I don’t intend to deal with all the objections to a private army in this post, and there are many. We’ll save that for later. But Cast Lead II or whatever they’re calling it demonstrates very clearly the problems with a publicly funded army on many fronts, and how privatization would solve all of them.

First of all, a public army has its hands tied by politicians, who have their hands tied by other politicians who have no interest in the safety of people in Be’er Sheva or Sderot or wherever. Netanyahu and the rest of our political wise men are now lobbying Obama and the EU and all the other thugs who have nothing at all to do with any of this, to try and get us permission to go to war. So a public IDF, controlled by politics, cannot do its job and defend Jews efficiently.

If the army were a private company, or several different private companies protecting each city, they would not need permission from politicians to do whatever they needed to do to get the rockets to stop. Their hands could not be tied because their money would not be coming from taxes and certainly not foreign aid, and foreign politicians would not be able to control a private company in a different country.

As it stands now, the residents of the south have no recourse because they cannot threaten the army owners with bankruptcy if they fail. Their budget is paid whether they succeed or fail in protecting their residents, and they cannot be sued if they fail. If the army were private, they could be sued for damages for every rocket they allow into the territory under their protection. In order not to be put out of business in a hurry, they’d need to respond with amazingly terrifying force to get the rockets to stop within hours or even minutes.

A private army paid for voluntarily by citizens would be directly responsible to its consumers, not to politicians. It would not allow Arabs to even get their hands on any rockets for the threat of making them lose business when those rockets fly.

It would act fast, it would be ruthless, and it would be efficient as hell.

A public army, even a very good one like the IDF, is necessarily slow, hands tied, measured in its response, not accountable to its patrons, and inefficient as hell. A private army would have killed Ahmed Jabari a long, long time ago. A private army would have paid off the Gazan Arabs to leave decades ago so none of this would be happening.

A private army in charge of protection of the south would not let food, water, electricity, or UN relief workers into Gaza at any time. A private army could have never expelled the Jews from Gaza in 2005. If the army were a private institution, there would not be over 1 million Arabs in Gaza. No private company would live with that kind of a threat to their business.

The business of a public army controlled by politicians is war.

The business of a private army controlled by its customers is peace.