Who in the West is forced to become mercenary? You must not assign to that kind of job, nobody forces you. You are free to look for something else. If you do that job, than you do it voluntarily.

Imagine if the police would give you a riot suit, a baton and a tazer for £100
every time they went out to watch over a protest.

Those who are paid to be police, mercenaries, navy sailors, etc are not
generally interested in killing/thwacking anyone they don't need to. The same
can't be said of someone who has paid to shoot at/baton/etc. people.

They do some times, though they are usually paid for such help and not paying. Deputy Marshall.

-S

I don't see it as hunting human beings. You're going on a cruise where human beings are likely to be hunting you.

The Somali pirates don't hunt people - they hunt the cargo on ships. They only kill people on very rare occasions, when things go wrong.

You're right, but I think the distinction is only elementary. They often hold the crews hostage for ransom - which means that they are hunting people, in a sense.

But they'd avoid getting shot by such vacationers altogether if they simply stopped pirating, so the onus is on them.

A policeman does not look forward to shoot somebody, but he hopes he can prevent circumstances were people get shot at. He is ready to shoot at somebody, though (at least he should be). but he is not after it.

The soldier or navymean must take into account much greater probability that he needs to shot at others. His motivation to accept that chance has to do with a wish to serve and or protect hic country, to put it simple.

The mercanery does usually does not fight to protect a country, he fights for the fee he is payed. If the paymenet is right, he shoots. If the payment is not right, he leaves. Ideals, patriotism and altruism have nothign to do with it - it is about money. It is a payed job.

Ceasar, Napolean and several other names in history had very low opinions of mercenaries for the reason that these accepted to volunteer for the madness of masskilling other people for no other motivation than getting money for it.

Mercenaries are not accepted to be regular combatants by international law. They are not protected by the legal status of "prisoner of war", and in case of being captured are treated as oridnary civilians who raised weapons against the victor (for which they can be executed right in place). American, Austrian and Swiss law threatens any national who offers his armed service to another nation with loss of his citizenship. In Germany, recruiting Germans for service in a non-German armed service is under penalty.

I know you were joking about the navy by subscription, but I like the way you merged concepts, very clever. :salute:

Should that make us feeling relief? When pirates attack ships, then things are going wrong for sure.

Yeah, and you're in a position to fight back.

I don't understand: what concepts you mean?

About the navy by subscription, solves the problem of having a navy and paying for it.

Quite so.

Unlike all these people, the person who pays to hunt pirates does look
froward to shooting someone and that is their motivation.

Exactly. So who's at fault - the attacker or the defender?

What an interesting premise it is to seek a fight but not start one.

Did you consider that they are paying to help stem the problem of piracy, and THAT may be their motivation?

How often is it that the average person can take an international matter into their hands?

Yes, I did.
See post #4 of this thread.

I did read that.

I phrased the question poorly. How about this: did you ever consider that they were paying to actually DO something about the international problem of piracy, rather than just to kill people?

A Soldier or Policeman signs up for that very job for the 'action'. People leave the service because of that lack of action. So I don't buy your skewed logic.

BTW, they should be paying these vacationers. That would be more appropriate.

-S

Which for us means dead pirates. Good for us, since our navies and politicians don't get it done, and our companies pay ransom to help fostering the pirate problem and rearm it and strengthen it and increase it's zone of infection.

Killing for money or killing for fun for me does not make much of a difference. It's both offsprings of the same spirit. Those tourists and those pirates I also differ on a superficial level only. The one have money, the others want money. Both give a damn for other people's life. Let them go at each other's throat.

Live with it, Letum, the pirates will not go away if you pay them money, and you won't solve the porblem if oyu do not get your hands dirty. If one would have targetted them with all consequence last summer, it would have been a less bloody mess than if you target them now.

As long as Western nations accept private mercenary companies to which their national military can outsource, neither will I object to bloodtourism - nor do I wish to have personal relations to people booking such tours. I just make pragmatic use of them. Fair enough, although maybe not polite.

There would be no need to do so if politicians in the West would get their acts together. The pirate problem already could be a problem of the past today, if only they would have. But still they don't.

If that where the case then why hire "special forces" to watch over you as
you shoot at people?
Why not donate the money instead to an anti-piracy program that isn't there
for tourists?

SB: You are a moral void. I can but rank you with other such people.