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[hteng]

A heavily religious and heavily armed loon in the middle-east. What could possibly go wrong?

war... proxy wars

 

[Lamel]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one who thought MGS4. This is scary and badass at the same time.

Actually had this playing in my head though

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k3n5me4Rns&feature=related

 

[slider]

The history of dodgy PMCs is really interesting. Sandline is the most interesting IMO.

 

[News Bot]

I never thought the MGS story would become realistic...

Kojima gets a lot of his ideas from shit that is known, but not widely or even that far along yet. See; exoskeletons, nanomachines, etc. The whole PMC and mercenary issue is pretty old.

 

[NEO0MJ]

Kojima gets a lot of his ideas from shit that is known, but not widely or even that far along yet. See; exoskeletons, nanomachines, etc. The whole PMC and mercenary issue is pretty old.

Don't forget Railgun!

 

[Chichikov]

I only hope that when those idiots eventually get way over their heads we don't spend American tax dollars or risk American lives to bail greedy asses.
No seriously, you think a government can rely on foreign mercenaries forever? did no one over there read about the fall of the Roman empire?
Enjoy your blood money while it last.

Also, this worth calling out -

One document describes “crowd-control operations” where the crowd “is not armed with firearms but does pose a risk using improvised weapons (clubs and stones).”​

Stay classy.

 

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Chances are Rhodesia's foreign soldiers (whom weren't straight up mercenaries) were of considerably better moral character than Prince.

Yeah, I doubt that.

 

[Funky Papa]

Yeah, I doubt that.

I've talked to enough Rhodies to make my own opinion. Rhodesia's foreign soldiers were no angels, but as far as I know their relatively meager pay was in Rhodesian dollars (read: worthless in any other part of the world)* and most of them were in for their fierce dislike towards communism (which explained the presence of many Vietnam veterans).

Prince... Prince has no values, right or wrong.

*edit: conditions changed with the war, but still, their wages were nowhere Blackwater levels and there was an important ideological element.

 

[SouthernDragon]

The strangest thing of all is that he probably doesn't see himself as the villain.

Which he totally is.

 

[joseph1594]

Who wants to bet that the main operations these mercenaries conduct is to gun down the country they are in's own people? As by the crowd control line, I am guessing so. Middle Eastern and North African countries are going to flocking to this as a way to maintain their grip on power. I personally find the idea of mercenaries sickening.

 

[KingK]

I know it's been said already, but goddamn, the MGS4 opening popped right into my head while reading that.

I actually feel like going back to play the game now, lol.

 

[water_wendi]

The strangest thing of all is that he probably doesn't see himself as the villain.

Which he totally is.

Nobody thinks of themselves as the villain.

 

[Snake]

Hahahaha OMG play this in the background and read the article again imagining Campbell or Snake saying it.

This works all too well.

 

[RustyNails]

One last job.

Metal Gear Solid 5: Fall of Patriots

 

[movie_club]

MUST READ

 

[Ether_Snake]

An army of remorseless rapists with nothing to lose.

PMCs should be illegal under international law. A dirty nuke will probably one day end up being made thanks to their work. They only care about money.

 

[numble]

State Department is looking into them now:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4144461c-7f20-11e0-b239-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1MSiR795G

“The department is aware of the R2 venture and is currently looking into it to make sure there are no potential International Traffic in Arms Regulations concerns,” a state department spokesman confirmed on Sunday. The regulations govern the sale of defence services as well as defence equipment.

Members of the new force have been trained since last summer by former special forces soldiers from the US, South Africa and European countries in a camp outside Abu Dhabi, the newspaper said.

“There have been a lot of rumours and a lot of conjecture that there would be some type of additional security force for the UAE,” said Theodore Karasik, director of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

“There are many former military personnel who are now retired and are looking for new sources of employment. Private security companies are being set up throughout the region.”

However, the establishment of the R2 force raises the question of whether American-led foreign soldiers could be used to subdue local political unrest, such as the pro-democracy movements in neighbouring Bahrain.

 

[vordhosbn]

Blackwater just sounds evil too, is this for real?

 

[Salazar]

What makes you say that? The family lawyer, Joseph Schmitz, is openly a Carlist/Straussian.

I wasn't sniggering at the proposition; I was sniggering at Prince.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

History repeating itself, modern media holds todays soldier accountable for their crimes.

These guys though just don't give a fuck, reading about some the shit they're doing you'd think we were back in the 30 years war.

 

[Raistlin]

Holy shit, this dude is like movie or comic book super villain level.

 

[akira28]

First pirates and now mercenaries, the world is going backwards pretty fast.

Bring back brothels and women with those low cut dresses that show off awesome cleavage. And every man gets a sword.

Nevertheless, this song still creeped into your head.

dat Tuvani throat singing.

The problem is this. Erik Prince is the guy the saying 'keep your enemies closer' was made for. A an do fella who isn't against questionable practices for money? With high powered friends, billions of dollars, and a super high military clearance? I mean, the sort of fella we'd have to kill if he ever appeared to "turncoat"?

Now he's taking all of that to offer up to the global community? Which is kind of worse than the wild west, in case that doesn't normally make it past your media censors?

 

[Azrael]

LOL, Desmond should face this guy as the big bad in Assassin's Creed 3.

 

[Extollere]

War... War never changes,

War has changed...

...Did it change?

No.

 

[Trojita]

Watch the foreign troops go rogue and take over the UAE.

 

[El Sloth]

This guy is scum:

Haha, my god. The dude is like a movie villain. Completely unlikable.

 

[ItAintEasyBeinCheesy]

Haters

Might hate what he's doing but fuck, pretty impressive.

 

[GDGF]

 

[Operations]

The guy's such a perfect Bond villain.

