Yes. Let's not forget that regular US soliders are also paid professionals too, working for corporate imperialist interests. They all should die. Fuck em.

You guys make me sick. These were real Americans with family and friends who were trying to help make Iraq a better place. Your willingness to be so callous about their deaths and mutilations demonstrates just how depraved Bush hatred has made you all.

You know, it would be terrible for you two moral giants (Nathan and Leftie) to even TACITLY support "corporate imperialist interests," by, for example, living in housing created by those "corporate imperialist interests," or driving automobiles manufactured by them, or eating food grown, processed and transported by them, etc.

So why don't you two obnoxious fuckwads go live in a cave in Afghanistan, so you don't pollute your moral purity? You are two truly SICK FUCKS.

Boy Flagwaver did you take the word right out of my mouth. As a wise man once said

This isn't dissent, these scumbags are on the other side.

Nathan, you should be ashamed. These guys may not have been "delivering food", but they weren't out murdering people, like Saddam's henchmen, for the love of God! My understanding is that they were protection for a local official who is trying to calm Falluja.

As for Lefty's comments, well, they speak for themselves. If you were in my presence, so help me, you'd regret ever saying that you bastard. "Lefty" is appropriately named.

Yes, Jim- forget dissent; we're seeing the face of the other side.

Oh yeah, and here's the MERCENARY's bios.

Dumb Bastards.

LOS ANGELES - After serving 12 years in the Navy, Scott Helvenston started a career as a fitness instructor and worked as trainer and stunt man for such movies as "Face/Off" and "G.I. Jane."

He helped prepare actress Demi Moore for her role as the first woman to join the Navy SEALs in "G.I. Jane," and appeared on two reality series: "Man vs. Beast" and "Combat Missions."

But after years out of the service, friends said they weren't surprised to learn the former SEAL had left the comfort of his life in California behind him and headed for Iraq (news - web sites).

"That's what, in a time of need, true American warriors like Scott would do," "Combat Missions" producer Mark Burnett said Thursday.

Helvenston, 38, was among four American civilian contractors killed in Fallujah, Iraq, in an ambush on Wednesday, their charred bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets. The contractors were working for Blackwater Security Consulting when their vehicle was hit by rocket-propelled grenades.

Two of the other victims have been identified as Jerko "Jerry" Zovko, 32, and Michael Teague, 38.

Zovko always wanted to save the world, his mother said. He joined the Army at 19 and spoke five languages fluently — English, Croatian, Spanish, Russian and Arabic.

"Jerry was a man with a principle, an idea," his mother, Danica "Donna" Zovko said in Willoughby, Ohio. "He loved people. He wanted the world to be without borders, for everybody to be free and safe."

Mrs. Zovko said she and her husband, Jozo, suspected their son was one of the dead late Wednesday evening because he had been working in Iraq. Their fears were confirmed early Thursday.

"He was the most self-motivated person," Zovko's brother Tom told ABC's "Good Morning America. "He grew up a skinny, little guy but wanted to be big, and he become big. He had desire and motivation and never gave up."

Teague was a 12-year Army veteran who served in Afghanistan (news - web sites), Panama and Grenada, said his wife, Rhonda Teague. She said he received a bronze star for his service in Afghanistan.

Rhonda Teague called her husband a "proud father, soldier and American."

"I, his son Brandon and his friends and family will miss him without measure," her statement said.

Teague, of Clarksville, Tenn., had worked in the security business since he left the Army six years ago, and joined Blackwater Security two months ago, WTVF-TV of Nashville reported.

A friend, Sgt. John Ratliff, told CBS' "The Early Show" that Teague "told me to promise to take care of his wife and his son ... He knew it was rough over there."

"In my opinion, Mike was caught in a situation to where he couldn't do anything for himself or his counterparts," Ratliff said. He said he knew his friend "would have done anything in his power" to save himself and the other three if it had been possible.

Helvenston's fitness company, Amphibian Athletics, promised to bring a Navy SEAL-style workout to his customers. His wife, Tricia, appeared in some of the company's workout videos.

Fred Atkinson, a neighbor of Helvenston's in Oceanside, said he was a devoted father to his children, Kyle and Kelsey, and often took them camping or surfing.

The identity of the fourth victim was not immediately known. The names of the victims were not officially released because all family members had yet to be notified, U.S. officials said Thursday.

Blackwater Security, based in Moyock, N.C., provides security training and guard services to customers around the world. President Gary Jackson and two other company leaders are former Navy SEAL commandos.

A statement on the company's Web site said officials were grieving for the employees.

"Our tasks are dangerous, and while we feel sadness for our fallen colleagues, we also feel pride and satisfaction that we are making a difference for the people of Iraq."

Wow. This posting amazes me. You're out jihading the jihadis.

The EDITORIAL OF THE ARAB NEWS disagrees with you, you sick pig.

You ARE on the other side.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=42383&d=2&m=4&y=2004&pix=opinion.jpg&category=Opinion

To paraphrase Pogo, " We have met the enemy and he is YOU ".
These savages kill your countrymen and all you can say is they had it coming to'em?

FOAD

If Russia invaded the United States and imposed an Occupation, the same people outraged at this guerrilla attack in Iraq would be applauding the exact same actions taken against Occupation soldiers on US soil.

If the Russians took out a vicious dictatorship that had been killing millions of Americans, torturing millions more, and horribly repressing everyone the sane response wouldn't be to kill and mutilate them. If they were trying to rebuild our infrastructure, had given us billions of dollars in aid, and were months away from granting us full sovereignty there's no way in hell anyone with a shred of humanity or sanity would do what was done to the victims in Fallujah.

Even your response is reflective of the disgusting attitudes of the left these days, the primitive embrace of fascism, the twisted moral relativism, and the simmering hatred for this country laying just below the thin intellectual veneer.

Disgusting and reprehensible.

O.K. You should understand that the tone of your comment makes it look like you support the "insurgents" against our guys, military and civilian. Mercenary is a loaded term. "Rent-a-soldier" is worse. If we are supposed to credit your good intentions in opposing the war, maybe you should credit the good intentions of those who are fighting it and risking their lives to rebuild Iraq?

Anyway, errors in tone are forgiveable. I accept your explanation. (Although, I still think you are dunderheadedly wrong) What KOS said, however, is unforgiveable.

The communist government of Vietnam violated "international law" when it invaded communist Cambodia. The communist government of Vietnam was unrepresentative, undemocratic and by your logic completely in the wrong. It also stopped the Khmer Rouge, the most appalling mass murderers in a century of atrocities. I am no fan of communist Vietnam but they were to take the action noone else could or would do.

When you use the niceties of your interpretation of "international law" to justify the perpetuation of mass murder, state-organized rape and now the ghoulish desecration of the dead it is time for you to reconsider your commitment to "international law."

You are truly a disgusting example of what leftism does to humanity.

You justify, celebrate, and encourage the killing of anyone who opposes your own bizarre concepts and villify those who act in defense against the killers.

You are a perfect example of why Socialism has killed 200,000,000 - and counting. Please - keep up your hatred and dreanged and disgusting behavior. Every blog-entry like this shows your true colors and goes a long way towards encouraging the extinction of your 'movement'.

Orion

Nathan is an bjective supporter of Islamo-fascism.

Seems that the point is that the killings were justified because the invasion of Iraq was "illegal". But the invasion did not violate any US law or any international law I am aware of. Failure to get UN saction does not make the invasion illegal.

Your comments exemplify the rot at the heart of the American Left, the reason why I no longer in any sense consider myself a leftist.

Of course, in your purblind view of things, that probably makes me a fascist by default.

So be it. Epithets hurled by idiots are badges of honor to the wise.

Daniel,
We had a UN Resolution justifying the invasion. Hell, we had a dozen of them.

We just didn't have our New Soviet Man's Socialist Friend's France and Germany's permission, so that makes it illegal in his twisted world view.

Let's all sit back and watch the Left hide their posts, alter the evidence, backpeddal and justify and explain - Perhaps they should all start a new group Blog - PRVADA where they could continue telling us all how to think PROPERLY.

Disgusting pigs.

Orion

Yet another reason why Americans have rejected the hateful and hate-filled Blame America First crowd. You people just don't change and you become more and more isolated on the fringe.

