Really? Which part of the article made this evident to you? I can assure you it’s not at all evident to me, Justin.

“The LTTE is now fighting real merceneries, who only have financial interest instead of patriotic national interest.”

You mean as opposed to LTTE conscripts who are forced to fight for NO financial gain? Hmm, if that’s your point, I guess we have GoSL mercenaries fighting LTTE slaves. Good point.

“Merceneries are employed only when the locals are unwilling to fight to save their land. ”

But the locals ARE willing to fight, Justin, and from all accounts are kicking the LTTE’s backside.

“The local Sinhalese do not want to fight this war with the LTTE because they know full well from inside that the North East does not belong to them.”

While this must seem an attractive supposition to you, it’s not backed up by evidence. To the contrary, Security Forces recruitment numbers have skyrocketed in the last year. I guess the Sinhalese still the NE is part of SL.

“It is for this reason, the salaries of Sri Lankan soldiers were jacked up to about Rs30,000 per month. ”

Actually salaries have been raised in recognition of the rising cost of living, and to enable soldiers to have an income relative to the hardships they suffer. This is true in any democratic and progressive society where the state is not reliant on unwilling conscripts.

“And the unemployed poor young from villages were recruited with high salaries. This action brings them into the category of mercenaries too!.”

This is normal practice in all democratic nations which have a professional standing army. Soldiers are paid. In dictatorships and terrorist organizations it is often necessary to compel an unwilling society to give up its men, women, and children to the cause.

“The present recruit of soldiers are real mercenaries because they are deprived of normal leave and other priveledges.”

Your comprehension of the word ‘mercenary’ seems sadly lacking, Justin. Perhaps you should reread the article, making use of a dictionary and thesaurus. But to save you the time I’ll give you a quick definition — a merc is a soldier who fights for money and not MERELY for a cause. What has leave and other privileges got to do with this?

“When they die in the battle field the next of kin are not notified.”

Actually, next of kin ARE informed of casualties. However, once more I must ask you what this has to do with being a mercenary. The LTTE abandoned the bodies of the Black Tigers that attacked the Anuradhapura AFB; did this therefore make the BTs mercenaries?

“As Sri Lankans should we fight a mecenary war, because the only beneficiaries are the arms manufacturers, the arms brokers and those who get high salaries?”

And as Tamils should we fight a terrorist war, because the only beneficiaries are the arms manufacturers, arms brokers, and LTTE brass?

Perhaps, Justin, you could respond with comments on the article rather than with your own irrational and regurgitated brand of propaganda.

Sam, good question. I’m sure big PMCs like Blackwater would like to have a limitless ceiling, but that doesn’t mean that client states should allow that. For example, the US government (which is Blackwater’s biggest client) does limit PMC involvement in the war. As I pointed out, PMCs are not used as frontline troops and therefore don’t have heavy support forces with tanks, jet aircraft or attack helicopters. Nor do they have a navy. They have some wheeled APCs and armed helicopters. As I mentioned in my article, the upper ceiling I can see is where the client state contracts out a campaign or war on the ground, while retaining home defence and control of the air and sea. In Iraq it would mean handing over ground operations to a PMC while the USAF and USN support the effort. In SL it could be contracting out ground ops in the NE while the Army defends the southern provinces, protects the coastal seas, and supports the PMC with air ops.

I don’t think the danger of a PMC trying to overthrow a democratic (or other) government is any greater than that of a military coup. Also, why would a PMC wish to take over the governance of a nation (with all its problems), when it’s far easier to be under contract to that government, providing a service and being paid for it?

As for the monopoly issue, as I said in the article, there’ll always be corruption, be it with a PMC or the state armed forces. However, a PMC (as a commercial company) is much more open to scrutiny than are the armed forces.

Now the next big question here is other side of the loyalty. Client loyalty to PMC. It is a common assumption Dick Cheney loyal to PMC than to the public. With little bit of advertising, reward points, rebates and gifts, any profit making cooperation can maintain Clients loyalty with them, and eventually eliminate them competitors. So again, is there enough space for democracy and PMC at the same time?

Merceneries are employed only when the locals are unwilling to fight to save their land. The local Sinhalese do not want to fight this war with the LTTE because they know full well from inside that the North East does not belong to them. It is a land of the aliens!

It is for this reason, the salaries of Sri Lankan soldiers were jacked up to about Rs30,000 per month. And the unemployed poor young from villages were recruited with high salaries. This action brings them into the category of mercenaries too!.

The present recruit of soldiers are real mercenaries because they are deprived of normal leave and other priveledges. When they die in the battle field the next of kin are not notified. Their bodies are even abandoned!

As Sri Lankans should we fight a mecenary war, because the only beneficiaries are the arms manufacturers, the arms brokers and those who get high salaries?