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> Post-war Iraq is not the same as a war zone, so protection of the civil service, bureaucrats, diplomatic corps, etc. I think can be done by some kind of other trained force.

I said conflict zone not war zone, which I meant to encompass lower-intensity dangerous areas. But in any case, aren't American embassies traditionally defended by US Marines? I see no reason to change that.

> In fact, it might be better in some ways - soldiers are trained to have a very aggressive posture, a very 'lean in' kind of assertion. The 'killer instinct'. And it involves a lot of training in heavy weapons, assaults, recons, urban warfare etc. etc.. We don't need that for these missions. Because in any serious engagement they should be calling in the actual Army.

These "contractors" are former soldiers with exactly that same "aggressive...killer instinct" training, so you're not avoiding it by hiring mercenaries for guard duty.

> I have no problem with these guys as long as they are not doing military missions.

As far as I'm concerned, security of American assets and personnel in a conflict zone is a military mission.

> 'Enhanced security guards' are fine.

I don't agree with that. Didn't these mercenary companies start out as just "enhanced security guards?" It seems like once you allow them to operate in any capacity, the rot spreads until you have assassination operations like the one in the article.

The only military career path for Americans should be within the ranks of the US military.

Mercenaries may always exist, but American ones don't have to. Participation in them should be made illegal, and all these private military companies should forbidden to operate until they find another line of business or liquidate themselves. If some former soldier or former general wants to become a mercenary, let him renounce his citizenship and go find a new home.

The only military forces in the US should be explicit parts of official US military.

American private military companies like this one and Blackwater need to be abolished.

> not a libertarian, but what do the alleged actions of of a theocratic monarchy have to do with the potential excesses of free market capitalism?

Probably because there's profit to be had in making deals with that theocratic monarchy. It's the same thing with China. If you're optimizing for market success as you are in free market capitalism, you're incentivized to overlook things that stand in the way of that success, like the immorality of making deals with foreign authoritarians.

> This is horrible for Europe - where end users will eventually pay more for their preferred 'Google Android'.

It won't be "horrible for Europe." Those users have always paid for these apps in one way or another.

> By obligating handset makers to load the free apps along with the Android operating system, regulators said Google had boxed out competitors.

It sounds like a very good thing to me to prevent companies like Google from having such terms, which allow them to use dominance on one area to fuel dominance in many others. Each product should stand on it's own, and the idea that the entire ecosystem is one big product is frankly BS.

> Look at the comments that already exist - is there any way that you can imagine this not turning into a flamefest?

That's an interesting censorship tactic: if you don't like a topic or an idea, start a fight about it, the ruder and unproductive the better. Your disliked topic is thrown out like a baby with the bathwater, an objections to the censorship can be countered with the misdirection that the topic or idea isn't getting suppressed, just "fights."

That's why I think, in the interest of open, good-faith discussion, the flamers themselves need to be moderated, but not the topics that attract them.

> They are talking about how likely the order relates to market structure.

What do you mean by "market structure?"

> Months ago, senior Facebook executives briefly debated banning all political ads, which produce less than 5 percent of the company’s revenue, sources said. The company rejected that because product managers were loath to leave advertising dollars on the table...

Gotta remember what's most important. /s

> Nah, this isn't a legal debt that they can forward to a collection agency, as pointed out in the article.

My understanding is that many collection agencies aren't very scrupulous about they debts they try to collect. Many of them are false, already paid, or lacking necessary documentation.

> I doubt UA would follow through considering it is illegal to submit known false debts.

I wonder if they've snuck in a mandatory binding arbitration clause into their contract, and if that would cover disputes about false debts. Even if the false debts were totally illegal, arbitration could make it impractical to challenge them.