MSNBC - Private guards repel attack on headquarters--Blackwater Security sends helicopter to ferry out wounded Marine

An attack by hundreds of Iraqi militia members on the U.S. government's headquarters in Najaf on Sunday was repulsed not by the U.S. military, but by eight commandos from a private security firm, according to sources familiar with the incident.

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I have noticed the tenor of news coverage about the thousands of private security people in Iraq--overwhelmingly negative, often referring to them as "mercenaries." These are mostly ex-military from what I have read. The ones who were murdered and their bodies desecrated by maniacs in Fallujah were providing security for a food convoy. The ones in this story about Najaf performed heroically and saved the life of a wounded Marine, among others.

What exactly is the problem with this that has Dan Rather et al in a flat spin? First, it seems to me that plenty of people need protection in Iraq right now, and the military isn't mainly in the security guard business, so what exactly is the mainstream media's problem? Second, it is my understanding that these news agencies are some of the main employers of these folks for their own protection, so their surprise at the existence of "mercenaries" is obviously feigned and supremely hypocritical.

Maybe a security guard is a mercenary if hired by anybody other than a news agency. Is that the rule?