Nathan writes: "I understand why such folks accuse me or others of saying the soldiers deserved to die. They don't like the Iraqis and think they therefore deserve to die."

Gosh with such insightful analysis, it is little wonder why Liberals are a dying breed. Iraqis don't deserve to die. However, those that plant bombs and murder our soldiers, those that detonate explosives in shopping areas and hotels and public places and kill Iraqis of all ages and stripes DO DESERVE TO DIE.

Do you see the difference?

Orion,

Agreed. But even if there were no resolutions, the claim that the invasion was illegal is a moral opinon disguised as a fact that is then used to excuse the killings. Bottom line, Nathan belives the killings are ok because he believes the war is wrong, he just won't say it strait out.

Daniel

I think the commenter who argues that "mercenary" is a loaded term that may not be appropriate here has a good point.

I also think that a lot of the outrage directed at Nathan Newman is misplaced. I can't read his original post as any sort of a celebration of the deaths of the four civilians.

However, my "moral equivalence" meter is flashing into the red on the suggestion, in the second update, that all the ghastly deaths in Iraq are morally comparable.

When US troops start hanging Iraqi corpses from bridges, ask me for an outrage check. Until then, I think we are talking about different things.

Oh yeah! How silly of us to criticize Kos. I remember when Glenn Reynolds saw the picture of the dead Iraqi kid and put up posts saying, "I feel nothing over the death of Iraqi kids. Screw them."

Oh wait. Come to think of it, I don't remember that. Because it didn't happen. Moron.

Since you read Instapundit, Nathan, you are well aware that the Daily Kos is in total abject retreat over this "mercenary" issue. Kos even deleted his original post and now pretends that he can't remember exactly what he wrote, even though people are pulling their ads from his site because of it.

I guess he's going to leave you to guard the rear, huh? Ha ha ha ....

"Folks outraged by the pictures of the well-paid security guards have the right to their outrage only if they were equally outraged by the deaths of these victims of US attacks on Iraq"

That's right. As a democrat, I feel equally outraged by the deaths of individuals trying to create a democracy as by the deaths of individuals opposing democracy.

So, "We illegally invaded another country"?
And what law are you referring to? Certainly not International Law. That is merely the sum of the treaties that we are signatories to. Or maybe you had a specific treaty in mind. Care to share that with us? Saddam violated the terms of the cease-fire agreement ending the Gulf War. All we are doing now is finishing what we started back then. And all perfectly legal as well.

"Folks outraged by the pictures of the well-paid security guards have the right to their outrage only if they were equally outraged by the deaths of these victims of US attacks on Iraq"

Yeah, I was really outraged when the American soldiers who accidentally and tragically killed the Iraqi kid went back and bashed his lifeless skull in with a brick, lit his corpse on fire, hitched it to the back of a Humvee, drug it all over Baghdad, and then hung it up in the town square as they chanted "George Bush, George Bush, George Bush!" Afterwards, they laughed and laughed and chugged down some Bud Lite. Raise hell, motherfuckers!!!! Hoo-ahhh!!!

Oops. Forgot. That didn't happen.

Newman, you're a fucking moral abomination. If you ever find yourself in a situation where the jihadis are coming to lynch you, please be sure to tell them that you're one of those wise Americans who's sorry about your nation's "crimes."

I'm sure they'll go easy on you.

Why are you such a coward? Just come out and say you want American troops to be forced from Iraq and bloodied in the process. This will prove you right, and Bush wrong, and all will be right with the socialist world.
What a bunch of friggin' cowards the left has turned into. Every single one of you wants to see us bloodied, and yet you insist on saying you support us by wanting us pulled out of Iraq. You know that is a lie, you know it, you know it with every fiber of your body, you know it's true of every single one of you who wants to see us defeated so that you can embarrass the President. Just come out from behind your pretend stand with America, and show your true colors. I dare you, you'll feel better about yourself, I promise.
Cowardly F**k that you are.

One unmentioned thing is, the Left has forgotten that our country was made great by the symbiosis of competing ideas. Our system filters out the extremes and leaves us with the bland, unsatisfying to all, medium. In the process,we forge ahead, plying the stormy waters of conflicts near and far. We are not the enemy of each other, as least we weren't, we are the same. Bush has performed some of the most liberal actions of any president. Hell, this war is being performed with the ball and chain of humanitarianism. It might work this way, if the opposition was not so vehement every single step of the way. But, as noted in some of the comments above, you sound like the enemy. No, you sound worse than the enemy. What a pitiful group of lost souls you leftists have become.

I'd like to know where you get the idea that people who support the war don't care about the deaths it caused, especially those like the girl in the picture you posted?

We do care, and that's one reason we invaded. We made the judgement that invading will save lives in the long run. That includes both SH's international and internal victims. The lives lost as a direct result of the invasion must be weighed against those saved now that the shredders and rape rooms are out of operation,

Your vitriol about our alleged beliefs is nothing more than tearing down a strawman. It would have been nice if saving Hussein's future victims had no cost, but life doesn't work that way.

Hey, Nathan, if you're going to post dead-kid pictures, can you post some of the Israeli and Arab kids killed by the suicide bombers Saddam subsidized?? I'll happily get you some if you can't find them yourself.

That way we can put the whole thing in perspective.

A.L.

This is my first exposure to your vapid logic and unbridled, misguided hate. Next time you get your blood pressure up in anger, you should direct it to the legitimate target. You will find that target by looking in any mirror.

They were NOT mercenaries. That term has a specific meaning under the Geneva Convention.

But, hey, don't let the facts get in the way of sliming the dead.

Something that Matt's story misses out:

Helvenston had recently lost money in a business to market his Navy SEAL fitness training video, and went to Iraq to earn $60,000 in three months and put his skills to good use. He had only been in the country for a couple weeks.

That's a pretty expensive food convoy guard.

Hey Nathan -

While we're posting dead people pics - let's get a lot of good shots these dead people:

http://www.9neesan.com/massgraves/

Or don't _those_ dead people matter? After all, they were killed by a SOCIALIST regime. Obviously just a speedbump on the way to the utopia that is a socialist state.

You asshat.

The following comment can only be made by someone who has "SHIT FOR BRAINS" or is the typical lefite/liberal parasite: "Folks outraged by the pictures of the well-paid security guards have the right to their outrage only if they were equally outraged by the deaths of these victims of US attacks on Iraq"...

You assholes need to come to grips with reality...

This is a long, cultural war that is obviously not understood by stupids like, like LEFTIE who's comment: "Let's not forget that regular US soliders are also paid professionals too, working for corporate imperialist interests. They all should die. Fuck em" show what a dumb fuck is really all about... Hey Leftie, are your parents also you aunt & uncle?

The fact that these goddamn ragheads need a thorogh extermination and that this fact is lost on the stupids, the leftie/liberal parasites, and the so called, "anti-war" types (also called spineless, craven, cowards) have no sense of history or apparent ability to grasp the reality that the fucking rahheads do...

There is no end to the idiocy on the left. It even extends to Phi Beta Kappas from Amherst.

Nathan,

I wouldn't worry about these people, they are just jackals. The only reason they fake being upset about this is like jackals they see a weakness and are overcome with blood lust.

The fact is they support all the criminality of the Bush Administration, all the lies, the conflicts of interest. At the moment half the administration might end up being indicted on the Plame Affair. Bush's insider trading? Poppy's trading and making money off his son's job?

They don't care about any of this. All they want to do is pick on a few words by Kos and like jackals do as much damage as they can. Paint all the left with those words, start a jihad to wipe out liberalism around the world because of Kos.

Just cowardly jackals, they'll run off soon enough. Next week there'll be more criminality exposed by their Gods, the Bushes, and they won't care. More civilians gunned down in Iraq but they won't be American and they won't care.

And they have the gall to compare their sick morality with someone like Kos? They make me want to throw up all over them.

And the liberal media isnt going to tell you that the floral shops in Iraq are sold out of flowers, because all the citizens bought them to give the American soilders.

Why should anyone feel anything for a bunch of dead, six-figure-making white guys? This sort of thing happens every day in AMERICAN cities to the poor and minorities. You capitalists are just regurgitating what Bush and the corporate media tell you what to say.

Why should anyone feel anything for a bunch of dead, six-figure-making white guys? This sort of thing happens every day in AMERICAN cities to the poor and minorities. You capitalists are just regurgitating what Bush and the corporate media tell you what to say.

