When I was young joining the army in my country was an easy decision, the money was good and it was a safe job. Recruiters would tell you that you could make an impact on the world and make it a better place for everyone while making enough money to easily fund your kids future and live a good life if you do the job long enough and are willing to put blood, sweat, and tears in.
But within a few years, I realized that what I did had no impact whatsoever, and the money was only good if you went home in one piece or alive at all.So I quit and specialized in tracking down war criminals in the private sector.
It is a long way before you see some of these people in front of the International Criminal Court for example. Many don't even make it there.
You ask how I could continue the work I did?
I had the chance to talk to these people sometimes for an hour sometimes for days before handing them over and one question I always asked was "What do you think would have been necessary to keep you from doing what you did?" and most of the answers boiled down to "nothing, besides a bullet maybe".
And that is exactly the reason why people like me are necessary. You can't sit down at a table with these guys and talk them out of it. There is real evil in this world. And these people are the living proof.
They think they are invincible and above the law and when you see how long it takes to bring these people to justice you begin to understand why they think that way.
Now I'm retired. So no, I am pretty sure the cause of my death will be natural some day.
As far as I'm concerned I don't need to write a book about what or how I did what I did. And outside those trials, my name will never be mentioned anywhere.
But the families of all the people I worked with that died and all the families and mothers that suffered by losing their sons and daughters and husbands because of the war crimes that person ordered will get a little bit of peace, knowing that no matter how rich or powerful you are there are people coming for you willing to give their lives so you rot in jail for what you did.
Can you say more about clients and rules of operation?
What is the relationship to the multi-billion mercenary sector (Blackwater/Academi etc.) the Bush administration created to make its wars more palatable?
Unfortunately, I don't think I can and this also would do no good for the original topic. I hope you can understand that.
If you are interested in the topic what I would recommend is to try to get a better understanding how the investigation in war crimes is handled, especially after a country pulls all or a large part of its armed forces from a conflict region like Iraq or Bosnia.
You will probably make some interesting discoveries that will satisfy your curiosity . Good luck.
I could easily be wrong though, because I'm having trouble finding precise and dependable information online – if you have some good pointers about the growth and changed role in US politics of mercenaries, I'd be interested in reading them.
Just out of curiosity, not saying any side is good or bad, but did you ever run into someone whose rationale was "Because I was 19, Dude. Because, but for the grace of god, it would have been me in the ditch with a bullet in my head."?
Yes, I heard a lot of excuses, especially in Africa.
But it never really mattered to me in a way that I would have said to even a single one ok I let you go and you disappear and spend the rest of your life doing good to make up for what you did.
Some things these people did are beyond what any normal person can imagine.
If a 20 yrs old is in tears and tells you that he was high and ordered to do what he did three years ago and that he was a child soldier for most of his life, then it's just human to feel bad for what happened to him. No kid on the planet should go through that kind of hell.
But if you make the decision to shoot a man in the stomach and let him bleed out, then behead his kid in front of his eyes and rape his wife in front of a dying man before cutting her throat because you claim you were ordered to do so, that is the end of a chain of bad decisions that you made in the past.
I did not walk a single mile in his shoes, so I can't judge if I would have acted differently in his situation with a past like that and being drugged out and forced to do horrible things even before that. But if you make this decision then you also need to be aware of the consequences.
If he had talked about the military, yes I would have posed the same question. That people in the US seem to be okay with paramilitaristic private companies is beyond my understanding, but I was not criticizing this here. I am honestly interested in his motivation, because I cannot think of anything I would do with these consequences attached. Maybe when not doing it would make it even worse, but I do not think this applies here. There is another thread where a doctor describes the same horrors, but his motivation is clearly that sometimes his actions can actually avoid this. Yes a soldier could save his friends in a battle, too, but to me the most effective way would be to convince his friends to not go to the battle in the first place, maybe even by leading by example.
> Well, you do seem judgemental.
As seen above, I am a bit, at least I might have a different view on things. Still you can talk to each other and my question is not political but emotional: Just how can you keep going?
If he had talked about the police with this number of losses, I would also ask how you can keep going and not become either depressed or politically active. While there are police deaths, that many OP is describing here are not normal if you look at international statistics, since OP does not seem to be some sort of national police chief, who has to visit every relative of a dead officer and I guess would already be a kind of politician trying to solve the issue.
Does that change your view in any way?
His post perfectly answers my question. I can see why this is a huge motivation.