UK firm 'employed former child soldiers' as mercenaries in Iraq

[rpannier]

A former senior director at a British firm says that it employed mercenaries from Sierra Leone to work in Iraq because they were cheaper than Europeans and did not check if they were former child soldiers.

snip

Aegis Defence Services, which is chaired by Sir Nicholas Soames, a Tory MP and Winston Churchill’s grandson, had a series of contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to provide guards to protect US military bases in Iraq from 2004 onwards. From 2011 the company broadened its recruitment to take in African countries, having previously employed people from the UK, the US and Nepal.

snip

“When war gets outsourced, then the companies tries to find the cheapest soldiers globally. Turns out that that is former child soldiers from Sierra Leone. I think it is important that we in the west are aware of the consequences of the privatisation of war,” the film’s maker, Mads Ellesøe, said.

snip

Ellery, who said he was speaking in a personal capacity, told the Guardian that it would be “quite wrong” to ask whether people had ever been child soldiers, as it would penalise people for things they had often been forced into doing.


http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/apr/17/uk-firm-employed-former-child-soldiers-as-mercenaries-in-iraq

Iraq the invasion that keeps on giving

[Victor_c3]

1. What are we as a society supposed to do with former child soldiers?

Or any former soldiers for that matter?

Once you know soldiering, that is pretty much all you can do. It takes over and sneaks into every part of your life. How do you fight in a war (either intentionally or unintentionally like a child soldier) and go back to being "normal"? You can't turn off those reflexes that have been honed by life and death situations. The same reflexes that kept you alive in those situations and that make you a good soldier are exactly what prevent you from integrating and adjusting back to a peaceful society.

On the surface it might sound wrong to hire former child soldiers to be mercenaries, but what sorts of jobs can these people do?

[malaise]

2. Truth will out

War is money - wonder if this British gang hi theirs in Panama?

[Jeffersons Ghost]

5. Did you know the infamous law firm in Panama has more offices in China than any other nation

Xi Jinping's brother-in-law hid all the Xi money there.

[malaise]

6. Yep - there are so many thieves

Say one thing for China - they don't pretend to be practicing democracy

[Jeffersons Ghost]

7. Why did Xi name them after an endangered species...

Tigers simply hunt for food and protect their territory. Why does Xi want them dead? [+fuck Chinese code@DU and on my radio]

https://www.rt.com/news/264489-siberian-tigers-putin-russia/

[FLPanhandle]

3. Former child soldiers.

Not child soldiers. What's the big deal?

[Jeffersons Ghost]

4. was the firm linked to MI6?