Mercenary, a professional soldier who is payed by another country to fight or assist in fighting its battle. I am going to give you another definition of another word that to some is not a mercenary. PMC= Private Military Company (or contractors), the basic definition of a PMC is a company who is hired to do security or protect a VIP, but some state that these companies are not mercenaries. But the mere word company comes from the companies formed after the 100 years war, of soldiers who went off to fight for payment in other countries. In the United States tax payers money is being flushed into these companies for them to go over to Iraq and do security, at any means necessary. When I say that money is being flushed into these companies I mean that the average employee of the top PMC in the nation Blackwater Worldwide is making some where between $500 to $1200....a day for their service in Iraq. This is amazing veterans who are being paid to go over and fight a war, and not having to enlist and be paid large amounts of money for it to.....sounds like these men are mercenaries to me. Not so according to Erik Prince the founder of Blackwater a former Navy SEAL, his men are American's working for America. True but the fact that a mercenary has the image of a gun carrying, goatee grown, baseball cap wearing Rambo like person is becoming true everyday in Iraq. On September 16th 2007, that perspective was finally shown to the world when 17 Iraq civilians were killed by Blackwater employees. Now I am not saying that the civilians where just sipping some tea and Blackwater came roaring down upon them like the right hand of God but I can not say that they did not have it coming, not the fact that they deserved this but the civilians where said to have opened fire upon the contractors. The final word on this is that Blackwater should of handled this a little better, not saying they should of sat down around a camp fire and smoke a peace pipe....which sounds kind of inviting but that is besides the point. On that day the perspective of a contractor blew up into this idea that these mean are guns for hire who shoot first and ask questions later. PMC do not stop in just Iraq of in the United States, PMC are active in the UK, South Africa, Liberia, Sudan, the list goes on and on. In 1995 the South African based PMC Executive Outcome fought on behalf of Angola government against UNITA, these men saw the opportunity to make money and decide to get started. This event was one of the ideas for the movie Blood Diamond, in the actual event the PMC used just a hand full (150) of contractors to retake the Sierra Leone and retake the diamond fields.This is the only case in which contractors were brought in took control, forced peace and left quietly. On January 1st 1999 Executive Outcomes was dissolved partly when South Africa introduced the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance act of 1998. From then on PMC started to pop up left and right across the world.

Tim Spicer is one of the best known failures of the Private military company world, but still he is being paid to do security in battle grounds. A former Lieutenant-Colonel in the Scots Guards, Spicer started Sandline International, ma PMC acting out of London, England in 1994 when he left the military. He and his men in 1994 were the PMC used during the Sandline Affair in Papua New Guinean, about the conflict in Bougainville, where many failed attempts of peace talks fell through. Tim Spicer's company was brought in to resolve the problem between the two even though Jerry Singirok the leader of the Defense Force disagreed with the usage. The assault on Bougainville was tagged "Operation High Speed II"....To be honest I really couldn't take a military operation serious with this name. After 6 days the attack was a failure, even with Spicer's company at the helm of the attack. Later that year Spicer spoke to Chris Haiveta the deputy Prime Minister of Papua New Guinean , Spicer urged Haiveta to use his company. Even with Singirok's disapproval Haiveta, brought in Spicer for further talks in 1996. Spicer filed the contract between the Prime Minister Julius Chan, and in 1997 the contract for only 44 special operation contractors was finalized for $36 Million. The Papua New Guinean government stated that Sandline was only brought in for usage of training purposes but their true terms were leaked to the Australian news paper. Later when the fighting started Australian officials told Papua New Guinean that they would end all aid given to the them if the Sandline deal was not terminated, and that deal was. Spicer was never paid for the job that he had done and sued the government, the usage of Sandline International did nothing for the government of Papua New Guinean, and never resolved the issue with Bougainville. Around the same time as the Sandline affair, Spicer and his company was involved in a issue in Serra Leon when he was brought in to protect diamond fields and later broke the embargo act by assisting in the transportation of arms into the country.