I am afraid. We've reached a point where this eliminationist rhetoric will fuel political killings here in the US.

Look at the downward spiral in language, Nathan: First, they criticize our viewpoints, then demonize us people, then they say we have no right to speak or live among "good" people, then no right to live at all.

This is how it starts. This is why countries that have deep historical experiences with fascism have outlawed such hate speech.

In the coming months, it would not surprise me to see anti-war demonstrators shot from cars, and Democratic campaign rallies disrupted by gunfire and bombings.

Listen to their words: Kerry is not just an ambitious politician, he is the Antichrist. We are in a state of permanent war. There are traitors all around... politics must be purified... America is in danger and must be cleansed.

There were always a few wingnuts and Birchers who spouted this junk. But now, they have become mainstream, and they broadcast to audiences of tens of millions.

Corrected sentence:

Look at the downward spiral in language, Nathan: First, they criticize our viewpoints, then demonize us *AS* people, then they say we have no right to speak or live among "good" people, then no right to live at all.

"Listen to their words: Kerry is not just an ambitious politician, he is the Antichrist. We are in a state of permanent war. There are traitors all around... politics must be purified... America is in danger and must be cleansed."

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Or is Bush not the second coming of Hitler?

"This is why countries that have deep historical experiences with fascism have outlawed such hate speech."

As we should do in the US. The Far Right better enjoy the next few months. In November it is lights out for the warbloggers, talk radio and Faux News. Kerry and the FCC will reclaim the PUBLIC property and shut these fascist outlets down.

I was in South Kores in 1951, sent there by my friends and neighbors.

People, like you and Leftie, were saying the same shit that you fellow travelers are saying now.

Look at South Korea, a relatively free country, wealthy and prosperous. Look at North Korea, starving, destitute and a world class penal state.

Me and my fellow Americans did this this. Yes at cost of lives, money and time. But the freedom of millions of people was worth that fight.

Millions of Koreans made that long trip from the north to south voting with their feet.

Whine on, for you shall be proven wrong, but will never admit the truth. Truth is foreign to the
physiology of the left.

WAY2GO Wobby! UR right! These fucking homophobe right whinge fascist goosestepping warmongering rascist whitey pigs like John AshKKKroft and KKKondoleeza Rice and KKKolin Powell and Rush and Faux News and that moron election-stealer Boy George have been spewing hate speech, butchering the third world, stealing oil, and crushing dissent for too long. Look at the hateful rhetoric these racist, fascist, hypocritical, homophobic, thieving sheeple are posting here, and compare it to the language us sophisticated Progressives use. Sure easy to tell which group has an IQ above room temperature and which doesn't, ain't it?

I can't wait for the day Kerry rounds these bastards up and puts them in prison where they belong. Only then will we have free speech and real democracy in this country.

Free Mumia!

Why should anyone feel anything for a bunch of dead, six-figure-making white guys? This sort of thing happens every day in AMERICAN cities to the poor and minorities. You capitalists are just regurgitating what Bush and the corporate media tell you what to say.

Posted by Red2 at April 3, 2004 08:28 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why should anyone feel anything for a bunch of dead, six-figure-making white guys? This sort of thing happens every day in AMERICAN cities to the poor and minorities. You capitalists are just regurgitating what Bush and the corporate media tell you what to say.

Posted by Red2 at April 3, 2004 08:28 AM

Hey- take your "euphemisms", fold them until they are all corners, and shove them up your ass.

"If Russia invaded the United States and imposed an Occupation, the same people outraged at this guerrilla attack in Iraq would be applauding the exact same actions taken against Occupation soldiers on US soil."

The difference between an invasion of Iraq and an invasion of the U.S. is that Iraq's regime was illegitimate and illegal, while the U.S. regime is legitimate and legal.

The international law that was written in the wake of WWII has not caught up to current realities, and legal scholars are in the process of thinking these things through now. If you're interested in where international law is headed, a terrific article to read is: A Duty to Prevent
By Lee Feinstein and Anne-Marie Slaughter From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2004
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040101faessay83113/lee-feinstein-anne-marie-slaughter/a-duty-to-prevent.html

Here are the summary & author bios:
"Summary: The unprecedented threat posed by terrorists and rogue states armed with weapons of mass destruction cannot be handled by an outdated and poorly enforced nonproliferation regime. The international community has a duty to prevent security disasters as well as humanitarian ones -- even at the price of violating sovereignty.
Lee Feinstein is Acting Director of the Washington Program of the Council on Foreign Relations. Anne-Marie Slaughter is Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and President of the American Society of International Law."

Actually Iraq had a real election. 99% voted for Saddam. Unlike the US where Bush-chimp stole it. Hence the US is the illegitimate and illegal regime.

I really feel sorry for thelefties but must give them credit for hanging quite tenaciously to their dream world,hoping US will becomne a nanny state and look after their lazy asses.

My sincere condolences to the families who lost their loved ones both CIVILIANS and the MILITARY.
And I hope they will find mercy in their hearts for these sick minded people who are better off locked up in some psychiatric facility.
Of course we, the tax payers, will be footing their bills.

"Actually Iraq had a real election. 99% voted for Saddam. Unlike the US where Bush-chimp stole it. Hence the US is the illegitimate and illegal regime."

Wow, how are you able to function in society?

Last year, Glenn Reynolds wrote that companies like Blackwater were "mercenaries." This year, he's outraged that Kos would call them by the same term he used in June 2003. Read it at my Shock and Awe post.

--Kynn

I hope you will all support my efforts to bring Kos's words to the attention of his advertisers.

http://michael-friedman.com/archives/000311.html

All I'll say is that I'm disappointed.

"If Russia invaded the United States and imposed an Occupation, the same people outraged at this guerrilla attack in Iraq would be applauding the exact same actions taken against Occupation soldiers on US soil."

Improper analogy, but not surprising. A more appropriate on would be if the U.S. had been conquered by Russia, and having lived under brutal Soviet rule with secret police, mass graves, systematic torture, economic deprivation, we were "invaded" by, say, France (lets keep with the fantasy, here).
France, in a war with Soviet Russia, invades North America, overthrowing the communist dictators. Some Americans would no doubt be killed by French forces in the process of liberation, but MOST Americans would view that as a worthy cost for freedom, and also inevitable if freedom were to be won by ourselves or with the help of an outside force.

Those Americans who had been Quislings to the Soviets, those who had informed and cooperated and prospered under their communist masters (say, the Noam Chomsky types, and your typical leftist in general) would NOT be happy about this, because they no longer hold power. These would be the ones to mount a resistance against the French forces, killing and butchering them, and also their fellow Americans, in order to drive the "invaders" out.

Those particpating in such activities, murdering the enemies of our enemies, would be worthy of disdain, wrath and destruction. For what would they be fighting for? They would be fighting for oppression, for slavery, for the return of a brutal, murderous regime.

Who do you think the majority of these people are? They are seeking to undermine any idea of a democratic government because THEY want to rule over their fellow Iraqis with an iron fist. Whether it is the Baathists, or the Islamic fundamentalists, neither is worthy of viewing as a "resistance" or "freedom fighter". If you are not figthing for freedom, then you AINT a freedom fighter. We are fighting for freedom, and if you don't realize that, comparing Iraq before the invasion and after, problems aside, then you are truly, truly blinded by your own ideology.

"since most of Saddam's troops wanted to die no more than our young men and women."

This is only one part of what you don't want to get. Of course Saddam's troops did not want to die. Most Germans soldiers of the Third Reich did not want to die. How does that not justify the war against the Axis? And don't tell me the Iraqis weren't the Nazis. I know that. The point is you bring up an obvious but irrelevant fact to support your argument. You seem to do that alot.

Oh, and by the way. You who are SO concerned about Iraqi civilians. How much time and effort and protest did you raise over the treatment them by the Hussein regime over the last 30 years? Well? You who have oh so much 'compassion' for them? What did you do or write or organize to protest the torture, the mass graves, the wars launched by Hussein? Or, are you like many on the left. Unless the U.S. is involved, me see no evil?

Pathetic...

not to change the subject, but the cease-fire agreement singed at safwan at the end of first war is the all the legality needed to return to Iraq. they violated the cease-fire, we're following up on the reprisal. did you miss that part?

you were saying it was an illegal invasion. show us where it became illegal because as far as the facts go, nothing was ever passed that negated the agreement from the first round.

nice attempt at deflection.

