Letters to the Editor
Nita Martin
Published Letters: 270 Editor's Choice: 62
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I beg to differ...
[Read the article: Maybe it's not just Blackwater after all]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"the contractors have only the safety of their charges in mind."
I don't think anybody, including me, actually believes that.
What I do believe, however, is that the big bucks, soldier-of-fortune, gun-as-penis mentality has attracted a large number of the wrong kind of people to these "security" organizations.
The "little Napolean complex" that some see in their local hometown constabulary can take on gargantuan opportunities and consequences when men are given the chance to act out their Rambo fantasies on a population they view as weak, inferior and inconsequential. Especially when they can operate outside the law, gunning down unarmed women and children, among others of their choosing from the relative safety of a heavily armed convoy. The excuse of "guarding" a dignitary gives them an overblown sense of importance and entitlement to inflict harm at the slightest "perceived" danger.
Also, as with most "gun-as-penis" types, the thought of real danger doesn't pump up controlled adrenaline, it pumps up fear, and that fear makes people trigger-happy and indiscriminate. If they were really concerned with security and serving their country in the face of risk, they would be Marines, as my two sons are.
The entire concept of these mercenaries is a bad idea gone even more wrong.
It is not providing security, it is instilling hatred and mistrust and putting our troops at greater risk. You know, those troops who will go on trial and to prison if they wrongfully shoot someone themselves, while contractors collect their enormous pay, are shuttled out of the country to escape any consequences...and probably to end up in Iraq again for another greedy security company that is more concerned with billings than with personnel issues.
Our troops must now patrol streets where citizens have seen instances of careless and deliberate brutality by "private security contractors".
Get the security forces out now. And get our troops out, too. This is a fiasco that just gets worse and more shameful for our nation every day.
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@bdop4
[Read the article: Maybe it's not just Blackwater after all]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Garry makes a vivid (as usual) point.
But just for you, in simple terms, because you seem to be very naive:
fact: Blackwater gets half a million dollars a year per guy...do you think they care who those guys are?
fact: there are plenty of documented instances of gross misconduct and unprovoked shootings involving "private security forces". The guy who drunkenly killed the bodyguard of an Iraqi official went home to his construction business without any punishment. Beats death row, doesn't it?
fact: the Army has been so ground into the dust by Rumsfeld, Cheney and Junior that they are now accepting criminals. Do you think Blackwater would do less for the enormous amounts of cash at stake? Do you think this administration cares?
fact: the DOD and the State Department have admitted to a complete lack of oversight on these people and their actions. They have also been proven to be complicit in covering up their misdeeds.
Tell me again, simplistically, how it just makes sense that a company like Blackwater would NEVER have an unrestrained, out-of-control security force that is answerable to no one.
As for factoring in the locals, are you kidding? Blackwater doesn't pad its details with locals. They are the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police, who have not managed to stand up so we can stand down.
Ask a returning Iraq vet and he will very likely tell you that he has just as high a risk of being killed by corrupt Iraqi military and police, as any other source.
Don't you read the papers or the internet. I know a lot gets stifled, but even the lazy and disinterested main stream media has uncorked this putrefying private security mess with all its creepy and frightening aspects.
WAKE UP!!
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Garry
[Read the article: Maybe it's not just Blackwater after all]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sometimes you just totally make my day!
And it saves me a lot of typing, too.
Thanks for all you do to set things straight. And on this day when postal workers are safely off work, and home commemorating Veteran's Day....
I just want to say, Garry....
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE.
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Excuse me...
[Read the article: Sure, it rhymes with "witch," but it's actually spelled R-E-S-P-E-C-T]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But this IS a big issue. It isn't about the word "bitch", or as one poster suggested, words...like "breast" or "dick". It is about appropriateness in a public venue of political discourse. It is about civility and class. Of which the Republican party has NONE.
I have been actively involved in campaigning across the country, and NEVER have I been at an event or heard of one where a Democratic candidate was asked from the audience "how do we beat the bastard"?. And I would be shocked if it happened. When Dick Cheney told a senator, on the floor of the Senate to "go fuck yourself", it was a cute display of Cheney being forceful. When that "bitch", Teresa Kerry told a reporter to stuff it...it was high drama and an affront to civilization.
Politics has descended into a dark place that has nothing to do with the common good, or the issues, and everything to do with winning, not by excelling, but by battering the opposition with a vicious stream of utter crap.
McCain appeared uncomfortable. But he laughed. He didn't dare stand up like a man and say, "let's keep it civil, and focus on the issues." For a man who survived the most harrowing experiences of war, this cowardice in the face of grossly offensive name-calling is appalling.
Let's just say that I don't think John Edwards would have handled it the same way.
I don't want a president like the one we have now, who thinks denegrating people for sport, or in the absence of any intelligent or constructive thought is cool.
Shame on you, John McCain.
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If it's one-upmanship...
[Read the article: McCain raising funds off of "B-word" incident]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Giuliani is going to stick a plant in his next audience to use the "C" word.
Wait for it.....
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Get a grip...
[Read the article: Sexiest Man Living 2007]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Call the interesting, but puhleeeeeze don't call them SEXY.
With the possible exception of Jacques Pepin.
Yum. There is nothing sexier than a man combined with food.