Not when you were around. And of course that’s just Blackwater, we don’t know if there were other companies that didn’t get anybody arrested so they didn’t become part of the general consciousness.
Not semantics at all. There are very important reasons why we the last time we declared war was WWII. And those reasons are all 100% to mislead the public and make them think about the situations differently. We did not declare war in Iraq for the EXACT SAME REASON Putin hasn’t declared war in Syria, to maintain control of the narrative and be able to change the scope whenever we wanted to.
“we don’t know if there were other companies (besides Blackwater) that didn’t get anybody arrested so they didn’t become part of the general consciousness.”
Lots and Lots of people know. You are just fantasizing here. Baselessly. Blackwater did not conduct large combined arms combat operations like Wagner just tried. We had plenty of Marines and Mechanized Infantry units for any such mission - and there were damn few such missions after the initial invasion (Fallujah is the most notable exception).