mercenaries – Moe Lane

…this (via Hot Air) sounds pretty [expletive deleted] much like the US government was pretty [expletive deleted] explicitly offered a mercenary contract by the [expletive deleted] oil oligarchies.

KERRY: Well, we don’t know what action we are engaged in right now, but they have been quite significant. I mean, very significant. In fact, some of them have said that if the U.S. is prepared to go do the whole thing, the way we’ve done it previously in other places, they’ll carry that cost. That’s how dedicated they are to this. Obviously, that is not in the cards and nobody is talking about it, but they are talking about taking seriously getting this job done.

…YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW, SECRETARY KERRY. Continue reading There’s nothing ‘de facto’ about the mercenary thing, @allahpundit…

The technical term for this is ‘mercenary free company.’

I believe that this qualifies as a “Kinsley gaffe:” which is to say, a politician accidentally telling the truth. Background: this was from a press conference where the President was trying to explain why his foreign policy was such an improvement over georgewbushgeorgewbushgeorgewbush’s, despite the fact that it lacks a coherent conceptual framework, an overall philosophy, a clear set of objectives, and any sort of domestic input and/or oversight. But it has the French on-board, so that’s good! We’re much better when we permit other countries to get to move our soldiers around on the geopolitical board.

NO. REALLY. That’s what he said.

…that’s why building this international coalition has been so important because it means that the United States is not bearing all the cost. It means that we have confidence that we are not going in alone, and it is our military that is being volunteered by others to carry out missions that are important not only to us, but are important internationally.

Bolding mine, and screencap here. See Ed Driscoll and Ed Morrissey for more; it is only by their good example that I am restraining myself from lapsing into some fairly vile profanity over this.

Continue reading Barack Obama on US Military: available for “being volunteered by others.”