"Actually Iraq had a real election. 99% voted for Saddam. Unlike the US where Bush-chimp stole it. Hence the US is the illegitimate and illegal regime."

99% Voted for Saddam?! Tell me, what was the name of his opponent? And after you do that, explain what mechanism produces 99% consensus by humans on any subject?... with the exception of mortal fear.

"Talking about "civilians" killed, when the people involved are ex-military hired as security, is just a silly euphemism."

ci·vil·ian ( P ) Pronunciation Key (s-vlyn)
n.
A person following the pursuits of civil life, especially one who is not an active member of the military or police.

Hey, Wobby, thanks for showing your true colors. You are a prime Nazi fuck, just like the rest of you elistist, social-engineering swine.

You want to come meet me to take my warblogging site away? I am SO looking forward to you trying that.

As you you, Nathan, you are beneath contempt. Hey, you finally have some readers! Some of these guys, like my friend ARMED LIBERAL, can disagree with just about everything I believe in and still be a patriot. You, on the other hand, make both of us sick.

And as for you, Lefty, your future is crystal clear. Enjoy your descent into ever-deepening scorn and ridicule. Get a good look around; your life is downhill from here, and here don't look so peachy, does it? Loser.

here is some cool stuff done by the cool "anti imperialists in Iraq."

I have to warn you though, these anti imperialists ere not too nice to this "anti-anti imperialist" so don't watch it if your not ready to see another Iraqi mutilated by another Iraqi.

http://postarchives.entensity.net/022704/graphic/media.php?media=stealdontkill.wmv

Oh, by the way Nathan, you magnificent idiot: Saddam was killing a MINIMUM of about 20,000 of his own people a year. Since we've been there, that works out to about 20,000 lives SAVED.

Why don't you put THOSE on your scoreboard, you morally bankcrupt sack of shit?

Mind of we question your patriotism NOW?

Lol, I think that guy who mentioned the Saddam 99% election victory was not joking. It makes me wonder what color the sky is in his world.

The reason Saddam engendered so much political support is anyone who voted for the opposition was tossed into a wood chipper feet first.

And for all those complaining about being misled over WMDs, the international community also severely understimated the amount of Iraqis killed/tortured/missing in Iraq.

But that does not paint Bush in a bad light so it must not matter. Reading Nathan Newman makes me ashamed to be a Democrat.

Whats the big deal with Nathan's views? He explicitly stated that he was against the war to begin with, so why should it be a surprise that he (and others) are disappointed with how things are deteriorating there now?

Im not surprised that hes upset over the fact that Iraq is improving, thats the worst thing that could have happened to him.

Nathan,

Sorry that you've become subject to what I hope are trolls posing as extreme leftists. I hope.

Anyway, I think you're attempting moral equivalence here, between the blackwater guys and this poor Iraqi kid, and I don't think it works. Yes, they are paid, private security personnel, and I think their role needs to be more closely looked at, but I have to agree with the posters who noted no deliberate cruelty on the behalf of US troops when they inflict losses, military or civillian, on the Iraqis. Probably has something to do with all the training and discipline, but the Fallujah mob was over the fucking top, you've got to admit. At least in the context of this conflict. I'm well aware of comparable historical events. But I don't think it's fair to spit on the dead Blackwater guys and mourn the Iraqi civillians. They were all people, and I think your position would be better represented by drawing attention to dead Iraqis that the US public is often too eager to shut out of their mind than by cursing the memories of four dead Americans who ended up in the wrong place.

And, yes, I was deeply distressed by seeing this boy dead on the news, and by the fact that the US media totally shut it out. I don't know the particulars of his death, but in general it is difficult to blame any one party for the innocents lost in combat. On one hand, Saddam kept a lot of his paramilitaries right in civil areas, which in a time of war is a deliberate risk to one's own population. One the other, our munitions aren't perfect and we know it. We used cluster bombs and I'm not sure it was necessary.

Yesterday a pregnant woman was hit by a stray bullet in Sadr City and died. Whose fault is that? I would blame the Sadr Brigades for starting a massive exchange of fire in an area filled with people, not the marines for defending themselves.

"They don't like the Iraqis and think they therefore deserve to die. So they think anyone who doesn't like the US Occupation share their bloodlust. But the reality is that opponents of the US actions in Iraq wish only safety for US soldiers and its hired guns-- sooner rather than later, by ending the Occupation as soon as possible without leaving total murderous chaos behind."

Here you are completely wrong. I want the occupation and the provisional authority to last as long as it must until a better quality of life for Iraqis is assured and the thread of tyranny, secular or religious, is largely reduced by the force of US arms and the training and resolve of the Iraqis. I do not hate Iraqis, I have no reason to. I have reason to take a stake in the success of the US occupation and the future of the Iraqis, which is now intertwined with our own. My heart isn't bleeding for the dead Sadr militiamen, but I'm sorry it came to that.

Mike-- The equivalence is that we should feel compassion for every death, and frankly an innocent child with no choice in the matter should objectively have more sympathy than a hired gun who voluntarily goes into a war zone knowing the danger. But I saw little of that sympathy and, frankly, the media which splashed sympathy for these guys largely censored coverage of the Iraqi dead. And Bush is censoring most coverage of US soldier deaths-- such as banning cameras at the base where their bodies return.

Which is the basic complaint. The administration with media collaboration whips up hysteria for some deaths, while ignoring the deaths of Iraqi civilians. That makes for immoral policy, but worse, it makes for stupid policy, since then the American people don't see what the Iraqi people are experiencing. And so when new upsurges of violence happen, as is happening now, they don't have the information availabe to understand why it is happening.

the LGF types embody the stereotype of hateful Americans that lead to hate of the US around the world. LGF folks are the real source of terrorism, the reason Americans aren't safe around the world.

You mean they are the reason for Ok City, Trade Center in 93, the Cole and all the other attacks..? You should let the CIA know immediately.

The terrorists individually are evil bastards, but the only reason they have so many people willing to hide them and protect them is because of the arrogance and hate spewed by the rightwing fringe of America.

You talked to them huh? they gave you the heads up bcs you're not one of those "arrogant" ones? It seems to be working pretty well for Spain huh?

Thanks to the LGF nuts for helping breed murder of our soldiers and our friends and family here in New York.

And you finish up with a display of true idiocy proving your own insanity while trying to portray yourself as sensible. You should talk to 9/11 families in NY and explain this to them, like the firemen who told Osama Ben Laden to kiss their royal irish ass.... I'd love to see your face afterwards.

You should move to Spain or work for the UN.... if ANSWER is at this point to "nutty" for you.

Funny to see all this right wing idiocy. I never had time to go over and read their stuff, and now I know I do not need to bother. No thought behind most of the comments, just a lot of phoney posing and flag-waving. If their leaders told them today that it was their patriotic duty to massively distribute photos like this one they would do it in an instant and attack anyone who did NOT show them.

No brain, and to randomly call people cowards? Funny if it wasn't one of those situations where it is obvious that these old chickenhawks think this is the worst possible insult because of course they have been living with the fear for years that someone would notice that it is they who are really cowards. They can not stand on their own.

ALL HONOR TO THE CEASELESS TRIUMPH OF THE ALL WHITE, ALL MALE, SUPREME, SOUTHERN BAPTIST REPUBLICAN PARTY AS IT MARCHES TOWARD WORLD DOMINATION

Last year, Glenn Reynolds wrote that companies like Blackwater were "mercenaries." This year, he's outraged that Kos would call them by the same term he used in June 2003. Read it at my Shock and Awe post.

As you damn well know, Kynn, the terminology issue is a minor one. Kos gloated and revelled in the deaths of these Americans. He tried very hard to normalize the animalistic scenes of these people being ripped apart by a inhuman, baying, fascist mob.

The Compassionate One Nate Newman

Mike-- The equivalence is that we should feel compassion for every death, and frankly an innocent child with no choice in the matter should objectively have more sympathy than a hired gun who voluntarily goes into a war zone knowing the danger.

One would expect that you should be posting regularly then about the Sudan where slaves of children and adults and mass massacres of towns are regularly occuring? Did it happen due to their "arrogance" or just because they are not Arab or Muslim?

