people being hired out are well trained former special services soldiers, then they may be even more effective than the military. It is true that they may have a bit more freedom to do what they want, but they are still bound by their contracts and their own sense of right and wrong (which is probably important to a military trained soldier). Also, in a war atmosphere, perhaps having a little bit of freedom will allow them to work more effectively. Just a thought.
I agree with you very much when you talk about the good that they are doing over in Iraq and how you still have confidence in the soldiers that are fighting over there. I think that Dylan only talks about the problems that are occuring and he doesn't do a great job of looking at counterarguments as well. He states that mercenaries have a lot of freedom but sometimes I don't think that is always a bad thing and I believe that it could help them in the future. I agree with many of your points in this blog.
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