The Problem with a Mercenary Army

The Problem with Mercenary Army. My father taught me about why we had a draft when I grew up. He said the problem is that a professional army sometimes, especially in places like Africa, South America and Southeast Asia tends to put its own interests above the people of that nation.
So, he told me that America had a draft so that the Army would stay loyal to the people of the nation and not its own special interests. Though I support the permanent end of the draft I also see what my father was talking about. Both the American Military and the American and World Military Industrial complex have similar interests. Those interests are that they get enough money to stay in business. So if there aren't any real wars then wars must be manufactured through political propaganda so that the Military and the American and World Military Industrial Complex can stay in business and get enough money to keep going and growing.

President Eisenhower gave a speech when he left office as President of the United States warning the american people and the world the dangers of leaving the military industrial complex intact after World War II. And as I have said a Professional military and the military industrial complex have mutual interests and this can be bad for the general public as Eisenhower warned.

Now we are dealing with mercenaries who work for companies like Blackwater that as of now only answer to their corporate heads or the highest bidder whoever that may be. Though individual mercenaries might individually or collectively owe allegiance to the United States or Europe or whatever country they hail from in the end they owe their allegiance to whoever is paying them. And who is usually paying them is not a country but a multinational mercenary corporation whose loyalty is ultimately to its own profit bottom line and to any stockholders investing in their company. Any companies that don't function this way don't stay in business very long. So ultimately no corporation actually owes its final allegiance to any one country. It only owes its allegiance to whomever helps it stay in business.

For any of you who have a business background out there you know this is just common sense and a part of the pragmatic reality necessary to be in business and to stay in business.

So now we have a whole new kind of mercenary for the world to deal with who is unaccountable to any nation state as of now. They seem to function in a sort of no man's land that organizations like the CIA and the NSA and others function in worldwide. Nothing is actually what it appears to be so no facts can actually be ultimately trusted. For that is always the basic nature of clandestine activities worldwide.

It appears to me that the Iraq war may be winding down just out of pure emotional exhaustion of all the major players in it. The only ones that don't presently appear to be exhausted are Iran, Israel and Syria. Most players like the United States appear to be moving to a new strategy. What it is I can't really say at present. I'm not sure anyone else outside of a government think tank knows the coming strategy either.