Also one would have expected you to be screaming at all of the deaths of kids and adults under Saddam's regime on a daily basis?

Oh wait???? That was under the cover of a dictatorship where cameras weren't allowed and CNN would shill for the regime anyway.... So it was kind of out of sight out of mind? just like Sudan, Syria murdering Kurds, China killing dissidents, Libya, etc.....
Plus, we all know the only reason why children were suffering pre war, it was due to the arrogant US and British sanctions which made France and Germany a fortune?
Oh wait???? after liberation the doctors free from the Mukharat coming and murdering their family at night told us the "real truth" and we discovered how the UN, Saddam's allies and Saddam used the Oil for Food program to build palaces, make billions in bribes and kickbacks, and sit back and withhold medical treatment and supplies for sick children while calling in the willing CNN cameras to get statements on exactly who was to blame..... BUT WEY'RE SURE YOU WERE ON TOP OF ALL OF THIS PRE INVASION..... :-))) gotchya!!

but I saw little of that sympathy and, frankly, the media which splashed sympathy for these guys largely censored coverage of the Iraqi dead. And Bush is censoring most coverage of US soldier deaths-- such as banning cameras at the base where their bodies return.

Right, the news coverage in Iraq is now much more censored compared to when Saddam was in power and when you and your ilk were vociferously complaining and pointing out all of the problems then? like with CNN! LMAO!!
And we know how accurate the Al Jazeera coverage is so soon you'll be able to tune into their English version.

Which is the basic complaint. The administration with media collaboration whips up hysteria for some deaths, while ignoring the deaths of Iraqi civilians. That makes for immoral policy, but worse, it makes for stupid policy, since then the American people don't see what the Iraqi people are experiencing.

First you say the admin tries to keep under raps American deaths by not allowing pics, but now they're "wipping it up".... I'm sure you can explain this cannundrum in your logic though....

And right!! like we really saw what Iraqis were truly experiencing under Saddam!! LOL!!
That's it.... all of the building of hospitals, supplying food, unleashing the chains of Saddam's brutality, allowing people to live free lives, building of schools etc..... its all too much oppression for the Iraqis... Our American GI's are just holding those Iraqis down!! which is why Iraqi policemen are getting killed too?

As Zeyad said the other day, he is embarrassed and now wonders if his people deserved to be liberated from a Saddam and don't in fact deserve a tyrant like that who will keep nuts like Al Sadr under raps.

And so when new upsurges of violence happen, as is happening now, they don't have the information availabe to understand why it is happening.

Oh we get it now!! All of the violence is due to American killing of Iraqis?? Wait but its the "resistance" there that is blowing up and killing Iraqis?? Oh wait, but that's just a "local" thing and understandable.... But when American GI's screw up while battling people who murder their own without a 2nd thought, blow up power grids, try and prevent food distribution and make Iraqis miserable do such things its simply because they're upset with the American GI's for killing Iraqis.... NOW WE GET IT DUDE....

One needs to be a "compassionate" one to undersand it.

Or at least get a videotape of an Al Sadr sermon to understand the reasoning at least.

Mike

Mike- Glad to see an attempt at real response-- it's a relief from the expletives-- but you really miss the point. I've condemned the Hussein regime repeatedly, including in this post, so what straw man are you arguing with?

The issue is not who Saddam killed, but who we are killing. Saddam's in prison, we are occupying the country. And we now have not one, not two, but at least three distinct groups trying to kill our soldiers.

Folks like myself shed no tears for the end of Saddam's regime. Our critique was that a unilateral military invasion would just lead to civilian deaths without bringing stability to the country, so we supported multilateral action against Hussein's regime.

But the hard right said we couldn't waste time, since Weapons of Mass Destruction could be deployed any second. So we had to move fast, since non-violent pressure would take too much time.

The warhawks won't even admit they were completely wrong in this argument for why the US had to move so fast we alienated allies. So instead of a multilateral action against Hussein, we have this failed Bush policy.

Which is bad for the Iraqis and bad for the US.

Ah, it's always nice to see the scumbags come out from Little Green Fascists. Dead Palestinian children are a Good Thing, but when a $1000 a day mercenary is killed on the job, it's a real tragedy. Hey, maybe President Bush will go to their funerals.

Lo Ping,

Nice try. Who said dead Palestinian children is a good thing? I did a search, and didn't find that string anywhere on this page.

I find it unconscionable that you leftists condemn people who were there to help Iraqis get back on their feet. That you gloat over their deaths as if it's justified.

Here's a reality check - because a few insurgents are able to cause problems, it doesn't mean that Iraqis as a whole hate us. That's you talking, and it's called projection.

We're over there. It's a good thing. It will be even better when we clean the freaks out. Come to grips with it.

TV (Harry)

Lo Ping Wong
Ah, it's always nice to see the scumbags come out from Little Green Fascists. Dead Palestinian children are a Good Thing, but when a $1000 a day mercenary is killed on the job, it's a real tragedy. Hey, maybe President Bush will go to their funerals.

Well stated Lo Ping and nice nickname as well.
You represent perfectly the value of this weblog.... thanks for being so honest.

This stuff drives me crazy (from an AP story at Yahoo):

"American commanders have vowed to root out insurgents after last week's slaying and mutilation of four American civilians."

"Civilians." Yeah, right. I've also seen them referred to as "security contractors."

I'm sick of the euphemisms. They were MERCENARIES. While I'm sorry they are dead, let's not kid ourselves who they were or what they were doing there.

And is anybody else the least bit concerned that we are financing the development of a private army?

This stuff drives me crazy (from an AP story at Yahoo):

"American commanders have vowed to root out insurgents after last week's slaying and mutilation of four American civilians."

"Civilians." Yeah, right. I've also seen them referred to as "security contractors."

I'm sick of the euphemisms. They were MERCENARIES. While I'm sorry they are dead, let's not kid ourselves who they were or what they were doing there.

And is anybody else the least bit concerned that we are financing the development of a private army?

Why is it that Christians and Jews are'nt the ones blowing themselves up, yet, are still considered the terrorists? That gives me an idea. How about if Nathan straps a bomb on and blows up himself with a few Christians? Just like those he supports? Wouldn't he then fulfill both his bloodlust for those he considers terrorists as well as his eternal longing to be one with Iraqi murderers?

WHAT A COWARD YOU ARE NATHAN!!

To throw out words when you could be throwing a few ribs. If you support the terrorists, then put up or shut up, or should I say blow up. But alas, you are all talk, impotent and weak. Your words are meaningless without sacrifice. No one will REALLY believe you until you are in several pieces splattered on the walls. So come one Nathan,,,you got the balls to step in the shoes of those you SAY you support? Yep, thought so. Another coward on the left, unwilling to back up his empty words. Regardless, death awaits you eagerly, as well as judgement. If not today, then next year, or in ten, fifty, seventy years, but some day you will sip from the cup of death. What a bitter cup that will be for a coward such as yourself.

Mike,
I don't think I have ever seen the war in Iraq better explained and well reasoned to people of the left....

You sir have amazed the hell out of me by keeping your sanity... staying on track..
laying out the facts... and I don't think you lost your temper once...

Sorry you didn't get any well reasoned thought back... but maybe you turned a few luckers into thinkers....

What a collection of nutjobs. Takes all kinds to make the world, doesn't it?

Objectively, one would think that, if your mind if full of shit and you don't have the sense to wipe your own ass, you would not start a weblog and advertise your moral depravity and consummate stupidity.

The publication of this weblog is proof positive that some assholes just don't know how to keep their mouths shut. Why in the fuck do you expose yourself this way? Ugly. Stupid. Probably drunk. It's a little little beating off in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York.

Leftie is a plant - put in explosive comments to rile the folks - try not to take comments in blogs too seriously.

The reason as you so aptly stated, that Americans are so hated,is because we won't roll up like a rug.

Funny how people can leap to such conclusions. Suggesting that we accurately describe what people are doing when they are killed in a war zone is hardly calling for their murder and mutilation, is it? Don't any of you war fans think it's at least relevant that we have a discussion about the extent to which our military is being privatized, and the impact that may have on our ability to prosecute a war (regardless of your feelings about that war)?

