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<DIV>Hello all,</DIV>
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<DIV>I stumbled across this list during the summer and I'm pleased to discover it is still in use.</DIV>
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<DIV>At the bottom is an op ed piece that identifies well the advantages of privatizing military engagements particularly in the context of what Martin Shaw terms risk-transfer warfare (<A href="http://www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/press/205shaw.htm">http://www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/press/205shaw.htm</A>). Not only do military planners seek to transfer risks to over to local ground forces but increasingly they see the advantages in transferring duties and risk to PMCs which do not face the same sorts of public scrutiny as does the military. Death again becomes a private affair.</DIV>
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<DIV>War profiteering is obviously nothing new - particularly since the industrialization of warfare - nor is the use of mercenaries, but it seems to me that the increasing reliance upon PMCs outlines precisely the way that 'regime change' has become a sort of '(ad)venture capitalism'. </DIV>
<DIV> <BR><A href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-edpnewvoices08080805aug08,0,4800426.story?coll=orl-opinion-headlines">http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-edpnewvoices08080805aug08,0,4800426.story?coll=orl-opinion-headlines</A><BR><BR>Ian<BR></DIV>
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<DIV>Ian Roderick, PhD<BR>Communication Studies<BR>Wilfrid Laurier University<BR><A href="http://ianroderick.com">http://ianroderick.com</A></DIV></BODY></HTML>