iotarPlease note that when the US employ armed thugs, they're "contractors", while they are described as "mercenaries" when anyone else does it.
This was yr vocab lesson for today.
EarthOne@EarthOne I forgot. And apparently most people who joined the Legion also enlisted for that very purpose.
Bynkii@bynkii @iotar Perhaps so, but I must point out that until the Bush Oil Dynasty under W. Bush2 the US govt. hiring a private mercenary company like (Erik Prince's) Blackwater in Iraq was unknown to us Americans.
So I get the "weird" part. We Americans learned about it when Blackwater "security" opened fire on Iraqi civilians going to work one day. A fine lesson in corrupt govt. giving unfettered authority to armed mercenaries with impunity: Trump pardoned them all.
Billionaires run wars.