I know it's a lot more fun to just shout, especially from the safety of your pee-cee, but maybe we all should take a step back and consider two things: (a) people dying on either side is a tragedy, and (b) some people get to choose whether or not they are in a war zone, and others don't. Referring to people as "civilians" implies a level of innocence that is incorrect as it applies to this situation. I'm not saying those American "security guards" or whatever you want to call them deserved to be killed and their bodies mutilated; but to suggest that their deaths were somehow on the same level as the killings of innocent civlians is wrong. (Unless someone wants to suggest that terrorists' targeting of civilians is somehow equivalent to soldiers shooting one another .... and I don't think anyone wants to go there.)

Mike (#78)
Just because you managed to put a few cogent sentences in between the gratuitous insults doesn't exactly justify all the ridiculous sarcasm. You write: "Yeah, we all know "non-violent pressure" was certainly going to work with Saddam... LMAO!!"
Why are you laughing? Non-violent pressure WAS working with Saddam - at least to the extent that he was not developing any weapons systems capable of doing real damage to us OR his neighbors. And THAT (nonexistent) threat was the Bush administration's public justification for the war, regardless of all the bullshit they have tried to spit out since then about "liberating" Iraq, etc., etc. Inspections were keeping a lid on any weapons development (if indeed there WAS any). His conventional forces were already pathetic. The only reason inspections didn't continue to work is because Bush and Co. kicked out the inspectors so they could start razing the place with bombs and depleted uranium munitions. Yeah, we care about the Iraqi people.
Face it. We went to Iraq on a series of lies. We "won" the first phase of the war with Rumsfeld's "smaller is better" military force, and now we're stuck there like the bull in the china shop holding a tube of SuperGlue among the wreckage, wondering why the shop-owner is trying to shoo us out the back door. Your shtick might fly with the mental midgets over at LGF but more and more people are starting to see through the smokescreen. Maybe you should too.

Nathan,

This will back up your point:

"Deeply conservative and anti-American, Fallujah has a population of some 200,000, all of whom are members of Islam's mainstream Sunni Muslim sect. Some subscribe to radical interpretations of Islam, finding behavior by American troops like raiding homes and detaining men in front of wives and children as deeply offensive."

(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,103837,00.html )

Those radicals -- they are offended at being humiliated in front of their families!

What the rightwingers can't understand is that we have put our hand into a hornet's nest. Iraqis have suffered and suffered, and now we are their oppressors. Not that we meant to be, but that is what is happening.

This is not Korea. It's more like Vietnam perhaps, but even that doesn't fit. In that war, we went in, intending to do good. We dropped endless bombs, killed 2,000,000, many many many of them innocent civilians, and then we were shocked -- shocked! -- to find out they were angry?

Iraq is nowhere near that bloody, so far, but already we hear echoes of the clamor for nukes that we heard in that other war. How can you claim to be "saving" a country, then call for mass murder of its citizens? Anyone who advocates nuclear war in those situations is, in war-blogger's favorite turn of phrase, "objectively pro-fascist." Make that "objectively pro-nazi."

If you do more harm than good, you are the enemy. It doesn't matter what your original reason for getting involved may have been. The situation in Iraq is, while some Iraqis have welcomed us, that goodwill is running out. We are becoming the oppressors of that country. If we don't wake up to that, soon, we will become the perpetrators of war crimes. Just look at the talk of "nuking" Fallujah coming out of the rightwing lately.

This was all so predictable. Now you hear talk from the Right of "nuking" entire cities, based upon the actions of a minority in those cities. This is the devolution of the war, and it makes the whole enterprise immoral.

It was immoral to get us involved in this war on trumped up evidence, to lie us and stampede us into this war. If you rightwingers are angry about those contractor's deaths, then do the right thing, and vote Bush out of office. It's his war, and it was a mistake, a blunder of catastrophic proportions. We have inflamed the Muslim world, and we'll be paying for it for decades. We are paying for it already, and dearly.

For the record, I'm sure those contractors are not bad guys. But I agree with Newman -- the press is playing this for propaganda purposes. I'm supposed to get all mad at Iraqis now, and support the war, because of this? I don't think we should even be there.

Of course we are going to get killed going in there -- it's a bitterly hostile, divided land. We just got ourselves into a major, major *quagmire*, and you rightwingers should be real, real angry at your boy Bush for doing it.

Many military minds warned us, beforehand, not to get into this war. Did Bush listen to his generals? No, course not. Picket's charge in the "war on terrorism." "Bring it on" he said, and innocent Americans are dying as a result.

But let me ask the pro-war guys this: how can you back such a puffed up, tin-plated dictator as GWB? Can't you get a real tough guy to back? How can you fall for his fakery?

Hey big guy, if you would spend more time actually listening to what comes out of the terrorists own mouths, from multiple Mosques, from Egypt to Pakistan and all across Muslim lands, you might figure out that they don't just hate Americans. They hate anyone and everyone who is not Muslim, regardless of nationality, and the Inmans tell their followers to kill Americans, not for who we are, but because we are not Muslim.

All LGF does is point that fact out. DUMBASS

So, what's your point? I haven't seen anybody here defending terrorists. I belive the word you were looking for was "Imam." At least you were able to spell "dumbass" properly.

Aptly Named crockmeister

Mike (#78)
Just because you managed to put a few cogent sentences in between the gratuitous insults doesn't exactly justify all the ridiculous sarcasm.

A nice complement from your high tower... Also, as far as I'm aware don't believe I know anyone else on this board personally? Maybe inside your head..
You write: "Yeah, we all know "non-violent pressure" was certainly going to work with Saddam... LMAO!!" Why are you laughing? Non-violent pressure WAS working with Saddam - at least to the extent that he was not developing any weapons systems capable of doing real damage to us OR his neighbors.
Every intelligence agency in the world believed he had WMD... and though it appears doubtful he had imminent nucleur capacity, the fact that he had stocks of deadly biological and chemical weapons is still not doubted by anyone.

Further, the comment to the "compaasionate one" Nathan was in regards to his concern over civilian deaths.... Now we know how that "pressure" from the UN (Koffi waving his finger a few times) and the French, Germans and Russians was doing wonders for the civilians of Iraq..... but then again as I mentioned, we all knew via the left's especially most of Europe's and Al Jazeera's constant carping that the real cause of civilian suffering and deaths, especially the children, in Iraq was mainly due to the mperialist US and British sanctions!!

And THAT (nonexistent) threat was the Bush administration's public justification for the war, regardless of all the bullshit they have tried to spit out since then about "liberating" Iraq, etc., etc.

Well, as an imminently concerned citizen regarding civilian Iraqi deaths we would have to expect supporting an invasion based on Saddam's brutal rule alone? NO? The WMD were never it for me anyway, so its not a large concern for me other than to shut up the feckless and double dealing scheming bureaucrats in the UN and EU.

Inspections were keeping a lid on any weapons development (if indeed there WAS any). His conventional forces were already pathetic. The only reason inspections didn't continue to work is because Bush and Co. kicked out the inspectors

WE THOUGHT YOU WERE INTELLIGENT.... Fact 1 - Clinton withdrew the inspectors Fact 2 - His conventional Mukharat was doing wonders to the Iraqi civilians though. Fact 3 - The inspectors resent to Iraq were an empty shell of the old inspections regime, one wonders if Saddam had NO weapons why he demanded this concession? and why he dicked around the inspectors constantly?

so they could start razing the place with bombs and depleted uranium munitions.

And just when there might have been 1 or 2 people left who may have thought you had a shred of intelligence..... (no wonder need for the nickname, lol!!)

and now we're stuck there like the bull in the china shop holding a tube of SuperGlue among the wreckage,

You may be right as Zeyad at Healing Iraq recently mentioned, maybe Iraq deserves a dictator like Saddam who hold down nuts like al- Sadr who by the way also killed al-khoei... but again, that's just a 'regional' disagreement, right.... (wink wink)

Your shtick might fly with the mental midgets over at LGF but more and more people are starting to see through the smokescreen. Maybe you should too.

Yes based on your amazing prose and logic one can easily see what an intelligent rational person you are. Amazing how now you rate yourself as 'intelligent'..... and speak for others. One who uses a fake name is likely well aware that very few if anyone consider you 'intelligent' as you easily demonstrate.

STILL WAITING FOR MR. NEWMAN'S POINT BY POINT RATIONAL REPLY... Doubt we'll get one.

Mike

The LGF crowd wants us to believe that all Muslims are hatemongers.

