The Envelope Continues to Move – Mercenary Edition

From Wired’s Danger Zone:

NATO is planning on outsourcing air support for southern Afghanistan, an area of some of the most intense fighting. The alliance is intending to contract for some twenty helicopters.

…

[T]his is the first time military outsourcing has been used as a workaround to domestic opposition of a military action. This occurs at a time of broadening US public opposition to military outsourcing.

This summer Germany, France, Turkey, Spain and Greece all declined NATO requests for more helicopters to be sent to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. Recent polls in Germany have indicated that two thirds of the population are against a renewal of the German commitment to Afghanistan.

In the year 2000, would you have thought that less than a decade later, nobody would bat an eye over the US using mercenary land and air forces?