(no subject)

Very interesting Time article on the role of private armies in Iraq and elsewhere. The American "civilian contractors" killed and trophied in Fallujah were soliders-for-hire from Blackwater USA, a company that headhunts the deadliest dudes from elite US Armed Forces divisions (like SEALs and Delta Force), offering them huge salaries to work for private contracts. It sounds too cinematic (or video gamey) to be real, but there it is. (Link from pseudomanitou.)