It’s true that Machiavelli observed that mercenaries are useless and dangerous, as Paul Krugman writes in Friday’s Times.
It’s also true that there are thousand of mercenaries operating in Iraq outside the rule of law. (I haven’t read anything about mercenaries in Afghanistan, but it’s fair to assume that they operate there as well.)
It wasn’t too long ago that it was reported that Gazprom, the Russian oil- and gas- company has received the green light to organize a security force to protect among other things pipelines.
These days it’s doubtful if a regular army is more motivated than mercenaries.
But the privatization of armed forces is a fact.
As the fighters against poverty need poverty in order to stay alive, the forces protecting us against terrorists at airports, shopping malls, in deserts in Iraq, on the streets of our big cities, need a threat in order to explain their presence and to defend their right to sniff in our bank accounts, e-mails and credit card statements.
Now I have nothing against sniffing in my credit card statements. As of 2008, with the help of my personal assistant Johannes, I’ll publish my credit card statements. People have a right to know what I’m doing, and how I spend my money and if I might go in the near future for a massage with a happy ending not only the state but also my dear readers are entitled to know all about it.
(When I pay with my credit card that is.)