Review of Shadow Company (2006) by Louis L — 02 Feb 2010

The driver for this documentary on mercenaries/Private Military Companies (PMC) was the recognition that the PMC involvement in Iraq was greater then all non-US members of the coalition combined. The format was interviews with mercenaries and historians.

This was much more evenhanded then I expected when I first heard of it. The historical point focused on the fact that mercenaries were historically heavily used, that modern times is merely continuation, and that most mercenaries had strong ethics and desire to enable good. While there are 'cowboys', the PMC representatives advocated regulation of the PMC industry (note that most of the representatives interviewed were not American). They also wanted to see PMCs under the authority of some court (e.g. The Hague) instead of the state in Iraq where PMC were effectively not under any legal authority as the CPA declared them immune from prosecution under Iraqi law.

The focus is not that PMC/mercenaries are bad, despite the very silly Hollywood portrayal, but looking at how they fit into the world system as it exists. It suffers because there is no attempt to look at the entire issue, only a series of independent questions, with no thought about how the audience should take this all together.