Let's say for the sake of argument that even 20% of Muslims believe that stuff the extremist Imams are spewing. What good does it do us to confirm their worst projections?

It's obvious that attacking Iraq was the biggest, best christmas gift we could give Bin Laden. The sooner we realize that, the better off we'll be. I'm afraid our LGF friends are a huge part of the problem. We'll never extricate ourselves from the quagmire until we wake up to reality.

Reality is, you don't just go berserk. You carry on a campaign to defeat extremism; deliberate, smart, and concentrated. You begin to open up the Muslim world with the kinds of measures that defeated Soviet communism -- simple export of values, but not by force. That doesn't work.

You can't impose democracy. You respect the good in Islam and try and influence it. That has more results -- it's not appeasement. It's just smart. The LGF crowd sees everything in black and white. They aren't capable of distinguishing rational, sensible measures, from appeasement.

"It's a dangerous world out there," -- remember Oliver North saying that, to justify his lying, the extra-constitutional warring? Yeah, he was right. It is a dangerous world. We'd better wise up fast or we are going to be in a heap of trouble so big, even the great warrior George W. Bush won't able to save us from it. I know it's hard to imagine, but just try, for a minute.

Mike,

You wrote: "Every intelligence agency in the world believed he had WMD... and though it appears doubtful he had imminent nucleur capacity, the fact that he had stocks of deadly biological and chemical weapons is still not doubted by anyone."

Wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong. I've seen that myth perpetrated by the rightwingers lately. No wonder there's such a disconnect -- from reality.

Remember how we were supposed to slander our ally, the French? Because they doubted the claims. Remember Hans Blix? Remember the Germans? Why do you think they opposed the war? On a bet? Of course they doubted the claims of "imminent threat."

But we don't have to go abroad here. Remember Joe Wilson? Or Scott Ritter? What about the CIA? Even George Tenet told Bush that the claims were dubious.

But the worst myth you are perpetrating is that those weapons were there. Tommy Franks said there's no way they could have smuggled any out of the country. We have sattelites. We are talking large quantities, according to the administration, tons.

Why is David Kay, yet another Republican, on record saying there were no weapons?

How can you seriously request that Nathan Newman take time out of his busy schedule to respond to you, when you don't even have command of the facts? Where do you get this stuff?

Until we can sit down with an opposition that is looking at the reality of the world, not fantasies in their heads, we are in serious trouble. The rightwing is living in an alternative reality, here, and we are in a heap of trouble because of it.

Mike,
Insults and sarcasm don't equal a legitimate argument. If you have a point, why don't you make it? Zac already pointed out your lie about the bio/chem weapons. The rest of your response is just silly. If you want to have a serious debate, you'll have to get beyond the "it was all the fault of Clinton and the U.N." Clinton wasn't in office when Bush ordered the inspectors to leave for their own safety. The inspectors themselves, including Blix and David Kay said the inspections were becoming increasingly effective as they began to (grudgingly) get more cooperation from the Iraqis.
Why did Saddam dick around the inspectors? Who knows? Pride. The need to save face in a part of the world where revealing weakness will get you killed? Spite? Who cares? The fact remains that if he WAS hiding anything, it was merely the lack of any real non-conventional threat. Why does a guy keep upping the ante when he's holding a pair of fours?
As for attacking my intelligence, I guess once you run out of relevant arguments, personal attacks will have to suffice. Fake name? So what. We are all just email addresses here anyway. Does it matter if I call myself Steve or Brad or Eric or Mike? You want my home address? Cellphone number?
Zac's right; Newman doesn't need to respond to when you don't even have serious arguments to make.

Nathan:

"The equivalence is that we should feel compassion for every death, and frankly an innocent child with no choice in the matter should objectively have more sympathy than a hired gun who voluntarily goes into a war zone knowing the danger. But I saw little of that sympathy and, frankly, the media which splashed sympathy for these guys largely censored coverage of the Iraqi dead. And Bush is censoring most coverage of US soldier deaths-- such as banning cameras at the base where their bodies return."

You've got me on the media. I won't defend major news outlets. Nobody is fair and balanced. It's up to individuals to get a balanced picture by digesting a bunch of them. Of course, ideally it would be otherwise, but I think NPR is a good start. I read on Raed's blog that he did a survey and found that about 2,000 civillians died in and around Baghdad. Not something you're going to hear from FOX. Even as a moderate conservative, I deplore some of the programming on the cable news channels...the networks are less brash but equally unrepresentative. The internet is the best right now.

The media is compliant because it thrives on sensationalism. Being burned and hung from a bridge - that's sensational. So it becomes the main focus of the media, but not necessarily the main focus of policymaking. I don't think retaliating is stupid policy, as long as we don't follow the silly idea of leveling the city or shooting everything that moves.

I recall reading that Bush is only enforcing a policy laid down awhile ago, on the banning of cameras at Dover or whatever the base is called where the caskets are unloaded. The ceremony still takes place with full honors; we're not tossing them in the back of a pickup or anything. Yes, it's partly political, but I don't know if I would want a relative's remains rolling onto the evening news. Nobody is deliberately hiding the number of dead...everyone knows it's rising. That's war. Body counts are not a good measure of anything, in my opinion, though.

As for the LGF people who are spewing invective, I suggest you ignore them. I was linked here by LGF, and I can tell you from experience that prolonging the argument will just annoy the hell out of you, right or wrong. I think you have an excellent point on the ignorance of most Americans, but that doesn't mean that we should be constrained in enforcing order in Fallujah.

By the way, I'm not the other "Mike", and in fact I'd like to rebut a couple of your points, Mike. The reason we aren't concerned (right now) as much with the dead in the Sudan (Kristof wrote a good article in NYtimes) is that they aren't as much a part of our foreign policy as Iraq clearly is. Personally, I am of the position that there is so much crap going on in the world that nobody can hope to stop it all, and the United Nations has become a paper tiger in cases of preventing genocide and ethnic cleansing. Maybe in the future we can empower a better UN to stop that sort of thing, or possibly the US can intervene, but not now. Foreign Policy is essentially selfish, by necessity, so even though it's nice to liberate Iraq and save the Kurds and Shi'a from further persecution, that's not the crux of the matter. (It's not just oil, either, in case anyone is going to bring that up...)

Also, Mike, before you insult someone for being "so [not] intellectual" you might try living up to your own crtique. Your tone is condescending, which does not make for useful debate or discussion. Nathan is almost surely wrong in blaming LGF or those who share opinions with it for terrorism or the worsening of terrorism, but I think he could safely blame people like you for unnecessarily antagonizing those with different ideas.

I'm glad you brought up sanctions, though. One of the reasons I supported the war was that it seemed the only way to get rid of those damn things. We were complicit, but it's becoming increasingly clear who the profiteers were. And they're the ones without any boots on the ground today.

I supported the war, and I still support it, and I'll support it until I see concrete bedrock proof that it cannot achieve progress in breaking the stalemate of failed states and corrupt, terror-sponsoring regimes that has plagued the middle east for decades. The militants in Fallujah are, like Muqtada al-Sadr, speed bumps wanting to become roadblocks, and I have faith the Pentagon won't oblige them by murdering in the same reckless manner that Hussein did for decades.

And finally, coming back to the original point about the dead Iraqi boy, I think the difference is largely in intention. While the boy had no choice in his circumstances, the United States did not specifically target him, nor did it celebrate his death in any way. Our weapons aren't perfect, but even launching one with the knowledge it MAY kill an innocent person is not nearly equivalent to dousing someone in gasoline and hacking their corpse to pieces for the benefit of a cheering crowd and hungry cameras.

Crock:

"Clinton wasn't in office when Bush ordered the inspectors to leave for their own safety. The inspectors themselves, including Blix and David Kay said the inspections were becoming increasingly effective as they began to (grudgingly) get more cooperation from the Iraqis.
Why did Saddam dick around the inspectors? Who knows? Pride. The need to save face in a part of the world where revealing weakness will get you killed? Spite? Who cares? The fact remains that if he WAS hiding anything, it was merely the lack of any real non-conventional threat. Why does a guy keep upping the ante when he's holding a pair of fours?"

