Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror [Paperback]

Robert Young Pelton (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 28, 2007

Robert Young Pelton first became aware of the phenomenon of hired guns in the War on Terror when he met a covert team of contractors on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in the fall of 2003. Pelton soon embarked on a globe-spanning odyssey to penetrate and understand this shadowy world, ultimately delivering stunning insights into the way private soldiers are used.

Enter a blood-soaked world of South African mercenaries and tribal fighters backed by ruthless financiers. Drop into Baghdad’s Green Zone, strap on body armor, and take a daily high-speed ride with a doomed crew of security contractors who dodge car bombs and snipers just to get their charges to the airport. Share a drink in a chic hotel bar with wealthy owners of private armies who debate the best way to stay alive in war zones.

Licensed to Kill spans four continents and three years, taking us inside the CIA’s dirty wars; the brutal contractor murders in Fallujah and the Alamo-like sieges in Najaf and Al Kut; the Deep South contractor training camps where ex–Special Operations soldiers and even small town cops learn the ropes; the contractor conventions where macho attendees swap bullet-punctuated tales and discuss upcoming gigs; and the grim Central African prison where contractors turned failed mercenaries pay a steep price.

The United States has encouraged the use of the private sector in all facets of the War on Terror, placing contractors outside the bounds of functional legal constraints. With the shocking clarity that can come only from firsthand observation, Licensed to Kill painstakingly deconstructs the most controversial events and introduces the pivotal players. Most disturbingly, it shows that there are indeed thousands of contractors—with hundreds more being produced every month—who’ve been given a license to kill, their services available to the highest bidder.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“An incredible look into the murky and virtually impenetrable world of private military contractors . . . Pelton may well have seen the future.” —Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm and A Death in Belmont

“Licensed to Kill is smart, funny, sometimes scary, and always interesting. Pelton truly captures the cast of characters that make up our new ‘coalition of the billing’ in the War on Terror.” —P. W. Singer, author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry

“A rollicking read that takes the reader inside the murky world of military contractors—from the craggy passes of the Afghan-Pakistan border, to the extreme danger of Baghdad’s airport road, to the diamond fields of Africa. Licensed to Kill is not only a great travelogue, it also has some important things to say about the brave new world of privatized violence that will increasingly be a feature of twenty-first-century wars.” —Peter Bergen, author of The Osama bin Laden I Know and Holy War, Inc.

“Robert Pelton enjoys the credibility not shared by many to comment on the world’s dark corners. Licensed to Kill sheds light on one of the corners—the world of private for-hire guns, mercenaries, and armies. It’s a reality; it’s a business; it’s lucrative . . . Consider Licensed to Kill a ‘safety brief,’ a military term for ‘pay attention.’ Read it . . . pay attention.” —James A. “Spider” Marks, Major General, United States Army (Ret.)

“Pelton reveals how the U.S. military-industrial complex has created its own dark version of the nonstate warrior [and] asks if companies like Blackwater and Executive Outcomes could become the new Hessians for both multinational corporations and overstretched armies.” —Jonathan Taplin, professor, USC Annenberg School for Communication, and producer of Under Fire, The Last Waltz, and Mean Streets

“‘The dark side of the war on terror’ may sound redundant, but how else can you describe the world of contractors, mercs, and wackos who are paid big money to keep the key players alive and the war machinery humming? It’s a cynical, funny, and very scary place, stretching from Arkansas to Fallujah, and no one gets it, or tells it, better than Robert Young Pelton.” —John Rasmus, editor in chief, National Geographic Adventure


From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Robert Young Pelton is a journalist, filmmaker, and explorer. He is the author of The World's Most Dangerous Places, Come Back Alive, The Adventurist, and Three Worlds Gone Mad. Pelton has worked for National Geographic, Discovery, 60 Minutes, the ABC Investigative Division, and CNN. He is also a contributing editor and columnist for National Geographic Adventure.


From the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; Sixth Impression edition (August 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400097827
• ISBN-13: 978-1400097821
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #315,293 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"Robert Young Pelton is the guy most men think they are after slamming two tequilas" - Tim Cahill

Robert Young Pelton (b. July 25, 1955, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), is an author, journalist and documentary filmmaker. An iconoclast known for his entry into most of the world's conflicts over the last fifteen years, Pelton is known as an adventurer and a witness" to conflict. His reputation is built on his interest and ability to enter forbidden, deadly and violent places and emerge with a stunning story. Pelton has been present at many historic battles. He was US special forces and General Dostum during and after the battle of Qala-I-Jangi in Afghanistan, with Chechen rebels during the siege of Grozny in Chechnya, with the LURD rebels during the bloody campaign to take Monrovia in Liberia and approximately 3 dozen other conflicts.

He survived an assassination attempt in Uganda, a plane crash in Indonesia and was kidnapped by the AUC death squads in Colombia. He spent time with the CIA during the hunt for Bin Laden and ran Route Irish with Blackwater security contractors for a month during late 2004 during the war in Iraq.

Pelton's regularly published survival and political guide The World's Most Dangerous Places, provides practical and survival information for people who work and travel in high risk zones, was a best seller. With the book's best seller status Pelton has become an expert on work and travel in "high-risk" environments. He was also host of the Discovery Travel Channel series "Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places" from 1998 to 2003. Now residing in Los Angeles, California, Pelton currently writes books and produces documentaries on conflict-related subjects.

He is also a frequent television and magazine interview subject, often appearing as an often humorous raconteur of his various misfortunes and safety tips on shows as diverse as Oprah, Conan O'Brien, CNN, Fox, BBC, ABC, CBS, NBC and others.

