Factor in the rising stench from Iraq, the commission heat, plamegate, etc. suppose the polls in October show both houses and the big house going dem?
You think it beyond peradventure that these crawford clodhoppers, with a mandate from Yahweh, would find it best to postpone the election fill the current emergency is over???
Yeah, these guys are just Pinkertons on Steroids, no big deal…
BAGHDAD – American bodyguards in Iraq want to strengthen their weaponry with hand grenades and high-powered machineguns after four private security consultants were murdered in Fallujah last week.
Only coalition soldiers are allowed to carry explosives under existing regulations, leaving up to 20,000 civilian contractors working as guards outgunned by insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades and belt-fed machineguns.
The Coalition Provisional Authority is horrified by the contractors’ plans to flout the rules, believing that such action could lead to a serious escalation in violence as the June deadline approaches for power to be transferred to the Iraqis.http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/cst-nws-iraq04s1.html
(courtesy of Atrios)
NO, there is a big difference in that nobody is disputing the right to what the Brinks guy is guarding. If he is guarding stolen property then things change, don’t they? What you are saying is that once you have stolen something no one is allowed to use force to retake it.
The Iraqi resistance consider the American invasion and occupation unlawful and they are entitled to fight it off and these guys are there to enforce that. You can say they are only guarding “a food supply convoy” but that is crap, it is supplying the US army. To say they are not entitled to fight US army operations is ludicrous. Of course they are. Where do you get the notion that the US forces have a monopoly on the moral use of force?
Those guys are there enforcing the occupation and are perfectly legitimate targets. They are an occupation force unwanted by the resistance. The “contractors” can go home and leave the Iraqis in peace. The Iraqis are in their country and have nowehere to go. If my country was invaded I’d probably be fighting too. As would most people in any country in the world. the fact that the invaders call themselves “contractors” makes no difference to me. . . or to the Iraqis.
Uh, what has been taken? My understanding is that these forces are protecting people like GE engineers or management types from KPMG and the like, who are there rebuilding the country. The type of rebuilding that is supposedly supported by everyone from the U.N. down to the average Iraqi.
And what many of these thugs are trying to ‘retake’ is the power they had under Saddam - power gotten through brutality and murder.
But whatever. Carry on, kids. Let the hatefest continue.
Yes, I do. And I submit that anyone who thinks otherwise should put on their tinfoil beanie. You seriously lack perspective if you think the U.S. is anywhere near a right-wing dictatorship.
The Iraqi ‘resistance’ is largely made up of terrorists and ex-Saddam dead enders. They had no right to hold power in the FIRST place, and only maintained their status through mass murder.
I never said that. The point is that the ‘resistance’ is immoral in the first place, and has no right to use violence against anyone. They are not looking out for the interests of Iraqis - the vast majority of which do not support their actions. They are a loose coalition of groups who A) seek their old power back, and B) are trying to further the cause of jihad against the west.
So, were the people in the Murrah building in Oklahoma legitimate targets? They were representatives of what Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh saw as an illegal occupation force.
Any analysis of the legality of resistance must take into account the nature of that resistance. When it’s just a bunch of thugs trying to gain power to brutalize the population, it has NO right to violence of any kind, against anyone.
Ah. You mean the ‘peace’ of civil war? Or the peace of the mass grave? Perhaps the peace of chemical attacks on innocent villages? Or the ‘peace’ of being forced into the military so that the thugs who ‘won’ can continue their plan to control the deep water ports of Kuwait and its oil fields?
That kind of peace?
Your opinion is noted. Sadly.
You mean, aside from the ones guarding the military bases, captured oil refineries, American officials, etc? Then yea, some of them are guarding the genuine contractors.
Actually, most of the rebels are anti-Saddam and anti-US. Not that you’d care to verify that, of course.
Sam, I know you do not want to be constrained by the truth or the facts but it is a fact which has been reported that those “contractors” were defending a food supply convoy.
Seems like the USA occupation is headed the same way.
Whoever they are they have the right to slf determination and to not be ruled by the USA.
I wasn’t aware those buildings were occupied by armed forces of a foreign country.
Well, that’s your opinion. I don’t share it and, what’s more important, the Iraqis don’t share it.
