I love Maclean’s. Their app gives me convenient access to so much blog fodder I get inspired every time I open it.

Q: When is a mercenary not a mercenary?
A: When the US government says he’s part of a “private security firm” hired to train African Union troops serving in Somalia.

Bancroft Global Development is apparently one of a “growing number of such firms operating in the drought-ravaged and war-torn country”. Bancroft it seems “has been indirectly funded” to turn “bush troops onto urban fighters”. Since the AU troops were able to push Shabab forces out of Mogadishu (the capital) last weekend, it looks like money well spent.

I may have some issues with this clever way of getting boots on the ground without making it obvious to the American people.

The US government is well aware that the voters might not want to get involved with another expensive foreign adventure. Instead, they’ll send in rent-a-war. You may remember these guys from Iraq. Back the they were called PMCs. That stands for Private Military Contractors. I guess that sounded too Bush era, so now they’re “Development Firms”. The only thing these firms are looking to develop are huge paydays. No matter what the latest cute euphemism may be, they are pay-to-play mercenaries.

I don’t have anything against mercenaries or the people who hire them. Every major conflict that I can think of going back at least to the crusades has involved them. The problem is more one of motivation. Not for the “Development” people, they’re easy. I’m talking about the people paying them. You know, the US government. How does it benefit America to spend large sums of cash it doesn’t have, sending rent-a-war to Somalia? Did anyone say, “Fighting The Spread Of Radical Islamist Terror!”? Don’t be embarrassed, it just means you’ve been watching the news.

Officially, Al Shabaab is lumped in with all the other “Radical Islamist”s. This is like assuming the Pope is the same as convicted pedophile and polygamous, sect leader Warren Jeffs because they both talk about Jesus. What this group is doing in Somalia is an atrocity beyond my power to imagine. I just don’t think they’re a big threat to the US.

Maybe the American government just wants to ease the humanitarian crisis facing the country. After all, they’ve got a long and distinguished track record of using their wealth and might to selflessly fight oppression the world over. There was that time they went to North Korea to stop the government from starving the people. Oops, that wasn’t it. How about when they went into Rwanda to prevent genocide? Umm, not so much. The list goes on.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they owe the world anything. I’m just saying that when the US gets involved in an ongoing conflict, their primary goal is not usually to make life better for anyone but themselves. Nor should it be if they don’t feel the need to do so. The likelihood of benevolent motive gets smaller in light of the lack of publicity. If this was a feel-good humanitarian gig, there would have been press conferences and photo-ops galore. I read a lot of news, and so far, so quiet They aren’t keeping it a secret, just low profile.

That’s why this keeps coming back to motive for me. I’m certain there are any number of conspiracy theorists slaving away to answer this for me. I appreciate their efforts, but I doubt it’s going to be anything that interesting. I fully expect it to be the usual mundane one. Profit. I’m just curious to see what they expect that profit to be.

I’d like to finish with a little bit of humor. Given the cost of a rent-a-war, the sub-title of the article “Company’s Help Fight Islamists” proves Maclean’s.ca either has an awesome sense of humor or absolutely no sense of irony. You decide.

Cheers, Winston