Pelton has also worked as a journalist for CNN, CBS 60 Minutes, ABC Investigative Division, National Geographic and others. He has probably spent more time with insurgent, rebel and terorist groups than any other journalist and is known for introducing the world to John Walker Lindh with his stunning Dec 2, 2001 battlefield interview on CNN.

Robert Young Pelton's Official Website is:
http://www.comebackalive.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-have resource on PMCs for the casual reader, the academic, and the policy wonk October 11, 2006

By MountainRunner

Format:Hardcover

Licensed to Kill is Robert Young Pelton's broad survey of the modern world of mercenaries. Strike that, of contractors. Mercenaries, after all, as Doug Brooks of IPOA (International Peace Operations Association) said in the movie Shadow Company: anyone convicted as being a mercenary should be shot along with his lawyer (Doug, pardon my paraphrasing). Regardless, Pelton's subtitle captures what these guys are: hired guns. Or as one of the contractors in the book put it: "guns with legs".

Pelton's book is (or can be) a quick read. It's conversational, often with the feel that you're sitting in a pub having a beer while he tells you a story (as you do in his World's Most Dangerous Places books). For me, however, it wasn't a quick read. I found myself highlighting sentences, scribbling in the margins, and applying colored flags for quick and future reference. Pelton may challenge the journalist\ community with how he gets into the action (journos not always being the type who will ride with the bad guy when something might happen), but this is how he gets the facts, the story, and the respect that opens doors later. A perpetual cycle, his access gets him more access and so on. Unlike other others who seek to justify a point of view, Pelton comes off balanced, telling it like it is and, very importantly, with context.

Licensed to Kill is more than a narrative of private operators, it is an almost forensic look into the use of private military forces. High profile actors in the world of hired guns, such as Erik Prince and Blackwater, Tim Spicer, Simon Mann, and Michael Grunburg (profiled deeper in Three Worlds Gone Mad) of various ventures, and even a con-artist who's convinced he's the greatest American hero.

This book is a great resource that pulls the curtain aside to see how PMCs operate, a look into their motivations, and where they are being used. If you're not provoked to learn more, you're not paying attention.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars OK, but his sources in Baghdad could have been better September 11, 2006

By Herb Hunter

Format:Hardcover

I can't speak for the accuracy of other parts of this book, but I was working as a private contractor in Baghdad when the author was there gathering his info. I hate to say it, but he spent so much time in one small location talking to a limited group of people that his perspective was somewhat warped. At times his writing demonstrates an amateurish over-infatuation with GI-Joe cliches. The result, as one other reviewer aptly pointed out, is that the book sometimes reads like a half-baked article from Soldier of Fortune.

Many (but, I emphasize, not all) of the guys working at his location at that time had very questionable backgrounds and were definitely not the best and brightest of the bunch. A few were unqualified for any other job in country and wound up there, where the author was located, by default. What made the author's "research" more puzzling was the presence of a compound with about 300 more highly qualified PSD guys less than a mile away from where his head hit the pillow. I'm not sure what kept him from coming to talk to the rest of us, but I think it might have changed his perspective a bit had he taken the time to broaden his scope.

45 of 48 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Educational and intriguing look into PSC's December 26, 2006

By Kevin Lynds

Format:Hardcover

RYP's book on the modern history of PSC's offers what appears to be an honest look into the world of today's military contractor, or what some would call "mercenary". Much of the book covers the work of PSC's in Iraq today and gives an honest look into what the job entails. The daily hurry-up and wait game, the same routine day in and day out, with short bursts on intense violence and excitement and the ever-present knowledge that the enemy is everyewhere and can be everyone (or anything - IED's).

Mr. Pelton seems to gain a lot of access to not only the personalities of those running today's security companies, but those that ran and operated in past ones, such as Sandline and Executive Outcomes. Some of their (the owners and the operators) motivations are laid out in the open, some are percieved and some are questioned. For example, the US contractors that work in Iraq mostly seem to be family men, trained in the military, that have no other job experience or training and who "saw the light" in making military wages or go private and make upwards of $10k p/month. Now although their main motivation seems to be money and might classify them as a "mercenary force", you do not get the idea that they are for hire to the highest bidder. They are doing what they were trained to do, working for the goals of the US, just making more money. There are also those who seemto like the money and excitement of the job. RYP also covers the effects of the Blackwater contractors who were ambushed, mutilated, killed and hung from a bridge on the industry. He is able to give an objeective and honest look into both the worlds of private military companies, those that are working "above board" as security specialists and those who have taken of on more a mercenary role in world affairs.

His book raises many questions and issues, some raised by the contractors themselves. One being the genocide in Darfur. Eric Prince, founder of Blackwater says he can field a military force to go in and deal with the atrocities happening in Sudan, and that he can do it faster and for pennies on the dollar of what it would cost the mostly-inept UN to do it. Obviously many questions arise, but as we debate, innocent people are having their houses burned down, while being raped, mutilated and killed by the Janjaweed. What is our (the worlds) excuse to these people on why we seem to be sitting on our hands. As one contractor said, give them the word and it they would be "Janja-weed-Be-Gone".

The biggest question raised is one that is not answered in the book and one that only time will tell. As this private military complex becomes more popular with more companies popping up worldwide, at what cost will that have to our nation and military. Although Eric Prince says that his Blackwater firm will not take on any job that is not in accordance with the security of the US, what will happen as more and more trained professionals (both inside and outside of the us) that do not have his same patriotism are pulled out into the world market by the almighty dollar, no matter the side?