You seem to believe the USA has the right to save people from themselves. I don’t believe that any more than I believe a dictator has the right to impose his better judgment on an ignorant people. I believe in freedom even if it means at times people do the wrong thing. I believe the American democracy has produced an immoral act which I consider this war to be, and yet I defend democracy and would not justify an American dictator, even if his decisions were better. Desireable ends do not justify immoral means and this aggression was and is immoral. A grab for oil and domination which is utterly immoral. That is what I think and that is what the Iraqis think.
It may make you feel good to swallow the propaganda and believe it is just a few thugs but the fact is antiAmerican sentiment is widespread and growing daily. Seven troops died today. And, in the meanwhile, Bremmer, the new Bagdhag Bob, continues with his farce of proclaiming how well things are going.
It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. Things are getting worse and if they continue at this rate the time will come when Americans realize what a mistake it was. Like in Vietnam, the initial rhetoric was about bringing freedom and democracy to a country but it is becoming aparent that the country just wants the invaders out. Some day, history will judge this as a huge mistake.
history will judge this as a huge mistake.
and the damage to our strategic and geopolitical interests will be orders of magnitude greater than vietnam
But I have to go now…Chalmers and I are going to put on our foil and mindmeld
CHALMERS JOHNSON
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic rails against America’s vast military presence abroad and warns that more harm is on the way, including perhaps the end of the republic itself, if the nation does not rein in its military and change its aggressive postu
Americans may still prefer to use euphemisms like 'lone superpower???'" he writes, "but since 9/11, our country has undergone a transformation from republic to empire that may well prove irreversible."..
“Plan your escape route,” he has joked. “Think about Vancouver.”
Johnson concedes that he could be wrong about all this. Perhaps U.S. militarization doesn’t pose a threat. Maybe the United States will indeed spread democracy and prosperity around the globe until all nations coexist peacefully. Johnson doubts it, but if he is proven wrong, he said, that’s just fine with him.
Leaning back in his chair, the “California Cassandra” glanced out the window at the fading afternoon light, considered the possibilities and smiled. “If I’m mistaken, you’re going to forgive me,” he said. “You’re going to be so pleased I was wrong.”
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18119
I hope I?m wrong too.
I was talking to one young upstanding Republican who was informing me of why I was absolutely wrong. It surprised me what he said, because it was basically what Republicans have been accused of. Eventually we were on the point of Iraq. I will paraphrase him.
Now, this is pretty shocking stuff for someone to admit so freely. I’ve come to realize that many people - perhaps including Bush and his advisors, view this as a situation of empire. They don’t have qualms about overthrowing other people’s governments. They don’t respect the basic tennants of international law and order. They believe that we can- and should- take on the world, or the world will take on us. That is pretty frightening.
I won’t go on a limb and say that the Feds are quite yet turning into a fascist regime, but they are setting some pretty scary precedents that make you wonder.
You don?t really need too much beyond the assertion that on his mere declaration of your enemy combatent status, the executive may indefinitely hold you incommunicado, without charge, without review.
That?s a pretty broad assertion of autocratic power.
I am not too afraid of those Americans who think it is America’s manifest destiny to rule the world. Ameria has its hands full in Iraq now and, at this rate, in some months will probably realize it is a silly notion to want to dominate the world when you can’t even dominate a single third would country.
But there are other threads about more general Iraqi analysis and this one is more about a very specific thing: the “contractors” or “goons”.
The potential to commit fascism does not fascism make. Doesn’t make it RIGHT to be able to do it, but people have been arrested on suspect charges for centuries anyway.
The second Bush puts a greasy eyelash over that line, though, lots of people are going to be all over him - pretty much every liberal and NGO on the planet, for one. If he tries to pull some BS during the election, I’m outta here.
The key words:
arrest. hence subject to writ review. counsel, confrontation with witnesses, etc.
charged: hence you can rebut.
the new model detention:
neither review, charge, nor even admission that the subject is being held.
I believe the term of art is you have been ?disappeared?
specific thing: the “contractors” or “goons”.
granted it is a strained seque, but on learning of the special forces background of these guys, I am less confident than brother Stone that they will never bring pacification to my little Bagdad by the bay…Hence, I claim privelege to riff on the cancellation of the election without starting a separate thread.
there’s a great pic in the wash post that I will try to link to that shows some of these guys–they are all extras from the last van damme movie I saw. right down to the (fogive me andrea dworkin) “bitchbeater” undershirts
sorry, can’t bring it back, but it s out there.
here’s the link. On second thought, I think it’s dolph lundgren , not vandamma in the bitchbeater…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53059-2004Apr5.html