Feral Jundi

Monday, December 21, 2009

Film: Avatar is CGI Cool, But PMC’s Are Once Again The Bad Guys

Filed under: Film — Tags: , , , , , , , — Matt @ 9:19 AM

   Thanks to Christian Lowe for the review.  This movie sounds impressive, but yet again, Holly-weird has decided to portray private industry as the bad guy. Pffft. For that, I will more than likely watch this movie as a rental or at the cheap theater in town when it gets there.

   This gets old, and it is a slap in the face of the thousands of contractors currently in the war, who have served in the war at one point or another, and most importantly, have been killed or maimed in this war.  Thanks James Cameron for nothing. Next. –Matt

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Avatar

Avatar Thrills, but Troops Take Hit

Military.com – Christian Lowe

Dec 17, 2009

It’s pretty simple.

Spend a gazillion dollars on computer animators; concoct an entirely new language, throw the whole thing on another planet with ten-foot-tall aliens that ride dragons and plug into their extraterrestrial horses with biological data cables and add some jet-hovering, super-fortress gunships, belt-fed blasters, and latter day V-22s and you’ve got yourself a pretty good action movie formula, right?

Now make it all 3-D.

That’s exactly what writer/director James Cameron (Aliens, Titanic) tried to do with what is reportedly the most expensive film ever produced. His latest movie Avatar — which opens in U.S. theaters today — certainly lives up to its billing as a visceral assault on the senses. Think of the most gut-wrenching roller coaster ride of your life — and stretch it two and a half hours.

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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Company Spotlight: Bancroft Global Development, the 501(c)3 Non-profit PMC

    That’s right, I am not making this up.  Bancroft Global Development is a no-kidding non-profit PMC. lol.  Anyway, this is all I could scrape up about BGD, and I thought it was a pretty cool concept.  I don’t know of any other non-profit PMC’s out there, and this company totally presents a different view on how we look at the PMC.  I also posted their earnings from 2007, and it looks like they are doing pretty well.

     What I really like about this is that is takes the whole ‘evil profiteering PMC’ element out of the conversation.  Although I would like to hear about any downsides with something like this, and I am all ears with the readership.

     So how about a non-profit Co-op PMC as an idea for a company? Just thinking out loud, and there are all sorts of interesting paths you could take with this stuff.  By the way, if any BGD guys would like to comment, or post any PR stuff, feel free to do so in the comments or send it to me and I will edit this thing.  I also look forward to when the website becomes fully operational and if they start looking for guys for their operation in Somalia and elsewhere. –Matt

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From their website.

Bancroft Global Development is a non-governmental organization dedicated to removing violence from public discourse, by promoting permanent solutions to the economic, environmental and societal harm caused by armed conflict.

Bancroft Global Development was duly organized in 1999 under the laws of the United States as a 501(c)3 not-for-profit charitable organization.

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Monday, September 28, 2009

Africa: FP Interview’s Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire

Filed under: Africa — Tags: , , , , , — Matt @ 11:37 AM

   Boy, I wish Elizabeth would have had the gumption to actually discuss the concept of R2P, and the work of UNWG.  Or talk about AFRICAP and how PMC’s and PSC’s could actually be the solution for some of these manpower issues.  I kept reading the transcripts below thinking that this is where the line of questioning should logically go, but it did not.

   If the good General is reading this, perhaps you wouldn’t mind doing an interview with PMH to discuss these things? And how cool would that be to get Eeben Barlow, Doug Brooks, and David Isenberg all on the line as well, and actually discuss the concepts? Now that would be a party. lol –Matt

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Interview: Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire

The general who tried to stop the Rwandan genocide warns FP that the line has blurred between peacekeeping and counterinsurgency. It’s a cautionary tale for the age of Afghanistan and Iraq. Are the world’s militaries up to the task?

BY ELIZABETH DICKINSON | SEPTEMBER 21, 2009

There are few who can say they have been as close to stopping genocide as retired Lt. Gen Roméo Dallaire, the Canadian commander of the United Nations peacekeeping forces in Rwanda in 1994. Long before the killing began, Dallaire sounded a warning call. Then, he begged for reinforcements and a mandate to use force — neither of which he got — as his troops fatefully watched hundreds of thousands of Rwandans slaughtered. “You should spit in my face,” says the character based on Dallaire in the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda. “[The West is] not going to stop the slaughter.” The world did little then, and so in real life, Dallaire has spent much of his last decade and a half reminding the world not to let the same happen again.

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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Technology: MAG, A 256 Player Virtual War Game Between Three PMC’s

Friday, August 14, 2009

Africa: U.S. Boots On Congo Ground

Filed under: Africa,Industry Talk — Tags: , , , , , , , — Matt @ 2:02 AM

    This is a joke, right?  I get the impression that Mr. O’Hanlon, like many journalists and authors out there, has completely written out of the dialogue any mention of PMC’s.  It’s as if they have all committed to the idea that security contractors are a bad idea, and that somehow a reworking of the military structure will solve the problems of manpower issues for these types of missions.

    I have news for you guys, kids these days are smart, and a program like this is still the military and it is still serving in a war zone.  How is that different, other than calling it something different?

   Further more, once you put these ‘safe and sane’ troops on the ground in the Congo, and they are confronted with a force of rebels that see an opportunity to go kinetic on this new style western force, what will these forces answer back with?  Will this new peace force answer rebel bullets and bombs, with high velocity love letters and flower bombs?  This kind of thinking is dangerous and idiotic to say the least, and I am highly skeptical.

   Perhaps Mr. O’Hanlon should get some shared reality, and talk to Eeben Barlow of Executive Outcomes about what is required in these countries if we really care to keep some kind of peace?

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