myrmepropagandistLaugh all you want but if Haliburton ever marches on Portland maybe we'll remember that we also play the dangerous game of empowering private armies.
This is all very scary.
Whitey
Floaty Birb@whitey @futurebird Oh no that's another prerequisite for a cyberpunk dystopia
@futurebird I think Haliburton is just a military contractor / oil company.
The US analog to Wagner group is Blackwater, which keeps renaming itself because it keeps doing war crimes (Blackwater became Xe which became Academi which became "Constellis Holdings").
wb x64@floatybirb @futurebird everything America does is genocidal but the powers that be have a much tighter control over everything than would enable or allow that kind of open tank roll. What allowed this to happen is largely the crippling sanctions on Russia's small economy (the ruling class is pretty much just Moscow) and the drawn out total failure of the war.
Even still this seems like posturing to me, if he wanted to take Moscow he could've. Kayfabing a tactical retreat is very on brand.
Extinction (our fate)@futurebird There are thousands of contractors working for the government, and none of them have been subject to scrutiny such that they were deprived of their contracts as far as I know.
antipode77Not to mention a firm like Palantir.