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What happens when one of these private companies comes through your area and kills your loved ones? Who is to be held responsible? At least with nation states

What happens when one of these private companies comes through your area and kills your loved ones? Who is to be held responsible? At least with nation states there's some feeble international law.

Lazare 9y ago
Is international law what stops Russia from annexing Alaska? Conversely, how well is international law working for the residents of eastern Ukraine? Although I wish it were otherwise, when I look around the world, I see a system governed by force, not laws. Private military forces fit tidily into this system.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  There is to a point a framework of laws that at least provide some semblance of order and redress. Treaties, frameworks, alliances. Now obviously force in the moment is what decides everything but the decisions that may lead to that moment or away from it are at least possible with the international framework of relations.
- thinkfurther 9y ago
  > Is international law what stops Russia from annexing Alaska? So when someone told you a loved one of yours was murdered by some private contractor or soldier, expecting some kind of reaction out of you, that would be yours? Just a shrug? That's how the world is, and that's that?
  - Lazare 9y ago
    Of course not, and nothing in my response could reasonably be understood to suggest that. Your comment is absurd. My argument is that there's no real difference between the two: The exact same force prevent both from occurring. (And, should it occur, it would be just as terrible, of course.) The comment I replied to was discussing how to hold people responsible, and suggesting (in my view, incorrectly) that international law is of more use against state actors than non-state actors.
    - thinkfurther 9y ago
      So what would your reaction be? Because that kind of was part of the question, which in turn was asked in response to shrugging away a "job" that means you "have to" "kill people for the highest bidder". Normalizing that results in consequences that are not just terrible, but also quite predictable, and "prevent from occuring" is a kind of weird thing to say in this context, to put it mildly. How would that work? On what planet does it work, according to your phrasing where some force is preventing it -- rather than that it should prevent it, ideally? Just one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre And here are some quotes: > On September 24, 2007, the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior announced it would file criminal charges against the Blackwater staff involved in the shooting, although it is unclear how some of them will be brought to trial. and > US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified before Congress that the Pentagon has sufficient legal authority to control its contractors, but that commanders lack sufficient "means and resources" to exercise adequate oversight. but hey, at least: > In 2013, the charges against Ball were dropped. The other four went to trial in 2014.[5] The jury found Slatten guilty of first-degree murder, and the other three guards (Slough, Liberty and Heard) guilty of at least three counts of voluntary manslaughter and using a machine gun to commit a violent crime. Jurors sided with prosecutors' contention that the shooting was a criminal act, not a battlefield encounter gone wrong. Slatten faced a potential sentence of life in prison. The other three guards faced decades in prison; the weapons charges carried a minimum 30-year sentence under a law enacted during the 1990s cocaine epidemic. But still, what was prevented? Blackwater changed the name, fantastic. But really, there is so much more, again just one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi#Incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi#Incidents > On February 16, 2005, four Blackwater guards escorting a U.S. State Department convoy in Iraq fired 70 rounds into a car. The guards stated that they felt threatened when the driver ignored orders to stop as he approached the convoy. The fate of the car's driver was unknown because the convoy did not stop after the shooting. An investigation by the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service concluded that the shooting was not justified and that the Blackwater employees provided false statements to investigators. The statements claimed that one of the Blackwater vehicles had been hit by insurgent gunfire, but the investigation concluded that one of the Blackwater guards had actually fired into his own vehicle by accident. John Frese, the U.S. embassy in Iraq's top security official, declined to punish Blackwater or the security guards because he believed any disciplinary actions would lower the morale of the Blackwater contractors. Dear God. I'm kind of speechless, actually. I expected to find some shit, but still wow. Compassion with the aggressors, not even a THOUGHT for the victims. And make sure to not be abrasive and actually expect people to imagine the consequences of what they accept on them. Yes, there is already a lot of crap in the world, but that doesn't excuse more of it. If it makes sense to contract it out to lowest bid, it makes sense for the companies to cut corners. Capitalism is as capitalism does. Why does this need spelling out? If someone accepts this being done to third parties in the third world, they wouldn't stop it being done to me, even if they're not even able to admit that to themselves, it's useless to attempt to insult my intelligence. I don't know or care about the posters personally, but I know what these words mean in the sense of what consequences they ultimately have. Laws and institutions don't just spring out of nowhere, and what Einstein said about freedom of speech with "Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man may present his views without penalty, there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population." applies to other things, as well. And for this spirit of, let's call it not being subservient to sociopaths, I resist them. That is what I can do. That I don't give a single fuck about being "flagged" for being "abrasive", if a friend of mine shrugged this off they'd be a former friend. If a community forbids this sort of accountability, it's a vampire's den. Prevention, at least an attempt at it, would be people with a spine not stopping to be loud about this stuff until every last company shut down. Then you prevented these incidents. Similar to citizens and decent cops and military flushing out the bad apples and washing the barrels, but no, let's just accept it as the order of things, instead of the results of our daily choices, that would be too real. As long as we're not doing it, nobody can blame us for not being very bothered about putting an end to it -- right? I agree that international law would not stop a nation bent on conquest, it certainly doesn't stop the US. But that's quite besides the point, when someone shrugs away developments like this, question one to them is "how would you react if they did this to you?", and question two is "why did none of you ask that?" to everyone else. https://warprayer.org/ https://warprayer.org/ comes to mind. This is not off-topic, this is how tall you have to be to even ride.

