> The hardest problem to solve is that of armed contractors and their 
> international legal status. Short of convening a new Geneva Convention 
> to rewrite the laws of war, there is no way to fix the ambiguous status 
> of these hired guns.

My father-in-law is in Iraq right now as a contractor. I didn't realize he fit into the category of "armed contractor" until my wife informed me otherwise just the other day.

He is an explosives and demolition expert, and was trained as such while in the military - and that's what he's doing there now. His primary responsibility, as he told me before he left, was advising on and helping to clear minefields and disposing of weapons caches.

Up until now, I've had a degree of cognitive dissonance - "Oh, he's not one of *those* contractors", but I can't do that any longer.

Sure, he's not what we *mean* when we think of "armed contractors" - we're thinking of the soldier-of-fortune types, the ones who literally are hired combat soldiers. "Hired guns", as it was put above.

And there are "hired guns" in Iraq - I've seen reports of them in the _Review_ and elsewhere. But apparently most - if not all - contractors in Iraq are armed right now, regardless of what job they're doing. I can't fault them for that - it's a dangerous place to be, and sometimes having a weapon is the only thing that can ensure your survival.

Does this make them all "hired guns", or does it simply mean that they aren't fools?

In this war, we are careful to clarify that a report of abuse by U.S. troops does not apply to all troops - that most of them are fine and good and doing the best they can. Perhaps we should apply that same nuanced understanding to these contractors - many of whom, like my father-in-law, saw this as the best way to ensure their family's economic survival.