Reddit mentions of Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds

Its a good book to provide their side of the story, and Further good reading subjects:

• Blackwater did fill a role, and being scapegoated is part of that role. It parallels with foreign mercenaries like in South Africa, and the PMCs market.
  
  
• Mercenary forces history https://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Mercenaries-William-Urban/dp/1848328540 was what i first read into but there are many more out there
  
  
• "Executive Outcomes" https://www.amazon.com/Executive-Outcomes-Against-All-Odds/dp/1919854193
  
  is pretty good to describe the foundation
  
  
• Why do we use contractors? Read Major General Smedley Butler's War is a Rackeet
  
  
• French Foreign Legion; many books and documentaries in this. But some great perspective was they are a "dirty" force to keep France clean in some clandestine missions where Public Relations are a nightmare.
  
  
• politics; look up why the numbers of troops are counted and why they are counted, but more importantly how they are counted. Do personnel count as an aggregate? if so you want essential warfighter and its support but then... how about logistics, or administration? or other crucial elements? Heres where Halliburton and KBR come into play.
  
  
• specific role, gov contracts are important but then rich people who can afford the best professionals fill this demand.
  
  My personal opinion is congress/senate and the public got really hung up on numbers. Boots on the ground, the authorized amount and the budget for those deployed.
  
  They are assets, and when we send and authorize them one of the parties (public, through senate/ congress) gets really snagged on one thing.
  
  Thus the Military industrial complex gets play and has a legitimate need.
  
  The problem is the contracting out of political and real life capital. Wars should be fought and have a price to them.
  
  That is our duty. That is the price we pay. When we contract that out things get really grey really fucking fast.
  
  Love it if anyone can add onto this discussion from a broader perspective.
  
  to answer you directly;
  
  
• worked with XE for contracting for a small bit, mostly paper pusher, and verifier of service and clearances. The PMC industry is very fucking small with ethical borders on what is ok and what is not ok.
  
  
• their facilities are some of the topnotch in the world. FBI and DHS sometimes use them. They also have multiple umbrella corporations to contract out with like franchises for Special Missions training.
  
  
• They also do a shit ton of consultancy domestically through C-Level/ fortune 500 companies on security, personnel, and vetting
  
  
• as far as in country, i can only recall 2009/2010 where they rolled around like their shit dont stink and hired locals that i wouldnt trust. They also had bad reputations for supporting their front line "consultant" contractors and we had to give them rides and resupply a couple of them.