A Look down the Slippery Slope

[120mm]

From what I am seeing, the big pay is pretty much going out the window, even for the Blackwaters of the world.

But the point bears examining.

Basically, the US Army has taken a "cookie-cutter/bureaucracy" approach to paying it's employees, and refuses to recognize that there is the possibility that a pure trigger-puller may be worth as much as a field grade staff officer.

I disagree. I think that there is room, in the Army, to reward excellence at every level, and recognize incompetence through pay. There are plenty of officers; even senior officers that are not worth a really good machinegunner. I would be interested in seeing a system that "re-incentivizes" soldiering.

One also hears words like "mercenary" thrown about quite a bit, but last time I checked, soldiers received a paycheck just like contractors do. Plus, since contractors are under UCMJ, anyway, what's the difference?

In addition to eliminating rank-entitled pay, I'd also be interested in forcing members of the military to compete for their jobs. Up to and including General Officers.

Radical ideas, but they've been bouncing around in my brain-pan for a while now....

[Vic Bout]

A Czech Army LTC attending ILE with the wife told me that officers in the Czech army are paid IIRC 50% of their pay with the remaining 50% balance decided by their boss. SO, depending on your performance (and how much you manage to ingratiate yourself)...

Imagine a system like that here... piss off your senior rater and can't buy little Jimmy that new bike for Christmas...

[Tacitus]

Plus, since contractors are under UCMJ, anyway, what's the difference?

Is that really true? I heard some news this morning on the radio about a federal grand jury about to indict Blackwater people for their shootings in Iraq last semptember that left 17 dead. Maybe just some contractors, I don't know.

Nothing in this Washington Post story from today that discusses UCMJ being applied here at all.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...=moreheadlines

Apparently not all of the military likes this "rent a gun" approach, at least when the Dept. of State adopts it:
"The Sept. 16 shootings caused a rift between the U.S. and Iraqi governments and exposed Pentagon dissatisfaction with civilian security guards under contract with the State Department. U.S. military officials said that the contractors were "cowboys" whose actions put others at risk and interfered with ongoing military operations. State Department officials responded that the contractors were necessary because the military did not have the resources to protect U.S. civilian officials in Iraq."

[120mm]

Is that really true? I heard some news this morning on the radio about a federal grand jury about to indict Blackwater people for their shootings in Iraq last semptember that left 17 dead. Maybe just some contractors, I don't know.

Nothing in this Washington Post story from today that discusses UCMJ being applied here at all.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...=moreheadlines

Apparently not all of the military likes this "rent a gun" approach, at least when the Dept. of State adopts it:
"The Sept. 16 shootings caused a rift between the U.S. and Iraqi governments and exposed Pentagon dissatisfaction with civilian security guards under contract with the State Department. U.S. military officials said that the contractors were "cowboys" whose actions put others at risk and interfered with ongoing military operations. State Department officials responded that the contractors were necessary because the military did not have the resources to protect U.S. civilian officials in Iraq."

The Blackwater contractors in question were protecting CIVILIAN officials, and such, were not under UCMJ.

Those guys had nothing to do with the military.

State Department is also building a private army on their own, according to some friends I have spoke with, and I'm supposing they're planning on becoming more robust themselves...

And on the "cowboys" comment; I am firmly of the opinion that a certain plurality of the reason for hiring contractors in the first place, is someone to blame when the green-suiter screws up. The "cowboys" comment can be traced to a certain O-6 mouth-breather from nearly a year ago....