Ted Koppel: Time for Army of U.S. Mercenaries?

Posted on May 22, 2006

The longtime TV broadcaster, writing in the New York Times, snarkily suggests that oil companies that have the greatest interest in safeguarding a particular region should pick up the tab for hiring soldiers to defend it.

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N.Y. Times:

NEW YORK—Little known to the American public, there are some 50,000 private contractors in Iraq, providing support for the U.S. military, among other activities. So why not go all the way, hints Ted Koppel in a New York Times op-ed piece Monday, and form a real “mercenary army”?

Such a move involving what he calls “latter-day Hessians” would represent, he writes, “the inevitable response of a market economy to a host of seemingly intractable public policy and security problems.”

The issue is raised by our “over-extended military” and inability of the United Nations to form adequate peace forces. Meanwhile, Americans business interests grow ever more active abroad in dangerous spots.

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