A Lesson That We Should Learn from Russia

They know how to properly hate on mercenaries:

On Jan. 28, the Duma began discussing the possibility of legalizing private military companies in Russia. The law, which counts influential vice prime minister Dmitry Rogozin as a supporter, has one major goal — to ensure that Iraqi oil fields where Russian firms Rosneft and Gazprom operate no longer come under the protection of British or American security companies.

Back in April 2012, Russian president Vladimir Putin pointed out the need for Russia to pass contractor-friendly legislation. Putin praised private military companies as “instruments to further national interests without the direct involvement of the government.”

The center-left A Just Russia Party proposed a draft of the PMC bill in November 2014, but the Duma defense committee rejected it. Members of parliament returned with a revised text in December 2014, which the committee again turned down, deeming it “inarticulate,” “useless” and “irrelevant.” The FSB security agency and the Ministry of Defense both voiced concern of one day seeing “tens of thousands of uncontrollable Rambos turning their weapons against the government.”

It seemed Russian authorities had not forgotten the chaotic 1990s, a time when countless unpaid military officers sold their services to the highest bidder.

For some reason, the US government, and our poodles in London, continue to be all in on employing mercenaries, even though the corrosive effects of their activities both on our military and on the countries where they operate.