Sinaijon criticizes John Lewis. Universe laughs. Film at 11.
What’s your evidence for this? I’m not trying to be contentious, I’m genuinely curious. Why do you view Blackwater as some evil murdering organization? It’s my impression that most of them are just former military who are in it because it pays better than working for Uncle Sam. Ex grunts, regular guys just trying to make a living. They have a ridiculous, mustache-twirling sinister name for their company, but other than that, is there any proof that they’re “evil?”
You obviously haven’t been watching this season of 24.
I had a family member who once protested, “I don’t know why people think Einstein was so smart–all he did was that one thing!”
And I don’t know why people think Blackwater is so bad–other than signing up to fight wars for money, what’s so bad about them?
Well, to be fair to them, that is what mercenaries do. I mean you don’t want to hire people to fight wars for you who will avoid fighting wars for money.
I’m not sure a perfunctory google search should ever prove anything. But this does:
Family Members of Slain Iraqis Sue Blackwater USA for Deadly Baghdad Shooting
The Center for Constitutional Rights is filing a lawsuit today under the Alien Tort Claims Act on behalf of the families of three of the Iraqis killed, as well as another Iraqi who was injured, when Blackwater guards shot dead 17 Iraqis and injured many more. We speak with CCR attorney Susan Burke and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestselling book “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
(snip)
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe your understanding of what happened on that day, on September 16?
SUSAN BURKE: My understanding, based on the media reports, as well as on information that we’re receiving from eyewitnesses in Iraq, is that Blackwater essentially began just an unprovoked shooting. And they—one of the first shots fired killed a gentleman whose car—who slumped over, and his head was on the steering wheel, his foot on the accelerator, so the car kept rolling, and that basically led to chaos, where Blackwater was firing indiscriminately around the square. There was one Blackwater guard who apparently tried to stop his colleagues from this wanton and senseless murdering of innocents, but he was not effective in doing so.
Blackwater thugs committed a litany of crimes in Iraq. Basically, they specialized in shooting Iraqi civilians for sport. They were also immune to any prosecution.
Um, no.
First, they are two different things. I have no problem with them attending this rally. My problem is that they deliberately got arrested as part of it. Getting arrested is great if you are powerless and have no other option of getting your voice heard. But it’s a dumb hippy move if you are an US f&cking Congressman. The five of them could have drafted an aid bill, held press conferences, held fund raisers with all their donors, any number of things that, you know, would have actually had an impact on their cause.
Keith Ellison is on the** International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight** subcommittee. You don’t think there might have been something he could have done in his official capacity that would have had a greater impact?
As far as the tea baggers go, the politicians were probably just pandering for votes, which I think is despicable. But to my knowledge, they didn’t bother to get arrested.
Well, I didn’t think so either, but since I sure can’t find any legislation proposed,written, or sponsored by these people regarding Darfur, they must be.
Hmm, I looked on Ellison’s page for three seconds and found one right away without even digging:
- H.CON.RES.7 : Calling on the League of Arab States and each Member State individually to acknowledge the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and to step up their efforts to stop the genocide in Darfur.
Sponsor: Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] (introduced 1/4/2007) Cosponsors (111)
Committees: House Foreign Affairs; Senate Foreign Relations
Latest Major Action: 6/28/2007 Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 244
They got arrested trying to draw attention to Darfur. Bills don’t mean anything without public attention. If they drew any public attention at all to Darfur, then it was worth it. It’s not like they did anything violent. They got some kind of misdemeanor trespassing fines. It’s ceratinly a far more meaningful cause than anything the teabaggers were bitching about.
As a Minnesotan, I will say I’m proud of Rep. Ellison.
Here’s another from the same link:
88. H.RES.422 : Calling on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to use its unique influence and economic leverage to stop genocide and violence in Darfur, Sudan.
Sponsor: Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] (introduced 5/21/2007) Cosponsors (130)
Committees: House Foreign Affairs
Latest Major Action: 6/5/2007 Passed/agreed to in House. Status: On motion to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required): 410 - 0 (Roll no. 427).
No, I don’t.
And I don’t see why getting arrested is different from attending the rally in the first place, in your view. If your critique is that it’s a waste of their time, why does it matter if they got arrested or not?
[hijack]
As long as we’re on the subject of stupid…
Colbert Study: Conservatives Don’t Know He’s Joking
Quote from The Irony of Satire
Hooboy, that’s some mighty powerful stupid right there.
To be fair and bi-partisan though, the low-flying plane photo op over NYC was all KINDS of stupid and someone oughta be fired. What were they thinking?
There shouldn’t even be a need for a perfunctory google search. Any asshole who has the gall to claim any knowledge of Blackwater should know about the Baghdad massacre.
I expect that some in this thread do know what a bunch of bad boys Xe has been, and want to inflate the company’s bonafides regardless.
Hiring mercenaries to stop a genocide is probably a bad idea. But it might be a better idea than just letting it happen.
Of course, neither of those options are comparable to preventing the government sponsored and approved deaths of hundreds of thousands of people due racial, religious, or cultural differences by deploying a well-equipped multinational force of peacekeepers with the authority to arrest and try people that make BTK look like a friendly neighbor that had a couple of bad days.
And honestly, most everyone in this thread, on either side, has probably not made much of an issue of any of the genocides that have occurred in this century. After all, it’s not our problem, and they are just faces in the crowd, not like Bobby Ryerson Jr., that nice all-American boy down the street who joined the military out of high school. We wouldn’t want to see him get hurt for anything less than 50,000 Rwandans*.
But I’m glad we’ve been able to move away from this uncomfortable discussion about the murders of millions of people in the last few decades alone so that we can focus on Blackwater, low flying planes, and, before too long, glib historically inaccurate explanations of why getting involved would just cause more harm than good, and how these people have always hated each other and how we will be bogged down an a triple-scoop of Vietnamiraqafghanistanama when we attempt it. (As opposed to it being merely a failure of political will.
Kudos for someone in power finally stepping up. Too bad we’re 3 or 4 years too late.
*True story!
If Blackwater is evil, then the US military is also evil, because the US military has committed atrocities also. The information linked to here certainly doesn’t make Blackwater look good to me, but they don’t look any worse then our own government either. I think if you add up all the innocent people killed by American troops and American bombs, the body count will be far higher than anything Blackwater could even dream of.