You appear so polarised I don't think you can even point in the general direction of truth most of the time when it comes to politics.

August delivers.:yeah:
Now all thats need is the republican candidate for those particular small town voters saying its true to really demonstrate how you are unable to locate the truth.
After all the republcans are lining up to say their candidate screwed up by spewing that 47% nonsense. While the Republcasn candidate said Obama was right about the god and guns.

The tax level is not as much a problem as the government spending.

People love to attack SS and medicare, but ignore the 700 billion dollar elephant in the room.

The military industrial complex.

That is what I would like to see adressed, and not halfhearted stuff either, like a minimum 30% reduction over 5 years.

Stop using 1000$ an hour plus mercenaries to do what soldiers are trained to do.

When you are done feeding the rich, maybe then you can go back to starving the poor.

But then you got to give them welfare, those damn leeches wanting healthcare and pensions and money for housing and food allowances, hell they even want you to pay for their education too, I bet they all vote team D as they are clearly dependant on the government .:03:

Please introduce me to the mercenary that makes $1,920,000 a year(do the math at your rate that is $160,000 in a month 40 hours per week I am being very conservative as well with hours) because there is no such thing.Those guys are usually earning from $80,000 to $120,000 a year depending on there experience and what they are doing.PMCs are much cheaper than you realize because they provide their own logistics meaning guns, ammo, food, insurance, and administration.They are either providing it themselves or paying for services rendered to them the insurance would of course their own.Sometimes they are also employed to train our own troops as well.

I know guys that work in the industry trust me they do not make $1,000.00 an hour most mercs are former US or British military anyway so you are not really using an outsider and they are certainly not wealthy either. Wealthy people do not risk their lives for starers generally speaking there are some exceptions like Lawrence of Arabia and I am sure that there are some millionaires in the US that would risk their life to help someone.Not every wealthy person is Satan believe it or not.

Employing PMCs actually is a way to cut costs not raise them.

You must be weary with military cuts because too much reduction will be seen as a sign of weakness and can actually make you weak.. during conflicts armed forces are always expensive
no one profits from a protracted war so says Sun Tzu therefore one should only get involved in wars that can be won and quickly wars that prove unsuccessful should be ended.You should have a military force that match the demands that you put upon it though.If they are smart in 2014 they will reduce the military size once the need is no longer required in Afghanistan.the less troops you have in a region the more vulnerable they become so cutting too much too fast would put the American troops in Afghanistan that you hold so dearly(I am not mocking you here) in greater danger.Just look at the Australians and what has been happening to them and the Kiwis as well weakness was seen by the enemy and taken advantage of.

Well...its ok..
I would not call you bigot...or critic yet most importantly you are having fun and that's what counts. :03:

Well August, the Dems wouldn't have to even think about raising taxes, if Congress would close these loop holes that corporations use, along with the those that are making way more then a million dollars a year.

When Mitt was asked what his plan was on taxes, he replied, "When it comes to taxes, I'm a fair minded person!" Man, you can't get more definitive then that,lol

Gotcha politics at it's best. Wait for a setting where a long answer is inconvenient and then lambaste him for not giving enough details.

As for loopholes the Dems had two years where they controlled both Congress and the White house. If they intended to close corporate loopholes then they had all the opportunity that they needed. Instead they increased the tax burden for all Americans with that White Elephant health care bill.

Using mercenaries ought to be against US law. I can think of no greater threat to our nation than to allow private military's to exist and grow. If it were up to me i'd ban them all.

Can say the same thing when the Republicans controlled Congress for 4 years during Bush's first term. They could have done something, but didn't. I don't know what the answer is when it comes to Healthcare. One thing is, letting the insurance industry dictate it is nothing but pure bull****! Remember the HMO crap they tried, what a piece of work that was!

One thing I don't understand, if we have a President (no matter what party he belongs to) and the country doesn't like the job he is doing, he doesn't get re-elected. But right now, we have a Congress that the American people rank as the worst we have ever had. If their numbers were any lower, they would be negative,lol So instead of electing new congressman, we keep sending back the same ones. And we wonder why Washington is so screwed up! Whose fault is that?

Just recently, instead of coming up with a budget, Congress raised the debt limit again. They are worried they might lose their jobs next election, which is coming up quick for a lot of them. So instead of doing something to help the whole country, they are worried about themselves. And we will re-elect the same asshats like we always do.:88)

Don't blame me. I haven't voted for an incumbent in almost 8 years. I'm only voting for one this time and that's because he's one of the few bipartisan pols i've ever met.

