All those great defenders of mercenary armies in Iraq need to make a choice. Do they support the right of people to profit off war and chaos, or do they support the US military?
Because the two options are mutually exclusive.
Just when the U.S. military needs them most, senior Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other elite forces are leaving for higher-paying jobs.
After getting years of training and experience in the military, they leave for other government jobs or for what defense officials said Tuesday has been an explosion in outside contractor work.
"What makes them so valuable to us makes them highly marketable on the outside," said Chief Master Sgt. Robert V. Martens Jr., senior adviser at the U.S. Special Operations Command, which also oversees equipping and training elite Army Rangers and Air Force special operations commandos.
Better salaries, retirement benefits and educational opportunities are among incentives that might help stem the problem, defense officials said as they met with lawmakers to discuss ways to keep forces who have become so crucial to the war on terror.
A soldier, sailor or airman gets $60,000 per year at 18 years of service -- a figure that includes housing allowance and some types of special duty pay. Troops who go to work for civilian contractors can make up to $200,000 a year, one official has said.
The military command that oversees the covert forces "is the nation's single best weapon in the global war on terror," said Rep. Jim Saxton, R-N.J. Saxton opened Tuesday's session before his House Armed Services Committee terrorism subcommittee, saying he fears the military is losing such troops faster than they can be replaced for a counter-terror war that "has no foreseeable end point."
What's ironic is that those mercenary salaries are being paid, in large part, by the US government, which is hiring those "private contractors" to help bolster the US's woefully undermanned Iraq operation.