Another fuck up along with the Spicer's was his friend Simon Mann, a former member of the elite Special Air Service and the co-founder of Sandline International. Mann was involved in the Equatorial Guinea Coup scandal in 2004. Mann was brought in along with 69 other operatives to go in and kill the President of Equatorial Guinea. The plan didn't start with Mann it began with Sir Mark Thatcher and other high profile persons. The plan was to free the people of Equatorial Guinea for the noose that the president had wrapped around their necks, but the real reason was to get a handful of Equatorial Guinea's prizes. Equatorial Guinea was had a vast oil and gas reserve, it was dubbed by United States officials as the "New Kuwait". Thatcher and other funded the operation upon arrival in Equatorial Guinea the plot was that they were their to preform security on the diamond fields. Upon arrival the men took off an estimated $180,000 of weaponry, some time later the teams where arrested in Zimbabwe.Among the groups was Nick Du Toit a mercenary and African Arms dealer who was brought in on the op. In 2004 the men who were convicted and found guilt were thrown in jail in 2007, Mann was extradited to of Equatorial Guinea where he was found guilty and sentenced to 35 years and was placed in Black Beach, a prison known for its cruel treatment and punishment. In 2005 Thatcher was arrested in his home in Cape town, South Africa, he pled guilty on a bargain and was just given a small slap on the wrist. This idea that going in with paid men to kill the president of a country no matter how much of a mother fucker this guy is, is not right you can not go in to a country not of your own with no real motive but to make money and bump off the president these men are mercenaries.

Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal who attended the United States Naval Academy for three years till transferring out to finish out his final year at Hillsdale College. Prince is the founders of one of the largest PMC in Iraq today, Blackwater Worldwide.Blackwater before it became Worldwide was only know as Blackwater usa, is based out of a 7,000 acre compound in North Caroline. But that isn't the only place right now, Blackwater has expanded to places all around the United States like Chicago, and San Diego. Blackwater played in the shadows for a good amount of the time when the Iraq war went underway. The world was introduced to Blackwater on March 31st, 2004 when a convoy of 4 contractors were ambushed and killed and hung from a bridge while pulling a job for a food catering delivery in Fallujah, Iraq. This ambush lead to the First Battle of Fallujah, which snow balled to the Second Battle of Fallujah. Blackwater went back into the shadow and was not seen in the media for another 3 years till the a shooting in Baghdad brought the light to what Blackwater was to the United States. 2007 was not the best year for Blackwater, on May 30th Blackwater employees shot and killed a civilian deemed to close to checkpoint, this seems harmless and was just perception but the media blew it up. Another company Aegis Defense Service who is ran by Tim Spicer, the same man who fucked up in the Sandline affair had done the same thing earlier in that year. But the shit doesn't stop there, on September 16th 2007 in Baghdad employees opened fire upon civilians killing 17, a investigation was done to see if the employees just had an itchy trigger finger of they were actually being fired upon as they stated in the reports. The investigation has ceased to continue and not charges of any kind have been filed upon anyone.

PMC have been around most of us and we have not even known it. Many parts of our movies and video games have PMC revolving around them, as I stated before the bad ass movie Blood Diamond was surounding the idea of the Executive Outcomes involvement in South Africa to protect the diamond fields and fight off the rebels. Other movies are Proof of Life with Russell Crowe where Crowe plays an ex SAS who works for a Private military company that uses him for hostage negotiations and retrieval. Some of the video games involving these are far cry 2 which takes place in South Africa around the idea of blood diamonds and rebels. Other games like soldier of fortune which you play a contractor working for the government. In the end PMC are all over the place and are not companies, they are companies but they are also mercenaries, men who are paid to go fight a fight that they have no cause or motive to being fighting their in the first place. Even after the shooting at Baghdad Blackwater is still preforming tasks and contracts in Iraq, and Tim Spicer even after the failure in Seara Leon is still being granted contracts from the government, his latest with AEGIS is a $293 million. PMC's are mercenaries gone corporate.

PEER EDIT by Jesse Nevel:

Excellent topic. I've been interested in Blackwater for a while and I look forward to reading more about it as you develop this essay. Your paragraph contains a lot of claims and starting points, like Blackwater's public image, prominence, locations throughout the world, perception of PMCs in pop culture media (Blood Diamond), and Baghdad Bloody Sunday.

ps. I now have that goddamn U2 song stuck in my head. SUNDAAAAAAAAAAAAY BLOODY SUNDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

ok, where do i begin...

you picked an awesome topic, i've never heard of these guys before

i think you could say alot more about them though, like the history of this organization, who they get their orders from, how many guys there are, how they travel to these countries, and so on

you could write more about PMC's in other countries, what they are called, what they've done,

PMC's in the news,

you could talk about erik prince more, about his time in the seals and how he founded blackwater...

yea thats all i got, goodluck!

-marissa