I think he meant the 1998 withdrawl of UNSCOM, which led up to Operation Desert Fox, under Clinton. At that point, Iraq was definitley concealing something, as they were proven to have been in 1993 (?) when a large stock of chemical weapons were found and destroyed. The Kay Report is available online, if you read through it you'll find that Iraq was definitley violating the UN resolutions, but not in a way that posed a massive and immediate threat. So, make your own judgments there. Personally, I am not going to close the book on WMD just yet. It took the UN inspectors (supposedly superior to the US DIA teams) years to wade through numerous coverups; who knows what could be found?

It is possible that Saddam was only bluffing, or that he didn't know himself what he did or did not have. Even if that's so, we had every right to call his foolish bluff.

Wow, the wingnuts are really taking it in their atrophied balls. All their cowardly support of this yellow war, a support from the safety of their cozy little blogs, is coming back to haunt them. The blood of Americans and Iraqis is on their hands, and they are beginning to understand that America is going to remember their cowardice come election time.

And they still have to look in the mirror each morning, knowing that the blood of those young American soldiers is on their hands. Shame on you.

And, Mike, how can you be so sure that American soldiers do not deliberately target Iraqi civilians? Are you honestly trying to advance the notion that some American soldiers, like some Iraqis, have not deliberately caused harm to civilians? That won't wash.

Iraqis are not the invaders in that country. *We* are. This shameful little war you support in safety from your computer, was a war of invasion. How does it feel to support the same kind of war for which we've condemned others?

You let us know how many right wingers would be the first to burn and celebrate over the bodies of a foreign army occupying the Lincoln Memorial. You let us know

Mike J. - Point taken. My point (not made clearly, obviously) was that Mike the First was referring to relatively ancient and irrelevant history with regard to the current situation. Nobody disagrees that, at one time years ago, Saddam Hussein was in violation of U.N. agreements with regard to weapons.
But what is also clear is that the latest inspection regime was increasingly effective and had proven, at the very least, that our intelligence regarding Iraq's weapons capability was suspect (and, as it turns out, almost completely wrong).
I disagree with your assertion that we had every right to call Saddam's bluff if you mean that we had the right to invade Iraq. We did not. The country had not attacked us and posed no imminent threat. You call someone's bluff in poker, and someone loses a few bucks. Start a war, and people die needlessly, as they are continuing to do up to this very day.

Clinton did pull the inspectors out in 98 get your facts straight. A new regime of inspectors with a different name was sent back in that was a shadow of the old inspections team.

Bush did pull the new inspection team out eventually after we dicked around with the UN for a while.

The fact that every intelligency agency in Europe and the West believed he had WMD is not in dispute.

You then go into a tangent on 'imminent threat'. I never claimed he was an imminent threat. I said it looks doubtful there was any imminent capability of nukes.... that means no imminent. I said most believe there was programs and stockpiles of WMD. Further, I have read that there were satellite pics of trucks streaming out of Iraq prior to the invasion, supposedly milk trucks, into Syria... And some intell commentators believe much of it is buried in Lebanon now.

I find as usual the level of debate and idiocy immediately decline here and insults galore come forth.

A person who states "we forced the war so we could drop depleted uranium on the Iraqis" then tried to portray himself as a legitimate discerner of debate and logic.

You're a moron..... and if Adam will reply to my 2 initial replies to him I will comment again...
Otherwise, I have no interest in engaging with you and company of moonbats in dire need of ritalin.

Mike

I meant if Nathan replies to my initial 2 comments, my bad... :-)

Mike

I believe Mr. Newman, rightfully outraged made the following remarks…

But the hate spewing from the warhawk Right reminds me why a bunch of decent progressive folks end up lining up with the ANSWER types-- the LGF types embody the stereotype of hateful Americans that lead to hate of the US around the world. LGF folks are the real source of terrorism, the reason Americans aren't safe around the world. The terrorists individually are evil bastards, but the only reason they have so many people willing to hide them and protect them is because of the arrogance and hate spewed by the rightwing fringe of America

Mr. Newman engages in the rhetorical fallacy of the "middleground" typically used by liberals to make their case. This is why Liberals are easy prey of right wing attacks and why they eventually lose support. Liberals inherently are "conservatives" dressed up leftist but in the end display their reactionaryism.

While I am not a supporter of ANSWER, Mr. Newman would rather smear this organization to present himself as the "reasonable" voice to prevent the people from forming an affinity with such an organization – one of the major organizers of the largest protest in U.S. history.

International ANSWER supports not "dictators" but they support ALL liberation movements. Something that is foreign to liberals who all too often describe such movements as "mob rule". This is why Mr. Newman has reservation about total U.S. and western withdrawal from Iraq.

International ANSWER is not on the record of "supporting" Saddam Hussein but is on the record for being against the UN sanctions – that killed 500,000 Iraqi children, the war in 1991, and against the illegal over flights of Iraqi airspace.

Liberal – in particular despise International ANSWER for their education of the public to the Palestinian struggle and by tying together the grievances of the Arab masses to that US/Israel brutality and hegemony.

International ANSWER supports two dictorial regimes -- North Korea and Cuba. Obviously these two nations are run by dictator but both these countries are still struggling against aggressive U.S. policies. The U.S. still maintains an outmoded and outdated sanction policy against Cuba and is still at war with North Korea. The Korean War never ended there is only an armistice. However such support is consistent with their support for nations-of-color struggles against the exploitative and racist polices of the rich and militarily mighty west.

Yet Mr. Newman throws his support for Bob Kerry someone who recently threatened Hugo Chavez the popularly elected leader of Venezuela and still insists on keeping and expanding U.S forces in Iraq who supported NAFTA, tax cuts for the rich and an "enterprise" zone for the whole country to bribe corporate bigwigs to keep "jobs" in the U.S.

It is extremely ironic that Mr. Newman remarks about "newspeak" yet he still uses the term "terrorism" in its newspeak form.

The terrorists individually are evil bastards

Of whom is he describing – the loose knit kind or the kind that sits in the White House and other international institutions.

Once again it is this type of contradiction and vapidity that provides the opening for the right to hone in and level their criticism. I do hope that in the future Mr. Newman provide some facts, background, thoughtful and insightful analysis rather that leveling the same kind of ad-hominum attack like those on his right.

I can see you're a real Soviet ghoul with your censorship and eradication of posts that you don't agree with. You fit right in with Orwell's 1984.

Fallujah delenda est!

The best future for humanity is a Global American Revolution.

It advances. And the cries of the ideologically bankrupt Left are of no account for the generations ahead.

Quick, who wrote the following three paragraphs?
1. I find as usual the level of debate and idiocy immediately decline here and insults galore come forth.

2. A person who states "we forced the war so we could drop depleted uranium on the Iraqis" then tried to portray himself as a legitimate discerner of debate and logic.

3. You're a moron.....
Otherwise, I have no interest in engaging with you and company of moonbats in dire need of ritalin.
----------
Yep, all from our friend Mike. Note how paragraphs 1 & 3 are related, and how #2, despite the presence of quotation marks, mischaracterizes the remarks to which he refers (and then he doesn't bother to refute the claim anyway). Get a grip.

Thanks, Nathan Newman, for the work you do here on this page. Keep your chin up and don't let these pricks shake you.

Is not about "international law" or something of that kind. Is about imperialist agression for oil, for corporative´s profit and militarism expansion. The US army and other mercenaries in Iraq would be defeated. The class struggle begins in iraq but is a whole world war.

Some of these messages are word-for-word the same crap that I got in my comments section. You'd think they'd bother to write new comments rather than just spamming. Some of these guys must work for p%nis %nl@rgement companies.

the 4 of them were spooks.

They got what any spy would get.

FYI:
Scott Helvenston was divorced for about 3 years now. I lived with him for the past year before he was murdered in Fallujah, and we had plans to marry in Tahiti in June of 2004. His ex-wife and I are and have always been on good terms, and I adore and helped raise his children while we were together. I was the last person to be with him in Virginia Beach during Blackwater training. I slept next to this man for over a year and I am reading stuff about his "wife" - they were DIVORCED for years...please get your information straight. I know Tricia and she is a wonderful woman and although their marriage failed, still remained friends with my fiance. However, I am tired of all of the articles stating that he was married and "his wife" blah blah, he was my fiance and I deserve some credit for the past 2 years with him. If you need proof, let me know, but I am suffering, and have had no acknowledgement, besides from his mother, who adores me and knows how much Scotty loved me.


Kelly Kasun