Actually the US uses them primarily for training purposes either our own troops or troops in a nation that we are aiding this actually frees up our troops to perform other missions.So long as they are controlled I see no problem with them.

Every hear of Executive Outcomes? You should look them up some time it was a South African PMC that was with a few hundred men able to protect Sierra Leone from the RUF a Liberian backed force of particularly brutal nature they enjoyed killing young boys parents and taking the boys and forcing them to be soldiers in the RUF the Executive Outcomes employees hired by the government of Sierra Leone solved the problem fairly quickly first by training and increasing the discipline of the Sierra Leone troops the other effective method was going on long range patrols finding the RUF squads that went around killing parents and kidnapping sons and simply ambushing the scumbags and killing every last one this made the villagers much safer.But the UN did not like that Sierra Leone had hired a PMC and got Sierra Leone to fire Executive Outcomes and hire the UN.:haha:

The UN failed to do with many more troops what Executive Outcomes had done with ease.

Sorry but I don't care how good they are. Instead of being driven by ideology and love of country their honor and their loyalty is bought by money. I see little difference between them and Somali pirates or mafia hit men.

There are no laws specifically prohibiting the US Government from using mercenaries. There have been SCotUS interpretations that have led decisions to indicate that it is against the law, but there are no laws prohibiting it.

The use of mercenaries may lead to difficulties when the Geneva Convention is involved however and depending on the circumstances mercenaries may lose some or all of their convention rights if they are judged to be an Unlawful Combatant, but the sponsoring country is not penalized.

The Neutrality Act of 1939 and the Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893 have both been cited by the SCotUS as indicating that the US should not use mercs, but the particulars of the case did not apply to the Federal Government.

In 1989 the UN passed the The International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries but the US refuses to sign it.

So while mercenaries should be against the law is a valid position, the reality is that they are not against the law.

We could be like France and have a Foreign Legion which gives the French government the benefit of having an armed force that can be used where the general population might object if the troops where French citizens even though there are Frenchmen in the FL they are there because they want to be they where not conscripted.

We have made extensive use of mercenaries throughout our history some fighters and some leaders Von Steuben comes to mind say what you will that man was a mercenary but had a very important effect on our fighting ability during the Revolutionary War.We had plenty of Native American mercs as well.
And in Vietnam we employed many Chinese Mungs and also Cambodians worked with SOG Green Berets and Seals they where either the best or worst fighters depending on their mood and the entire pro American force in Laos where Lao true but also mostly paid fighters as in they did not fight without payment.

They have their down sides but they also provide many benefits also they are the oldest type of professional warrior I dont think they will be going away any time soon.

And the way the majority are employed in the west they are usually hired to to train others on top of that the ones employed by the US and UK are almost entirely former members of
the military many of them are retired SF troops there are guys that fought for the Green Berets and Seals in Vietnam working as mercs today a guy like that has a alot of very valuable experience and is pretty reliable.It is all in how you use them with proper restraint there is no real problem and if you are the type that needs something off the books and every world power needs to do tings off the books sometimes they are useful.

Actually von Stuben volunteered to fight without pay and became a citizen of the country he fought for. That's kind of like the opposite of a mercenary.

It was a great achievement when armies turned from being private business to consisting of soldiers wearing the king's colors. Mercenaries have no interest in peace, because then they make no income. Such an attitude easily interferes with policies of the state favoring peace of wars. Which makes it tempting to infiltrate the government with pro-war lobbyists. As a matter of fact, we already have immense, damaging lobbying in favor of the defense industry - in the US more than anywhere else. And that costs the US probably billions more than if the defense needs would be serve don the basis of real needs only, instead of edlection-oriented opportunism and lobbyism by profit-greedy corporations.

I also remind of the infamous role of Blackwater in Iraq. Their record is anything but a recommendation.

No, we better do not wish the condottieri back. There is this story about John Hawkwood, who was an English mercenary leader and condottieri:

One day, two Franciscan monks met him on the road, who gave Hawkwood the greeting of "Peace" on which he replied: "May the Lord take away your alms." The alarmed monks excused themselves, by saying they " meant only to be kind," and he explained: " Do you not know that I live by war, and that peace would be my undoing?"; and the story-teller adds: "It certainly is true that Hawkwood fought in Italy longer than any other man ever fought, and nearly every part of it became tributary to him : so well did be manage his affairs that there was little peace in Italy in his days."


Mercenary companies, corporations maintaining their own privatised armies? Not with me.

With Tax Comments, Romney Wades Into a Conservative Rift
 

Note: Update record.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us...l?ref=politics

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