So a volunteer, then. But what if he is paid expenses? Can he expense luncheons? If he furnishes his own weapon, can he charge for leasing it to the worthies?
Without income, can he "assign" his expenses as collateral support and depreciated means?
I shall petition the UN to sort this.
Thinking of a Khashoggi Style leaseback for troops. I'll call it....
Oh....Blackwater: And the ANTHEM shall be: The DOOBIE BROTHERS.
Never understood all the fuss about mercenaries. War is a nasty business any way you cut it. Those who truly believe in a cause are, if anything, more likely to commit atrocities than someone who is just making a buck.
Surely the difference between being a Soldier and a Mercenary is, a Soldier is a official signed up member of a nations Armed Forces owing loyalty and obedience to that Nation and a Mercenary is a freelance with no official status who's obedience and loyalty can be bought by any tom dick or harry with the cash to do so..
Oh....Blackwater: And the ANTHEM shall be: The DOOBIE BROTHERS
Which song would that be? "Listen to the music"?
I think its fair enough if PMCs who operate outwith the likes of the Geneva Convention are in turn denied its protection. If you give no quarter, you should expect none in return.
.......The judgment quoted the 1958 ICRC commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention: Every person in enemy hands must be either a prisoner of war and, as such, be covered by the Third Convention; or a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention. Furthermore, "There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law,".......
The 1958 commentary takes precedent over the 1949 one then...
Well there's the rub. How many soldiers in nations which use the draft really don't want to be in the army? I'm thinking of third world countries whose residents want nothing more than to leave their homeland, not defend it. For that matter, how many traitors have there been throughout history, many times glorified depending on who won and got to write the history? How many American soldiers in the last decade have volunteered and then changed their minds and went AWOL? Or how about the soldier who volunteers, sees action and decides he likes killing, so he re-enlists just for the fun of it, rather than from any sense of patriotism? How about all the fools throughout history who have followed evil, charismatic leaders into combat? My point is, there are too many variables; I won't judge a man merely for treating war as a profession.
Okay, as there is some dissensions in the ranks here, so to speak.
Going mostly from memory, so I could be wrong, but at least one-quarter (1/4) of the forces fielded by the British were Hessians in the American Revolution.
Also, any Hessian was promised fifty (50) acres of land if they changed sides and I believe, again going by memory, that Hessian Officers were promised 200 acres of land if they changed to the America Rebels side.
Okay, I'll fess up, I double checked and I'm mostly correct, except for the Hessian Officers being promised 200 acres, I cannot confirm that. Also there were an estimated 5,000 Hessians that remained in America after the war for various reasons, one being which was that they were mostly abandoned there by the British when the British pulled out.
I cannot find anything that shows that Hessians, as a group or offical unit, were paid to fight on the American Rebel's side. So if anyone has anything that shows they were, I'd be very interested in see that information. I should think it would be very interesting. Thank you in advance.
Now, if all 5,000 Hessian received 50 acres of land each, I don't know. I would guess that many did.
We should have sussed that Geordie Washington as a trouble maker when he single handedly kicked off the Seven Years war with the French in our American Colonies when he was a Officer in the British Army. Mind you we never needed much of a excuse to scuffle with the French.
We should have sussed that Geordie Washington as a trouble maker when he single handedly kicked off the Seven Years war with the French in our American Colonies when he was a Officer in the British Army.
We have a little creep down here called David Hicks who served time in Guantanamo bay before being returned to Australia, having admitted his treachery. Now the Greens, the Huggies and the left side of journalism are treating him as some kind of hero! He is lucky it was US soldiers who found him in Afghanistan and not the Australian SAS.
Ah, yes, Mr. Hicks, he of the "symbolic exchange of gunfire" euphemisms.
The darling of the human rights intellectual set because he was so harshly(?) treated at Gitmo without having actually, really, technically broken any "laws" per se...
They should perhaps ask Margaret Hassan about the protection of "the law"...
My opinion... Having "Rules of war" just shows how immoral the whole thing is... if you want to (and even conscripts in the west have a choice) murder people then accept the consequences. As for the previous comments about David Hicks... What rock have you been living under for the last six years as the truth about all this has come out? We have our own creeps here too... they are traitors to our country and put their allegiance to the United States of Terror before the rights and lives of their own country men.
Re Hicks not having broken any Australian law?Seem to remember in late 70s or early 80s Fraser .( He of cosy aquaintance of Mugabe)passed into law the Foreign Incursions Act ,designed to prevent Australian citizens joining and fighting with foreign armies .This initially at least to stop Aussies going to fight for that bloody monster Ian Smith in Rhodesia.I dont know if tis has been repealed or not but to me.at least this would apply to Hicks. Re Rhodesia Mal Fraser good call,Im just thankful you are not in the position to repeat the favour
Last edited by bob johns; 28th Aug 2011 at 03:42.
Reason: remove .wor
Going back to the 2nd World War there were the American pilots that volunteered to fly for the British in the same way that their predecessors had volunteered to fight for tha Chinese. With the fall of the countries of Europe their goverments surrendered to the Germans. Therefore all citizens of those countries should have obeyed their govenment's dictat and ceased offensive operations and not proceed to the United Kingdom to continue the fight. Technically all those were mercenaries but whose side you are on tends to define that especially if your side wins. In the same vein what about the thousands of Irish that have signed up for the British Forces.
