Blackwater

I was thinking: what's the difference between Hamas and Blackwater? I was thinking that it was really only a small difference. Both are groups of people that use force, and both have dubious legal status in my own eyes.

I was thinking maybe Blackwater is a terrorist organisation.

But then I read more. I reckon a terrorist organisation is a group of people that use force for a political end. But Blackwater doesn't fit that description. They're actually just mercenaries. A mercenary organisation uses force for a financial end. Terrorism is hot-headed violence, mercenaries are ideologically blank.

So, by reading Wikipedia, I conclude that Blackwater is a mercenary organisation. I also conclude that the United States should join the rest of the world in banning mercenaries, and the US should identify Blackwater as a mercenary organisation and then the US should declare Blackwater illegal for military and security operations. Blackwater should be restricted to helping little old ladies cross the street within the borders of the United States.

Blackwater should definitely not be in Iraq. The Iraqis don't want them, and there's not a good legal system for dealing with the problems that arise. As mercenaries they should be accountable as civilians under Iraqi law (it seems to me), but the United States has basically said that they're immune. Which is kinda crazy in some ways. "We'll send some of our civilians to your country to kill your people and we expect you to treat them like soldiers." (Now war in general and the Iraq war in specific are another matter. I don't know if the American state military should be withdrawn or not, I'm not considering that here.)

Basically I consider Blackwater to be evil and I consider mercenary organisations to be evil. "Private military contractor" being a synonym for mercenary. So I conclude that Blackwater are not terrorists, but they are perhaps less understandably evil.

Do evil in the name of some God or other, at least. If you do evil merely in the name of money, then fearst ye for thine eternity, sinners!

I guess it makes sense, that Americans are terrorists with a financial dogma, a tribute to the local deity of Money.

But we're talking about pretty serious evil here, the kind of thing that I start feeling guilty about paying for when I pay taxes. (Although I probably shouldn't worry too much about where my taxes are going, since Jesus supported paying taxes to the pagan Caesar.)

Peter