PMCs

>those fucking labels on the participants of those comics

I think just putting PMC on he back of the military guy's vest would have been sufficient to get the point across. What is it with political comics?

It´s called mercenaries and it goes a long way back

>>1877449

Seriously, we are approaching Ben Garrison levels of subtly.

>>1877449
They're retarded and don't know what being subtle is.

>>1877438
>condottiari
>fedoratti
Same as PMCs.

>>1877449
Political cartoons these days tend to assume the reader is an absolute retard who requires everything to be labelled to understand. See: Zyklon Ben Garrison

>>1877454
PMCs are literally just glorified mercenaries.

>>1877438

In the U.S Military? Well with the destruction of the institution of the citizen soldier, the U.S military found itself overstretched fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, as you need enough troops not just for combat operations but all the logistical elements and protecting installations. With no troops to spare, PMC's filled that void.

>>1877438
Its called the free market you commieshit

>>1877475
How many PMC companies have the US actually employed? I know of Blackwater.

>>1877479

In 2005-2006 there were twice as many Private military contractors as American troops, though this is not just dudes with guns.

>>1877494

* In Iraq, forgot to add that.

>>1877438
I would say that PMC's are slightly different from the mercenaries of yesteryear because one of their central functions is to create a shroud around the chain of command from government defense organizations. They can operate outside of the RoE and the government is not immediately liable if the PMC violates international conventions.

>>1877501
PMC's also offer the economical upside in the event of death or dismemberment.

Actual US troops have gov. life insurance/funeral costs covered. Same with medical care. Say a PMC gets shot in the neck and lives, and is a paraplegic, requiring lifelong care.

Instead of being a taxpayer burden via the VA, they are free to get the fuck out of here, and enter medical bankruptcy like anyone else.

Win Win.

>>1877438
They're just modern day mercenaries

>>1877455
>>1877465
No. I think this one is reaching that one dude who does parody comics that always feature a crying statue of liberty.

Most PMC's are just glorified renta-cops, usually stuck making sure the local _-niggers don't fuck with the nerds.

>>1877455
I really want to see a comic of a wicked looking Obama smiling as he stomps on a liter of puppies with the words "Middle Class" and "Freedom" written on their fur. And he's wearing his shoes labelled "Big" and "Government". And behind him is a closet full of skeletons with bones made out of the words "Lies", "Scandals", and "Islam"

>>1877847
Sounds like a documentary desu

After the vietnam war it was noted that the main reason for the antiwar movement was not any real solidarity with vietnam or questioning of why we fight, but rather anti-draft sentiment. To this end it was decided that if the number of military personnel needed to fight a war could be sufficiently reduced then the American people, so long as a little bit of blind patriotism was properly applied, would gladly support even the most pointless and wasteful military adventure. In Vietnam the ratio of soldiers in a support role to soldiers in a combat role was 8:1, in Iraq it was less than 3:1. The difference was made up in the numerous military contractors hired to do tasks that were traditionally done by soldiers, such as digging latrines, cooking meals, and (in the case of PMCs like Blackwater) armed security.

And while this is not what you asked about, while we're on the subject its worth noting that many of the largest contracts during the Iraq war were given to Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR without a public bidding process. They profited quite handsomely from the mess in Iraq, while the american taxpayers and soldiers suffered. Oh and btw the chief executive of this company from 1995-2000 was none other than Dick Cheney, who continued to be heavily invested in and receiving bonuses from the company after taking office.

>>1877454
>>1877520
>LE PEEEMSEE IS A MERCENERY :DDDD
They aren't

They're glorified security guards. They cannot do offensive shit on their own. They cannot even participate in a conventional war without being wiped the fuck out. All they are are heavily armed security guards with enough weapons to tell equally heavily armed criminals to back the fuck off their clients.

Another way to tell them off mercenaries is their command structure. One, they aren't attached to the military. In another, they don't have a clear command structure. Basically in a convoy guarding food supplies, there'll just be one guy who is acting as "captain" and the rest are just plain gunmen, with some attache in HQ monitoring them or acting as overwatch if they are able to afford that.

The only PMC group that approached mercenary tier organization & competence was Executive Outcomes. And boy that killed them as it provided an excuse for other PMCs to act in a similar manner, leading to an international b&hammer limiting what PMCs can do.
>>1877459
The Italian medieval PMC counterpart would simply be Bravi.

>>1877454
Not exactly... PMCs act more along the lines of bodyguards. Mercenaries date way back as soldiers of fortune and act as soldiers. There are laws in place with lots of countries in regards to mercs and PMCs.

>>1877438
>Why are mercenaries even a thing? Where did they start? They seem to do more harm than good

Worst post on this board right now.

>>1877449
I, for one, had never heard that acronym before this thread.

File: 1476163468720.png (322KB, 416x431px) Image search: [Google]

322KB, 416x431px

>>1877438

>They seem to do more harm than good.

When you make a claim like this, you should at least make some case for it besides an edgy political cartoon.

>>1878025
Did you never read a newspaper during the Iraq war?

>>1877438
>Why are PMCs even a thing?
Because there are many men who went to the military, then discharged by the military and they have no other skills that will pay them good money.
>Where did they start?
After the end of the Cold War, world militaries started downsizing all their forces. This led to a massive amount of people having no jobs. Their specialties have almost no application in the civilian sector, so they fall back to what they can do best.
The Afghanistan and Iraq wars introduced really high spending on combat troops, specifically, base and executive protection. Because the government wanted to save money (a soldier costs 1 million bucks to train, then you have to factor in pensions, healthcare, bonuses, etc if they stay in long enough), they just end up hiring PMCs to do the job instead.
>They seem to do more harm than good.
That is a complete fallacy. Just because the mass media concentrates on a few bad apples, that doesn't mean they're all bad apples.
PMCs did end up stopping genocides in the 1990s, because governments were weak as crap. Most people don't remember these, because all they have is sensationalized news in the 2000s and a really hard hate on the Bush administration.
Right now, the US is still employing PMCs. You're just not really hearing them at all anymore.

Also, the shit PMCs do in those warzones? They mostly follow US Army RoE. The reason they get scapegoated is because they aren't "government" troops, but most of them are US military veterans and follow the same rules of engagement they've been taught all their lives back in the Army.

This is not some clear-cut issue. It's very complicated and is not something that a political cartoon can explain in one panel.

>>1878149
The reason why PMCs got shitcanned by the Media is because the contracting done by the government was just willy-nilly. They were hiring anyone who labelled themselves PMC.

This went from outfits who got their shit together to shady fucks whose qualification is they had a gun. Add those unscrupulous firms that hired retired third world soldiers on the boatload and dumped them in Iraq with no training on RoE or basic security whatsoever.

>>1878159
>ywn get mad money just sitting on your ass in the middle of an FOB while the government does all the actual shooty shooty stuff
BORN TOO LATE

>>1878164
Iraq was a shitshow and a half in every area, you're better off.

>>1878159
The Blackwater mercs that got jail time for the Iraq shootdown were all highly decorated American veterans. And their crime was following US Army RoE.