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This has been a known bad idea since 1505.
Amidst scrutiny on Blackwater USA’s lawless operations in Iraq, I keep coming back to one point. Blackwater’s website claims that the number of private contractors in Iraq is the same as the number of US military personnel.
But let’s get things straight. Anyone who carries a gun for hire is a mercenary. And the first and only thing anyone should read when you are dealing with mercenaries is Chapters XII of Machiavelli’s The Prince. Appropriately, Blackwater’s CEO’s name is Eric Prince.
I want to organize people to send copies of The Prince to every member of Congress with Chapter XII bookmarked. Bush should get one too. And one to Eric Prince for good luck. We cannot use mercenaries to be successful anywhere in any war. It was true in 1505, and it’s true in 2007.
Some relevant excerpts:
Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but if war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe…And as they were the sins of princes, it is the princes who have also suffered the penalty.I wish to demonstrate further the infelicity of these arms.
The mercenary captains are either capable men or they are not; if they are, you cannot trust them, because they always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their master, or others contrary to your intentions; but if the captain is not skilful, you are ruined in the usual way.
And if it be urged that whoever is armed will act in the same way, whether mercenary or not, I reply that when arms have to be resorted to, either by a prince or a republic, then the prince ought to go in person and perform the duty of captain; the republic has to send its citizens, and when one is sent who does not turn out satisfactorily, it ought to recall him, and when one is worthy, to hold him by the laws so that he does not leave the command. And experience has shown princes and republics, single-handed, making the greatest progress, and mercenaries doing nothing except damage; and it is more difficult to bring a republic, armed with its own arms, under the sway of one of its citizens than it is to bring one armed with foreign arms.
And one additional quote from Chapter XIII to wrap up this discussion:
I conclude, therefore, that no principality is secure without having its own forces; on the contrary, it is entirely dependent on good fortune, not having the valour which in adversity would defend it. And it has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain or unstable as fame or power not founded on its own strength. And one’s own forces are those which are composed either of subjects, citizens, or dependants; all others are mercenaries or auxiliaries
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