Interesting article. Pretty terrible writing/editing though. "Contracting is big business, too. In the 2014 fiscal year, the Pentagon obligated $285 billion to

Interesting article. Pretty terrible writing/editing though. "Contracting is big business, too. In the 2014 fiscal year, the Pentagon obligated $285 billion to federal contracts—more money than all other government agencies received, combined. That’s equal to 8 percent of federal spending, and three and a half times Britain’s entire defense budget. About 45 percent of those contracts were for services, including private military contractors." Without knowing what percentage of "services" are PMCs this doesn't tell us anything and the comparison to Britain's spending is therefore meaningless. The entire phrase "were linked to murder, kidnapping, bribery, and anti-Coalition activities" is repeated twice in different paragraphs... I expect better of the Atlantic.