 

[akira28]

Haters

Might hate what he's doing but fuck, pretty impressive.

You can spend time being impressed, I'll spend mine being disgusted.

 

[quaere]

Seems like a bad idea in the event of civil unrest. If you don't trust your own military and bring in mercenaries what reason does the military have to not flip sides and overthrow the government?

 

[davepoobond]

the middle east just attracts nutcases, wtf is it with that place

 

[LQX]

The world needs a new super villain.

 

[evil solrac v3.0]

Big Boss dream .......

 

[Al-ibn Kermit]

the middle east just attracts nutcases, wtf is it with that place

He's not a nutcase, he's a libertarian.

 

[Phoenix]

I'm surprised that people are surprised. These guys have been pulling a Metal Gear Solid for quite some time now - especially since they move much of their operations off-shore. For goodness sakes, they are building their own military vehicles now!

They own a lot of military equipment, several retired US naval trawlers and last I heard were looking to purchase several coast guard cutter type vessels.

 

[ItAintEasyBeinCheesy]

They where interested in buying ships/boats to provide private security for commercial and cruise ships from pirates around Somalia and shit. Good business.

You can buy second hand APC's for yourself if you want........... not guns though.

 

[Steelrain]

Fuck man. He needs to hire me!

 

[SmokyDave]

Can't really see a problem. They're no more or less accountable than most nations and probably no more or less corrupt. They should invade the principality of Sealand and become their official army to give them a sheen of legitimacy.

At least these guys might be able to deal with the piracy issue.

Edit: As an aside, from the Mike Hoare wiki:

The fighting started prematurely when one of Hoare's men accidentally got in the something to declare line and the customs officer insisted on searching his bag. The rifles were well-concealed in the false-bottomed kitbags but for some reason the rifle was found and the customs man, running from the scene, sounded the alarm. One of Hoare's men pulled his own, disassembled AK-47 from the concealed compartment in the luggage, assembled it, loaded it and shot the escaping customs man before he could reach the other side of the building.

Utterly evil but pretty fucking cool (I have no idea how long it takes to assemble and load an AK47 though).

 

[jorma]

Utterly evil but pretty fucking cool (I have no idea how long it takes to assemble and load an AK47 though).

The only cool part was this

His face ashen, Hoare, 63, slumped in his chair in a Pietermaritzburg courtroom as Judge Neville James found him and 42 fellow mercenaries guilty of airplane hijacking and sentenced Mad Mike to ten years in prison.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925646,00.html#ixzz1MVRtv8kC

He got lucky though, compared to the soldiers he left behind:

Last month four of Hoare's soldiers of fortune who were left behind in the Seychelles were convicted of treason by René's government. They are under sentence of death by hanging.

 

[MaddenNFL64]

So if he proves his batallion successful he will get a new training facility & thousands more under his command. Crazy.

 

[Dead Man]

Mercenaries worked out so well in Africa in the 70's and 80's can't imagine what will go wrong here...

 

[Binabik15]

There are mercenaries involved in African wars since forever. For example Mad Mike.

It might me not full blown MGS4 or even Blackwter in Iraq level, but in an ooold magazine article (Spiegel, if someone cares), there was a report about European mercs dogfighting each others in old Russian and European planes on behalf of different militias, warlords and governments. Crazy stuff.


I guess it´s true: The most valuable skill you learn in any army is to kill people dead. (semi accurate World War Z quote )

Not the same article I was looking for, but here´s one in German:

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-30748429.html

Talks about Executive Outcomes (which doesn´t sound awesome at all, right?) involement in Sierra Leone stopping a revolutionary warband. They had tanks, attack helicopters and all. 160 mercs.

Also, this

Im Kongo, dem früheren Zaire, hatten alle Bürgerkriegsparteien private MilitärFirmen engagiert. Die französische PMF Geolink konnte allerdings die Niederlage von Diktator Sese Mobutu gegen seinen Rivalen Laurent Kabila nicht verhindern. Kabila wiederum stützte sich, als er in Bedrängnis geriet, auf EO-Spezialisten. Seine Gegner, ehemalige Mobutu-Anhänger sowie die Nachbarstaaten Ruanda und Uganda, heuerten die Firma Stabilco und ein anderes südafrikanisches Unternehmen an. Avient, ein US-Team, führte Luftschläge für Simbabwe aus, einen weiteren Teilnehmer am großen zentralafrikanischen Krieg.

In Kongo everyone had PMCs hired. Mobutu had the French PMC Geolink, his opponent Kabila had Executive Outcomes, others parties involved includiding Ruanda and Uganda hired two PMCs, Stabilco and an unamed one. Simbabwe had a US PMC carrying out airstrikes.

The party Unita from Angola hired Ukrainian mercs which supplied them with MiG-27 and MiG-21 airplanes, Mi-24-helicopters and pilots in exchange for oil licenses.


This shit is sooo crazy.

 

[Utako]

I'm telling you, this is going to be the next big problem... Corporate, mercenary armies who engage in wars for profit, and even have large interests on keeping them going to keep their revenue up.

And everything is controlled, because war has changed?

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I never thought the MGS story would become realistic...

It isn't.

 

[badcrumble]

He's not a nutcase, he's a libertarian.

-the two terms are not mutually exclusive
-lol, Erik Prince is not a libertarian, trust me

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

I still have the book "Blackwater" which I bought after seeing the author on The Daily Show. I need to read it...

 

[Warrior_Keoni]

This is some eye-opening news indeed...

 

[Lance Bone Path]

I think this is basically the premise of Tom Clancy's HAWX whose story I had regarded as preposterous. I won't hold its story against it any longer, although I still don't like the game that much.

 

[sparky2112]

Prince is a scumbag.