What happens when one of these private companies comes through your area and kills your loved ones? Who is to be held responsible? At least with nation states there's some feeble international law.

Lazare 9y ago

Is international law what stops Russia from annexing Alaska? Conversely, how well is international law working for the residents of eastern Ukraine? Although I wish it were otherwise, when I look around the world, I see a system governed by force, not laws. Private military forces fit tidily into this system.

wavefunction 9y ago
There is to a point a framework of laws that at least provide some semblance of order and redress. Treaties, frameworks, alliances. Now obviously force in the moment is what decides everything but the decisions that may lead to that moment or away from it are at least possible with the international framework of relations.
thinkfurther 9y ago
> Is international law what stops Russia from annexing Alaska? So when someone told you a loved one of yours was murdered by some private contractor or soldier, expecting some kind of reaction out of you, that would be yours? Just a shrug? That's how the world is, and that's that?
- Lazare 9y ago
  Of course not, and nothing in my response could reasonably be understood to suggest that. Your comment is absurd. My argument is that there's no real difference between the two: The exact same force prevent both from occurring. (And, should it occur, it would be just as terrible, of course.) The comment I replied to was discussing how to hold people responsible, and suggesting (in my view, incorrectly) that international law is of more use against state actors than non-state actors.
  - thinkfurther 9y ago
    So what would your reaction be? Because that kind of was part of the question, which in turn was asked in response to shrugging away a "job" that means you "have to" "kill people for the highest bidder". Normalizing that results in consequences that are not just terrible, but also quite predictable, and "prevent from occuring" is a kind of weird thing to say in this context, to put it mildly. How would that work? On what planet does it work, according to your phrasing where some force is preventing it -- rather than that it should prevent it, ideally? Just one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre And here are some quotes: > On September 24, 2007, the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior announced it would file criminal charges against the Blackwater staff involved in the shooting, although it is unclear how some of them will be brought to trial. and > US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified before Congress that the Pentagon has sufficient legal authority to control its contractors, but that commanders lack sufficient "means and resources" to exercise adequate oversight. but hey, at least: > In 2013, the charges against Ball were dropped. The other four went to trial in 2014.[5] The jury found Slatten guilty of first-degree murder, and the other three guards (Slough, Liberty and Heard) guilty of at least three counts of voluntary manslaughter and using a machine gun to commit a violent crime. Jurors sided with prosecutors' contention that the shooting was a criminal act, not a battlefield encounter gone wrong. Slatten faced a potential sentence of life in prison. The other three guards faced decades in prison; the weapons charges carried a minimum 30-year sentence under a law enacted during the 1990s cocaine epidemic. But still, what was prevented? Blackwater changed the name, fantastic. But really, there is so much more, again just one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi#Incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academi#Incidents > On February 16, 2005, four Blackwater guards escorting a U.S. State Department convoy in Iraq fired 70 rounds into a car. The guards stated that they felt threatened when the driver ignored orders to stop as he approached the convoy. The fate of the car's driver was unknown because the convoy did not stop after the shooting. An investigation by the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service concluded that the shooting was not justified and that the Blackwater employees provided false statements to investigators. The statements claimed that one of the Blackwater vehicles had been hit by insurgent gunfire, but the investigation concluded that one of the Blackwater guards had actually fired into his own vehicle by accident. John Frese, the U.S. embassy in Iraq's top security official, declined to punish Blackwater or the security guards because he believed any disciplinary actions would lower the morale of the Blackwater contractors. Dear God. I'm kind of speechless, actually. I expected to find some shit, but still wow. Compassion with the aggressors, not even a THOUGHT for the victims. And make sure to not be abrasive and actually expect people to imagine the consequences of what they accept on them. Yes, there is already a lot of crap in the world, but that doesn't excuse more of it. If it makes sense to contract it out to lowest bid, it makes sense for the companies to cut corners. Capitalism is as capitalism does. Why does this need spelling out? If someone accepts this being done to third parties in the third world, they wouldn't stop it being done to me, even if they're not even able to admit that to themselves, it's useless to attempt to insult my intelligence. I don't know or care about the posters personally, but I know what these words mean in the sense of what consequences they ultimately have. Laws and institutions don't just spring out of nowhere, and what Einstein said about freedom of speech with "Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man may present his views without penalty, there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population." applies to other things, as well. And for this spirit of, let's call it not being subservient to sociopaths, I resist them. That is what I can do. That I don't give a single fuck about being "flagged" for being "abrasive", if a friend of mine shrugged this off they'd be a former friend. If a community forbids this sort of accountability, it's a vampire's den. Prevention, at least an attempt at it, would be people with a spine not stopping to be loud about this stuff until every last company shut down. Then you prevented these incidents. Similar to citizens and decent cops and military flushing out the bad apples and washing the barrels, but no, let's just accept it as the order of things, instead of the results of our daily choices, that would be too real. As long as we're not doing it, nobody can blame us for not being very bothered about putting an end to it -- right? I agree that international law would not stop a nation bent on conquest, it certainly doesn't stop the US. But that's quite besides the point, when someone shrugs away developments like this, question one to them is "how would you react if they did this to you?", and question two is "why did none of you ask that?" to everyone else. https://warprayer.org/ https://warprayer.org/ comes to mind. This is not off-topic, this is how tall you have to be to even ride.