Ralph Peters is cool. He wrote Red Army and The War in 2020. Both books kicked ass. If you disagree with the preceding statement then your world view is fundamentally flawed.
Ralph Peters is not happy with the Blackwater mess.
Sipping aqua vitae, spitting aqua fortis.
I don't get why he praises Ugandan and Peruvian mercenaries, but thinks American mercenaries are "hired thugs?" That was sort of a weird point in the article.
ReplyDeleteMaybe because the Ugandan & Peruvian guys don't kill so many civilians?
ReplyDeleteJust guessing.
Maybe those nationals don't do convoys as much? I'd assume most of the problems are with convoys and that anybody on convoy duty short of the Dalai Lama is going to have a similar trigger finger (on average.)
ReplyDeleteYou were a rent-a-cop. What's your experience? Do they guys in the patrol cars tend to pepper spray more than the booth guys?
What? I don't have any experience that is remotely relevant to what's going on in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't know what to make of this video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZHqugy_QBw
Most of the time, Ralph Peters is pretty insightful. Here I think he wanders into the weeds pretty quickly. Outfits like Blackwater are probably a necessary evil these days. the situation with Blackwater in Iraq is so obscured with rhetoric and credibility problems that I can't sort out who to believe.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, have you read Peters' Civil War stuff under his pen name Owen Parry ?
"The situation with Blackwater in Iraq is so obscured with rhetoric and credibility problems that I can't sort out who to believe."
ReplyDeleteIf we delete the words "with Blackwater", then this sentence is even more true.
I've only read the two Peters books I mentioned. Is his other stuff as good as those?