Hardcore Article

Throughout this "War on Terror", and unofficial war with Iraq, the US has used mercenaries. It, essentially, is a battle the US has paid for under the table, since mercenaries do not count as US troops. It is very interesting, because much of the money that goes towards Iraq is counted as "International Charity and Aid" in official reports, so this just shows how much is hidden and misrepresented to US citizens. As our military shrinks, since people no longer want to sign up and end up in Iraq, these expensive contractors are called on more and more often. It is interesting that this article puts a spotlight on this issue, since there is very little known about them. Much of what they do or how they are paid are all classified information, but this article attempts to expose them. However, after reading the article, I'm not sure if the author is proposing a solution. He expresses that we should stop this, but I'm not sure if the article even addresses those that can do something about this situation. In the last class, we discussed how it may be a very critical part of a paper to address an audience that actually has powers to change and fix the problem. Since I can't discern that this is done in the paper, I'm not sure how convinced I am to make change, besides that I agree there is a problem.