Privatized militaries

[trenton]

I will be making some threads which seek to understand modern wars.  Many people will tell me that it is over oil, but this seems simplistic.  It might be hard to understand modern wars objectively because they are ongoing, we are stake holders, and we are bombarded with fake and partial news.  If you are up to the task, please share some of what you learned about modern war.

This first topic is about private militaries.  It sounds extremely corrupt, but here is my research.  Oil companies buy private militaries because they seek protection from terrorists in places which have oil they are drilling for.  These private militaries still commit war crimes and sometimes kill civilians.  If you want to start your own private military, you can check out the following site.

profitableventure.com/starting-a-private-military-company/

Where are these private militaries?  How are they held accountable for war crimes?  Should they exist?  How much of the war on terrorism is the United States military fighting terrorists and how much of it is the private militaries trying to maximize profits?

most importantly, Which wars are actually necessary to stop terrorist organizations like ISIS, boku harem, Al Queda, and others?

[FoolsGold]

Much of it is still for natural resources. But much of it is also due to the underlying fear of 'enemy' getting an advantage and trying to do everything to not let the enemy gain ground.

A good example of latter situation is Afghanistan in 1970s

[trenton]

@FoolsGold another question I have is in regard to the Mexican drug cartels.  If the United States wanted to stop terrorists which could be motivating people to leave Mexico and go to the United States, then how much military aid should be sent to Mexico?  I think this is an example of fighting terrorism for the sake of security rather than resources.

I will try to figure out how much of the war is terrorism and how much is resources.

[trenton]

nondoc.com/2019/09/13/privatization-of-the-military-facts/

This site mentions more disturbing facts about private contractors.  It mentions that they are not charged for war crimes such as torture and 85% of interrogators in the CIA are private contractors.  If I can figure out how many private contractors there are, I would have a rough idea of how much of the war is for resources.

washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/06/30/military-contractor-study/

According to this site, in 2019 there were 53,000 contractors from US companies and 35,000 US military troops.  More contractors are killed than US troops as well.  This would imply that the majority of wars in the middle East are for maximizing profits.  Less than half of the armed conflict is the United States fighting terrorism.

Furthermore, politicians are misleading because contractors are not considered "boots on the ground.". There are politicians who sound like they are opposed to the war, but in reality they could easily pull out troops and replace them with contractors.  It is rare to find a politician who is truly anti-imperialism even if they say "we need to pull out troops out of the middle East."

[cookiemonster]

9 hours ago, trenton said:

Which wars are actually necessary to stop terrorist organizations like ISIS, boku harem, Al Queda, and others?

 

You think ISIS, Boku Harem, and Al-Qaeda are not private military organisations? 

[trenton]

11 minutes ago, cookiemonster said:

 

You think ISIS, Boku Harem, and Al-Qaeda are not private military organisations? 

It is my understanding that these organizations are terrorist insurgencies which are not operated by any government.  I read about ISIS.  I found that their goal is to enforce what they believe to be the original and one true interpretation of the Quran without any innovations or corruptions.  They are willing to kill anyone in the world who does not share the same interpretation.

If you can expand on the significance of them being private militaries, that would help.  Perhaps you are implying that private militaries are essentially terrorist organizations because they are not held accountable for war crimes.  That would be very hypocritical of the US.

[cookiemonster]

7 minutes ago, trenton said:

It is my understanding that these organizations are terrorist insurgencies which are not operated by any government.

If you can expand on the significance of them being private militaries, that would help.

 

It's precisely because they're not operated by any government that makes them defacto private militaries.

Despite having ideological tenets, such organizations would simply cease to exist were it not for the huge amounts of private money flowing into them.

This is true not just in respect of purchasing infrastructure (e.g munitions, vehicles, uniforms) but also in respect of individual combatants themselves.

Mercenaries, effectively.

[trenton]

2 hours ago, cookiemonster said:

Despite having ideological tenets, such organizations would simply cease to exist were it not for the huge amounts of private money flowing into them.

That is a critical detail right there.

I did a quick Google search.  Multiple sites confirm that ISIS is one of the wealthiest terrorist organizations in history, making as much as 3 million dollars a day.  It is interesting to note that ISIS pays benefits to the families of militants.  This encourages impoverished and starving people to join.  It explains why do many people join if you account for global poverty.

cnn.com/2015/02/19/world/how-isis-makes-money/index.html

The more I research the weirder and weirder it gets.  According to cnn, ISIS makes over 1 million dollars a day selling oil that is smuggled into Turkey.  The U.S. mainly targets the financial assets of these militants because they understand that if they don't have all this money, they can't run a military.  It is interesting that the United States targets oil refineries to stop ISIS and maximize profits at the same time.

ISIS also makes money from ransoms.  They have made hundreds of millions from this.  European countries pay the ransoms while the United States does not.  This is how more US citizens are more likely to get beheaded when compared to European citizens.  This leads to debates over whether or not we should pay the ransoms.  I think we shouldn't because they will use the funding to hurt even more people.

There are other ways ISIS makes money, but you can just look at the sites.

huffpost.com/entry/isis-funding_n_5850286

According to this site ISIS also has wealthy donors.  "The governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait also covertly provide millions in aid to radical Sunni groups fighting Assad.". It is very frustrating that countries keep giving weapons and money to terrorists.  I will need to do more research into why countries are giving so much money to these organizations.

[cookiemonster]

1 hour ago, trenton said:

It is very frustrating that countries keep giving weapons and money to terrorists.  I will need to do more research into why countries are giving so much money to these organizations.

 

That's a very big and uncomfortable iceberg, my friend. Some things are best left beyond the scope of comprehension.

[FoolsGold]

13 hours ago, trenton said:

 If the United States wanted to stop terrorists which could be motivating people to leave Mexico and go to the United States, then how much military aid should be sent to Mexico? 

0 Aid. Let mexicans handle things in their country. Don't let them enter here. The mexicans will find a solution to the drug cartels themselves over a period of time.

[trenton]

29 minutes ago, FoolsGold said:

0 Aid. Let mexicans handle things in their country. Don't let them enter here. The mexicans will find a solution to the drug cartels themselves over a period of time.

Similar to SOCOM, deploying US troops in Mexico could be counterproductive.  When the US attempted a similar plan on Columbia, the results were that the drug cartels moved to other countries.  One detail I found is that Mexican citizens support training and weapons, but no troops.

I think it would help if various countries legalized alternative medicine.  This includes ibogaine to treat alcohol and heroine addictions.  If drug cartels become less profitable due to fewer people being addicted, then private militaries would become unsustainable.  Mexico already did this, but it can't solve the entire problem on its own.  Other substances like LSD are more effective anti-depressants when compared to traditional medicine which leads to drug addiction in many cased.  This would also make it more difficult for drug cartels to profit off of these substances.  Leo mentions some this in his correcting the stigma of psychedelics videos.

[trenton]

middle-east-online.com/en/qatar-institutions-sued-us-financing-terrorism

channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-qa-is-saudi-arabia-funding-isis

These sites discuss funding of terrorist organizations through Qatar and Saudi Arabia.  Saudi Arabia describes their efforts to prevent funding of terrorist organizations in their denial of the allegations.  There is an on going case in which Qatar is being accused of funneling money from the United States financial system to terrorist organizations.  Qatar is accused of funding terrorists on several occasions for nearly a decade.

counterextremism.com/countries/kuwait

This last site describes some of the accusations toward Kuwait and the measures they have taken to prevent funding for terrorist organizations.  It is hard to tell if all the allegations made toward these countries are true or not because there are ongoing lawsuits.