Public Address | Cafe | Random Play: Cash from Chaos https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/ en-us Copyright (c) 2026 Public Address Peter Hodge https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6662#post6662 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6662#post6662 Mercenaries have been a way of life in Iraq at least since 401 BC when Cyrus, pretender to the Persian throne, hired Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (Greek hoplites, out of work at the end of the Peloponnesian War) to fight for his cause.

In the last 20 or so…

]]> Wed, 31 Jan 2007 22:25:55 +1300 Russell Brown https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6655#post6655 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6655#post6655

The outsourcing in Iraq isn't limited to dodgy private security companies. Dodgy PR companies get the big bucks as well.

Oh yeah. Lincoln Group was bizarre from the beginning. There's more on the founder, Christian Bailey, here:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christian_Bailey

The amount of money that has been thrown around in the form…

]]> Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:20:49 +1300 Richard Bol https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6651#post6651 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6651#post6651 The outsourcing in Iraq isn't limited to dodgy private security companies. Dodgy PR companies get the big bucks as well.

http://www.harpers.org/MisinformationIntern.html

]]> Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:50:58 +1300 Sam F https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6585#post6585 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6585#post6585 The thought of a highly-trained private army, combined with the obfuscatory skill and political amorality of a major corporation, gives me a highly specific form of the creeps.

Who else is hiring these guys? Have they started franchising in the Third World yet?

]]> Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:26:21 +1300 Alex Coleman https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6575#post6575 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6575#post6575 The mercenary issue gives me a feeling I can only describe as a dose of the non-specific creeps.

The US has the most expensive military in history, why do they feel a need for private armies to fill roles such as the protection of civilian US govt figures in the…

]]> Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:47:45 +1300 Brendan Cameron https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6529#post6529 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6529#post6529 Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:13:16 +1300 Graham Reid https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6525#post6525 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6525#post6525 Thanks to Nick who, rather more diligently than me, pursued the on-line thing.
The article I mentioned is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/magazine/14PRIVATI.html?ei=5088&en=d2d43bcb169edc55&ex=1281672000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

]]> Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:01:11 +1300 stephen walker https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6524#post6524 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6524#post6524 From the LA Times via commondreams.org:

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Our Mercenaries in Iraq

The president relies on thousands of private soldiers with little oversight, a disturbing example of the military-industrial complex.

by Jeremy Scahill

As President Bush took the podium to deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday,…

]]> Tue, 30 Jan 2007 02:18:44 +1300 stephen walker https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6523#post6523 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6523#post6523 "Cash from Chaos"--I like that.
It sounds like the Bush Crime Family's theme tune.

OK, just perusing the contracor deaths listed on icasualties.org (incomplete list), we can see three NZers have died in Iraq:
16 Dec 2006, Steve Gilchrist, roadside bomb, Armourgroup
08 Aug 2006, Te Ina Marokura Ngamata, roadside…

]]> Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:53:29 +1300 JP Hansen https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6507#post6507 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6507#post6507 I read that thing about this being Clapton's 1st NZ show in the HoS yesterday. My friend and I came to the conclusion that in 1990 we must have seen Eric Carmen.

Or Richard Clapton.

Someone going by the name Eric Clapton also played here in the mid Seventies.

I…

]]> Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:09:14 +1300 Public Address https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6506#post6506 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/random-play-cash-from-chaos/?p=6506#post6506 Discussion from blog post.

]]> Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:09:14 +1300